Mike Pinera obit

Mike Pinera, Guitarist for Blues Image & Iron Butterfly, Dies at 76

 He was not on the list.

Guitarist-vocalist Mike Pinera, who co-wrote the 1970 top 5 hit “Ride, Captain, Ride” for the band Blues Image, then joined Iron Butterfly, Ramatam and Alice Cooper’s Special Forces band, died on Nov. 20, 2024. The news was confirmed by the St. Pete Catalyst website, based near his hometown. Pinera was 76.

The cause of death was reportedly liver failure. Pinera had been ill for some time; a GoFundMe page was created in early 2024 to raise funds for a liver transplant, but had stopped accepting donations several months ago.

Carlos Michael Pinera was born September 29, 1948, in Tampa, Fla., and co-founded Blues Image there in 1966. According to writer Bill DeYoung in the Catalyst’s obituary, “Band founders Pinera, Mike Betematti (drums), Malcolm Jones (bass) and Joe Lala (percussion) met as students at Tampa’s Jefferson High School. Pinera had been part of the Impalas, the Motions and the El Dorados, teen garage bands.”

Two years after forming, the band relocated to Miami, where it became the house band at a music venue called Thee Image. The band then moved to Los Angeles and signed with Atco Records, releasing its self-titled debut album in 1969, the same year that they toured as support act to a new group called Led Zeppelin. Blues Image’s sophomore album, Open, included “Ride, Captain, Ride,” a song co-written by Pinera and keyboardist Frank “Skip” Conte. Pinera sang the lead on the recording and played the second guitar solo toward the end of the song; the single rose to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

In 1972, Pinera and Jimi Hendrix's drummer Mitch Mitchell formed the band Ramatam on Atlantic Records, and was produced by Tom Dowd, who was quoted as saying this album was one of his all time favorites.

In 1973, Pinera helped form The New Cactus Band. They recorded the album, Son of Cactus, on Atlantic Records. In 1975, he formed the band Thee Image and they recorded two albums on Manticore Records, Thee Image and Inside the Triangle, both produced by Pinera.

Blues Image was unable to follow with another hit and by the time “Ride Captain Ride” reached the top 10 Pinera had left anyway, accepting an offer to replace the departing guitarist Erik Brann in Iron Butterfly. That group had already made waves with its signature hit “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida,” but Pinera, who contributed to 1970’s Metamorphosis album, remained with them into 1972 and then rejoined periodically as various band members reunited in the ’70s-’90s. [Ed. Note: Brann died in 2003, and all of the other members of the classic Iron Butterfly—Doug Ingle, Ron Bushy and Lee Dorman—have also died.]