The country\/rock band I was in many years ago covered Ride Captain Ride;\u00a0 we had a reputation for playing tunes that were a bit outside of our genre.\u00a0 I remember us being the middle act at a 5-band jamboree one Sunday afternoon.\u00a0 We hit the opening piano riff and the members of the other 4 bands collectively stood up, grabbed a chair, and sat down on the dance floor in front of us in rapt attention….<\/p>\n
Donald Bartenstein<\/p>\n
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Not only was Metamorphosis my favorite Iron Butterfly album, I\u2019ve been saying for years that Mike\u2019s guitar solo on \u201cButterfly Bleu\u201d (which he wrote) is, in my opinion, one of the best recorded rock guitar solos of all time. He was a super nice guy, too. I met him at NAMM once.<\/p>\n
– Mark Towns<\/p>\n
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Hey Bob\u2026another Manassas member, Paul Harris, played piano on Ride Captain Ride. He and Layla were session guys at Criteria. They both also appeared on the first Michael Stanley Band album, also recorded there.<\/p>\n
David Spero<\/p>\n
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I lived briefly in LA 1970 and then moved to Atlanta \u00a0where it was in constant rotation everywhere.. I thought the drums and bass drive \u00a0reminded me of Grand Funk RR. I never got tired of hearing it.
\nJump to 1972 in London I’m doing an interview with Melody Maker alongside my bandmates Chris Spedding and Andy Fraser… and they ask me what my favorite record is and I blurt out “Ride Captain Ride-Blues Image”
\nEveryone looks around and NO ONE in UK had ever heard of the song … and I’m in Melody Maker’s offices and I’d stumped them!<\/p>\n
I don’t believe it was a hit anywhere but the US!
\nLove hearing it still on Sirius.
\nThx for this memory, Bob!<\/p>\n
Marty Simon<\/p>\n
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Have not heard that name in a long time. I worked with Mike for a minute in Hollywood. We were planning a new project.<\/p>\n
He confided in me that the making of RIDE CAPTAIN RIDE happened at a studio in SAN FRAN, Mike came in and they asked him to<\/p>\n
sing a vocal….. He turned white,\u00a0 he needed a minute and headed to the bathroom.<\/p>\n
While in there contemplating what to do about lyrics, he looked out a small window and saw a navy ship sailing into the harbor with sailors in their whites standing.<\/p>\n
Hence 73 men sailed…<\/p>\n
That is where the lyric came from<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Mark Wolfson<\/p>\n
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Beautiful. You captured the elusive elements of the time perfectly. Almost tearful to look back.
\nMike was a little older than all of us, but a great influence on us players in the south.
\nA true hero.
\nRide on, Captain.<\/p>\n
-Don Barnes<\/p>\n
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Hi Bob – I bought the single of Ride Captain Ride when it came out because of the great singing and the hooks. I always thought it was about CDR Lloyd Bucher and the 83 men on the USS Pueblo that North Korea nabbed. Never saw or read anything that took that thought further. Thank you for your writing and the newsletter.<\/p>\n
Boyd Allen<\/p>\n
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And a True Vato\u2026Carlos Michael\u2026<\/p>\n
He does have some Lost Royalties in Sacramento\u2026<\/p>\n
PLUS Two Million shares of Merrill Lynch stock!!!\u2026<\/p>\n
We need to research that\u2026<\/p>\n
Cheers, David Jensen<\/p>\n
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I interviewed Mike Pinera about twenty years ago for Florida PBS. He was a nice guy and an absolute monster musician.<\/p>\n
At the time he was touring with the Classic Rock All-Stars – a band that also included Jerry Corbetta, Dennis Noda and Peter Rivera. What a band.<\/p>\n
His first name was Carlos – he \u00a0told me he started going by \u201cMike\u201d so people wouldn\u2019t confuse him with Carlos Santana.<\/p>\n
After Blues Image and Iron Butterfly (but prior to Ramatam) he worked with Black Oak Arkansas and told me that Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice offered him the lead guitar spot in Cactus, but Jeff Beck came along and Cactus was no more. Later on in the 70\u2019s he had a solo hit (\u201cGoodnight My Love\u201d) and nearly joined Chicago before spending part of the early 80\u2019s recording and touring with Alice Cooper.<\/p>\n
He even cut a record with Roger Clinton – Bill Clinton\u2019s younger brother.<\/p>\n
Joe Lala and Steve Stills did not originally meet in Florida even though both attended high school in Tampa around the same time – Joe went to Jefferson, Stephen went to Plant – according to Joe, they met at the Whiskey sometime in the late 60\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Vince Welsh<\/p>\n
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Nice mention, Bob.<\/p>\n
Myself and 3 other guys from my old Beatlemania show days did some touring on the 30th Anniversary of Rock and Roll tours in the late ’80s early ’90s.<\/p>\n
Jewel Akins, Bobby Day, Chuck Negron, Bobby Kimball, Pat Upton, Al Wilson and lots more. We intro’d the show doing some Beatles songs, and then reverted to background singers for most of the other acts. The core of Cannibal and the Headhunters was the backup band.<\/p>\n
Mike was on that tour. He did a scaled down version of IAGDV. But when he did Ride Captain Ride, the audiences would go crazy!<\/p>\n
He was a great guy to be on tour with, showed us lots of hospitality in Florida when we made our way there. A wonderful barbecue and party at his house. Stories about his friend Jaco Pastorius. We stayed in touch for a while and I’m sorry I didn’t catch up again. We were Facebook friends but I should have called more.<\/p>\n
Rest in peace Mike.<\/p>\n
Mitch Weissman<\/p>\n
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i bought ride captain ride and i’m your vehicle both 45’s at leonard’s dept. store corner of palms and sepulveda. i was in 10th grade. loved both of those songs so much<\/p>\n
Denise Mello<\/p>\n
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It is always so, so sad when the legends, and even the lesser-knowns, that have been touched, participated or orbited the magic are passing on, at such an alarming rate.<\/p>\n
I always loved the Special Forces-era Alice Cooper band, of which Mike Pinera was a part of. I discovered Alice around this time and worked my way back, forward and around this period.<\/p>\n
Their performance on the Tom Snyder show, featuring a truly scary-looking, freebase-ravaged Alice being interviewed and performing live, is something I\u2019ve always been thankful to have found on YouTube.
