Hey! Hey! It's
Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Michael
Nesmith, and Peter Tork
By George, I think we've got it!
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"The lobby of the Mayo Hotel swarmed with Tulsa area teeny-boppers who arrived to catch glimpses of the Monkees, a television-spawned rock and roll group that appeared in concert Friday night at the Tulsa Assembly Center.
The Monkees Concert Friday night at the Assembly Center was a sellout. The four, marketed just for the 8-14 age group, will make about $2 million on tour this time.
The Monkees seemed cold at first. Micky Dolenz moved around like a fish. Davy Jones chewed gum and looked bored, and Mike Nesmith withdrew inside red-tinged shades. They proceeded to do their hits, most times falling far short of recorded quality (but many of those records were made by other musicians anyway)."
- Tulsa World, August 19, 1967.
Yes, yes, we KNOW the Monkees, one of the most popular and best selling Rock and Roll groups of the 1960's, were a fictional creation for a television series. The Monkees aired from September 1966 to March 1968. Starring Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork, the series detailed the humorous trials and tribulations of an up-and-coming Rock and Roll band. And we also see that some reviewers of Rock and Roll concerts could be a bit snooty.
In some ways the characters were drawn from traditional plot motifs involving groups. You had the handsome one (Davy), the smart one (Mike), the wild and crazy one (Micky), and the dumb one (Peter). The way the contrasting personalities and intellects interacted was always part of the plot.
Of the cast, Micky and Davy had past acting experience. Davy had performed in the London and Broadway productions of Oliver! as the Artful Dodger. Both of Micky's parents were screen actors and from 1956 to 1957 Micky had starred - under the name of Micky Braddock - in Circus Boy. This was a Saturday morning television series about the adventures of a young tow-headed orphan named Corky who had been taken in by a circus in the American Old West and whose main duty was to take care of an elephant named Bimbo.
Mike was born in Houston, Texas, where he had taught himself guitar. After a stint in the US Air Force he began singing and playing in local bands around Austin. He showed a knack for songwriting and after relocating to Los Angeles he began playing in the clubs in the burgeoning folk song community.
Actually Mike came from a relatively economically advanced family. His mom, Betty, had been an executive secretary and if you saw the "Medley of Maladies" episode of the British comedy panel quiz show, QI, you remember that host Stephen Fry - now Sir Stephen - told the panelists that Betty had invented Post-it Notes.
Alas, Stephen's statement is an example of how even someone with an intellect as towering as his can get it wrong. Post-it Notes were invented by Spencer Silver and Arthur Fry at the 3M Corporation and are small pieces of paper with a strip of low-tack pressure-sensitive adhesive on the back. That way you can write down a short reminder, peel the note from the pack, and then stick it on some surface - like a cabinet or refrigerator door - as a reminder. Post-It Notes have been among the best selling items from the late 20th Century.
Stephen Fry
In error.
Instead what Betty invented was typewriter correction fluid. This is a low viscosity opaque white acrylic paint placed in a bottle where the cap has a small brush. So in the old days of mechanical typewriters if you made a mistake, you would then simply paint out the error with the correction fluid, let it dry, and then type in the correction. This was far simpler than trying to use a typewriter eraser - which usually tore the paper - and is certainly simpler than typing the whole page over again.
Betty first sold the product as Mistake Out, and one popular informational website said Betty later changed the name to Liquid Paper and sold the rights to the Gillette Company for over $47 million plus a royalty on each bottle sold until the year 2000.1
Footnote
Stephen's faux pas is a good example of the hazards encountered by television presenters when they depart from the script. Stephen saying that Mike's mom invented Post-It Notes rather than typewriter correction fluid was an ad-lib error. Fans of Qi might consider such an error strange since almost ten years earlier in the Qi episode "Discoveries", Stephen had correctly stated that the Post-It Notes were invented by a chemist in the 3M Company. But perhaps we can afford to be charitable that Stephen couldn't remember the script from a show from nearly a decade earlier.
Another error that Stephen made was when he said the research chemist was bad at his job. The chemist, Stephen said, had been trying to make a glue that bound sheets of paper tightly, but instead he accidentally made a glue that just barely held the paper together.
The truth is - and remember Stephen's major was English, not chemistry - that an experiment not working the first time is pretty much par for the course and sometimes many repeats are needed before you get what you want. Lack of initial success is not an indication of lack of skill or ability.
