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Tampa rocker Mike Pinera (‘Ride Captain Ride’) dies
Tampa native Mike Pinera, who wrote and sang the Top Ten single “Ride Captain Ride” as a member of Blues Image, died Nov. 20 after a long illness. He was 76.
“Ride Captain Ride,” which is still in rotation on Classic Rock radio, reached No. 4 on the Billboard chart in 1970. It was the only hit for Blues Image, a popular Tampa band that re-located first to Miami, then to California upon signing to Atco Records in 1969.
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.
Blues Image, thanks to the Cuba-born Lala, added Latin rhythms to its rock ‘n’ roll/blues mix. The band opened Tampa’s first “psychedelic” nightclub, Dino’s.
Blues Image. Photo: Atco Records.
In 1969 Blues Image was support for Led Zeppelin at Miami’s ultra-hip Thee Image club, and Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page began a years-long friendship with Pinera. Page pronounced Blues Image, which by then included keyboard player Skip Conte, “the most dynamic sound in the country.”
After the collapse of Blues Image, Pinera joined Iron Butterfly (he appears on Metamorphosis, the group’s final charting album) and formed the band Ramatam with Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
He also formed the New Cactus Band and Thee Image, making records with each, and played with Alice Cooper for several years in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.
In a 2023 Goldmine interview, Pinera recalled the recording sessions for the second Blues Image album, Open, in 1969. Their producer warned them he didn’t hear a hit.
“I went into the bathroom and locked the door,” Pinera said. “I was in there for 10 to 15 minutes and all the words and melody came to me for ‘Ride Captain Ride.’
“It came at a good time because my parents were financially strapped and challenged and I made enough money from that gold single to pay off my father and mother’s house.”
Read about Mercy, Tampa’s other one-hit wonder, here.
Robert Hofmann
November 22, 2024at7:50 pm
Just so you know to set the record straight. Blues image was actually started inception between Mike Pinera and Bobby Hofmann a friend of over 60 years. I lived in his home with Mike and his mother and father in Tampa. I met Mike FIRST at the Jolly Roger in Norfolk, Virginia while I was still in the service. We became fast friends and started the band.
Went to Miami played the image played the world. I left the band sometime in 1968. Mike and I rejoin forces in the later 70s and did tours as blue’s image iron butterfly, and Spencer Davis, which I was in that group for a while.!
Skip Konte and myself are the remaining original members!
John Mascaro
November 22, 2024at4:23 pm
The small black and white photo of the group appears to have been taken when they were on a tour that brought them to Cortez, Colorado in the early to mid-’70s. I found the info. in a letter I wrote home from Durango, Co. to a relative in Miami. Unfortunately, I did not know about it and thus did not attend a show, but I did see Mike perform around 2006 at Cheers in Ft. Lauderdale. I was lucky to get a free CD-limited number they were handing out.