\nCompared to Alice\u2019s previous bands, these guys, in army fatigues, berets, etc. seemed a bit faceless, but they were rough-and-tumble and Pinera\u2019s crunchy guitar was front and center, stirring the pot, and moving things along.<\/p>\n
Looking at Alice then, with him still alive today, with so many of his contemporaries and former bandmates gone, makes it very clear rocking-n-rolling through those wild 60s\/70s\/80s and beyond was rough business!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some live to tell, thankfully!<\/p>\n Warmest Regards, Brian Friel<\/p>\n _________________________________<\/p>\n “Ride Captain Ride” was one of the biggest songs of my 11th year on this stinkin’ rock. \u00a0I loved it, too! \u00a0I always cue it up on my inner jukebox with “Closer To Home” right behind it.<\/p>\n And I have looked those lyrics up and down and sideways trying to figure it out, but at least part of it got solved. \u00a0And now I don’t remember the source of this story, but the legend goes that the keyboard player just made it all up. \u00a0Nonsense lyrics for the most part (“As a storm was blowin’ out on the peaceful sea…”), with a grain or two of truth: \u00a0The “73 men” were the 73 keys on his Fender Rhodes, upon which he was noodling those intro notes.<\/p>\n And I figure it may also have a bit of truth in the “Raindrops” reference. \u00a0What song was damned-well unescapable on AM in 1969? \u00a0BJ Thomas’s “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”.<\/p>\n One of the hardest things to being an original band has to be the endless paying of dues, like CCR opined on “Lodi”: “Every time I had to play while people sat there drunk.” Maybe it’s a touch of sour grapes that nobody had time to pay attention to a nobody-band because they were too busy listening to that damned BJ Thomas song!<\/p>\n Take care,<\/p>\n Byron Beyer<\/p>\n _________________________________<\/p>\n “And there’s a kind of simple, almost weak, guitar solo…” Are you kidding?<\/p>\n I put the two guitar solos in that song up with Amos Garrett’s solo in “Midnight At The Oasis” and Jesse Ed Davis’s solo on “Doctor My Eyes” as prime examples of taste, brevity and chops on a hit record by great players whose names may not be of the household variety.<\/p>\n The sweet middle solo is not played by Mike Pinera but by Kent Henry who joined Blues Image when Pinera left to join Iron Butterfly but Mike played the Les Paul-drenched fade out solo (reminiscent of Luke’s wicked fade on “Rosanna”). Regardless, guitar work by both.<\/p>\n Back in the day before people were falling all over themselves trying to categorize popular music, great guitar solos were the differentiator for me.<\/p>\n William Nollman<\/p>\n _________________________________<\/p>\n Are you aware that “Ride Captain Ride” was written about the capture of the US Navy ship “Pueblo” by North Korea in 1968? It was captaineed by Captain Lloyd M. Bucher, USN.<\/p>\n The song was co-written, I believe, by Skip Conte, keyboard player in Blues Image.<\/p>\n Greg Astle<\/p>\n _________________________________<\/p>\n My friends and I all heard it and sang it as:<\/p>\n “Seventy three men sailed her”<\/p>\n Bob Davis<\/p>\n _________________________________<\/p>\n Blues Image self-titled 1st album rocked with\u201dLeaving MyTroubles Behind \u201c, which convinced me to book them into the Cellar in Arlington Heights Illinois in early 1970. Later my own band used that song to close our set, slowly exiting stage left singing the title and fading away. I loved the screaming Hammond organ on that vinyl album and it remains an all time favorite. \u00a0– Jeff Walz<\/p>\n _________________________________<\/p>\n Ride Captain Ride is a classic music production culminating in one of the best exit solos ever. The fade out was executed perfectly wanting you to hear more!!!!<\/p>\n Br,<\/p>\n Will Eggleston<\/p>\n _________________________________<\/p>\n I was 14 and it was my first major concert. The Allman Brothers Band in Tampa. A National Guard Armory. Wet Willie opened. 1971.\u00a0 What do I remember? Mike Pinera sitting in.<\/p>\n John Kauchick<\/p>\n _________________________________<\/p>\n I was a 15 year old kid, when \u201cRide Captain Ride\u201d by Blues Image hit the airwaves on my local AM radio station and I could not hear it enough. I rushed out and bought their album, \u201cOpen\u201d and although there were a couple of other cool tracks, like \u201cPay My Dues\u201d and \u201cParchman Farm,\u201d it was \u201cRide Captain Ride\u201d that was the song I would play over and over. The album version was slightly longer than the single with one of the greatest guitar outros ever recorded. I always wished that ending solo would go on forever.<\/p>\n I soon found a copy of the first self titled album and while it did not hold up as well as \u201cOpen,\u201d it did feature a real gem in \u201c(Do You Have) Somethin\u2019 to Say.\u201d \u00a0Mike Pinera may not have had the career he had hoped for, but he did leave us with a timeless classic for which I will always be grateful for.<\/p>\n