Peter Thorkelson (pronounced TORK-el-son) was from an academic environment. Both parents were teachers and his dad was a well-respected professor of economics at the University of Connecticut. Although Peter had musical ability - he could play several instruments - he was never a traditionally stellar student. He dropped out of college twice and gravitated toward Greenwich Village where among his friends was a not-yet famous Stephen Stills.2
Footnote
For those of less venerable years, Stephen Stills was one of the founders of the 1960's folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield. The group had a Top 10 Hit in 1966 with the protest song "For What It's Worth". This was the only song of the group to place substantially in the charts and in two years the band had more or less dissolved.
Stephen then teamed up with David Crosby (a former Buffalo member) and Graham Nash to form the commonsensically named group Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Known for their tight and close harmony singing and Stephen's expert guitar playing, the group had a hit with "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" which they performed at the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969. The group (and its name) was later supplemented with Neil Young (another former Buffaloer). Again the group soon dissolved for reasons not entirely artistic and in 1971, Stephen formed a new band Manassas. Their debut album reached #4 on the Charts but in two years Stephen went on to a successful solo career which as of this writing is still ongoing.
Peter had not intended to audition for the Monkees. Stephen, though, had seen the notice in the show business magazine Variety and tried out. However Stephen didn't get past the screen test at least in part due to his then rather bad teeth. But he told the directors to try out his friend Peter who came across quite well before the camera.
The Marx Brothers
Harpo, Groucho, and Chico
A bit was thrown in.
The episodes of The Monkees strove for a wackiness that was pretty much par for the humor of the Swinging Sixties. The scripts brought in elements from the movies that starred the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Help!, with a dose of the "hippie" comedy show, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In plus a bit of the Marx Brothers thrown in. Of course when a particular episode ended, the trials and tribulations had been satisfactorily resolved at least for that week. Naturally in the course of the program the group would sing some of their songs.
The Fab Four
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And yes, we KNOW that almost as soon as the show hit the airwaves, the group's songs reached into the Top Ten. Their first single "The Last Train to Clarksville" hit #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 on November 11, 1966. That was not quite two months after the show debuted. In the next two years, they had two more #1 Hot 100's. "I'm a Believer" was released a month after "The Last Train to Clarksville" and "Daydream Believer" hit #1 in 1967. It was also in 1967 that the Monkees had four albums on Billboard's Top 200 - an achievement that no one else has yet to match.
The original television pilot - "Here Comes the Monkees" - wasn't broadcast until well into the first season and then in a heavily edited version. Instead the world first saw the Monkees on September 12, 1966 in "Royal Flush", an episode which co-starred the familiar and shiny-pated television villain Theodore Marcuse. Theodore played Otto the Archduke of Harmonica who was the evil uncle of the Princess Betting (Katherine Walsh), the rightful heir to the throne. Evil Archduke Otto wants the throne for himself and is trying to dispatch Bettina in all sorts of nefarious ways. But of course the Monkees foil the plot. Their antics delay Otto's evil machinations until midnight when Bettinna becomes the rightful Queen of Harmonica and orders Otto's arrest.
As to the reports that the Monkees didn't play their own instruments and that their records were made by other musicians anyway, well, that's both true and false. On "The Last Train to Clarksville" the music was performed by first call session musicians and Micky Dolenz sang the lead vocals. It's not clear if the other Monkees provided the back-up vocals but we do know Peter was quite miffed to be told that for the session his presence was not required. However, on "I'm a Believer" and "Daydream Believer", Davy, Mike, and Peter provided at least some instrumentation as well as the singing.
The truth is that using studio musicians even for the recordings of megastars is the norm. A group as iconic and monolithic as the Beatles relied heavily on session players particularly in their later work. Sometimes they employed an entire orchestra.
But even in their earlier songs, a group member might be replaced on a particular song. When "Love Me Do" was released in April 1962, the drummer was Andy White instead of Ringo. Since this was just after the Beatles had replaced their original drummer, Pete Best, Ringo was apprehensive when a new drummer showed up. When he was handed a pair of maracas for the song, he thought "They're doing a Pete Best on me". However, Andy had been called in simply because the producer didn't think that Ringo had enough studio experience for a smoothly run recording session. Ringo was mollified after he saw that he was still credited as the drummer.
Jerry Reed
Elvis called him in.
Leon Russell
Before and After
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B. B. King
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The Rolling Stones
Bob Edmondson and Friend
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Session musicians can be stars in their own right. Jerry Reed had been on a fishing trip when Elvis Presley called him in to play guitar on "US Male" because the regular guitarist couldn't get the right sound. Leon Russell was also in-demand by music producers for his prowess on piano. You can hear the uncredited Leon playing on recordings of the likes of Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, B. B. King, and - yes - the Monkees!
It is not widely publicized but because jazz players are among the most highly skilled of musicians, they are often summoned to play back-up for Rock recordings. On the Monkees' 1969 album Instant Replay, the brass section included Shorty Rogers, Conte Candoli, and Bob Edmondson. Shorty was a well-known jazz trumpet player (he had a jive-speaking cameo in the science educational film The Alphabet Conspiracy) and Conte was an award-winning jazz trumpeter and a long-time member of The Tonight Show Band. Bob played trombone and was one of the founding members of Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass.
Glen Campbell
He did pretty well.
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Oh, yes, on the Monkees first album, commonsensically called The Monkees, there was a guitar player who although he couldn't read music was still a top-notch session musician. And yes, Glenn Campbell, did pretty well on his own.
The trouble with having three #1 records in two years from a made-for-television rock group is that the kids will want to see the Monkees for real. So somehow a REEL Rock and Roll group had to become a REAL Rock and Roll group.
First of all, let's get it straight.
All the
Monkees could play musical instruments!
Peter and Mike were the most proficient, with Peter playing multiple instruments, including guitar, piano, and banjo. Micky also played guitar and Davy Jones was a skilled drummer. But with his small stature - he hit 5'3" on a good day - if Davy played the drums he would have been hidden from the view of the gaggles of girls who came to see the best looking of the group. As he was also the most experienced singer (remember he had the role of the Artful Dodger in the London and Broadway productions of Oliver!) it made sense to put him up in front. So Micky was designated to be the drummer-to-be even though he couldn't play. Naturally before the Monkees could go on tour, Micky had to take a crash course on the sticks.
Despite the logistical difficulties, the Monkees began touring almost from the start. One reference gives the date of the Monkees first concert as April 30, 1966. However, that seems unlikely as the TV show didn't launch until the following September. Instead a more reasonable date for their premiere concert is December 3, 1966, when they appeared in Honolulu.
OK. So just how good were the Monkees in spectaculis vivis? Well, that is a matter of some discussion and opinion. There are some recordings from some early concerts but the quality is often too poor to render a judgement. Certainly the response of the audience was enthusiastic, even frenzied, and matched the hysterics that arose from the first Beatles concerts. Some critics said the concerts were good fun. Others, though, were less charitable and said the group's playing was terrible.
The Monkees concerts would kick off with a warm-up band, a long-standing custom that among other things allows a one-hour concert to stretch to two hours. In the Monkees' Tulsa concert the opening band was the Sundowners, a little known but long-lived group led by Bobby Dick. But a surprise to many fans was one of the Monkees' favorite opening acts was the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Yes, we mean THE Jimi Hendrix, considered one of the most important and innovative guitarists in history. How Jimi ended warming up the audience for a band that was ultimately a scriptwriter's creation merits a slight digression.
For Peter, Mike, Micky, and Davy one aggravation of being a Monkee was that they felt that critics did not consider them to be real musicians but instead were simply actors playing the parts. Certainly the show's producers and writers saw the group as a plot device for a hit television show. They thought that when Peter, Mike, Micky, and Davy began wanting to do their own singing, playing, and songwriting, this was a sure-fire way to destroy what had quickly emerged as a winning formula. It was with considerable struggle that the group began to take more artistic control.
Like all good musicians the group listened and learned from others. Micky had seen Jimi and his band at the Monterey Rock Festival and had been impressed - not only with Jimi's virtuosity but with the act itself. In the course of the performance Jimi would sometimes play the guitar with his teeth and then end up by setting the instrument on fire. Micky thought such craziness fit in with the action oriented comedy of their television show. Jimi might be something that the kids would like and he asked Jimi to be their opener. Jimi agreed.
It was a good theory, yes, but experimental data is what counts. As the somewhat snarky review stated, the Monkee's fans were typically in the 8 to 14 age group. So a lot of them went to the concerts accompanied by their parents. The parents, Micky pointed out were probably not too sanguine about having to attend a Monkees concert in the first place. And to have it opened by a band where the leader not only produced earsplitting and wailing cacophonies and plucked the strings with his teeth, but also held the instrument as if he was paying amatory attention - not the words Micky used - was not a recipe for mainstream success with America's parents.
And of course the kids had not come to see the Jimi Hendrix Experience. When Jimi came on stage and broke into "Purple Haze", the kids would immediately begin clamoring for the Monkees. Micky also suspected that the parents were quick to raise a hue and cry with the city authorities about the crazy opening act being hosted in their town.
But whatever the cause, Jimi dropped out of the tours. Fortunately for Jimi, he was already being sent offers to perform and tour on his own. As the world knows, Jimi did pretty well for himself, at least for a while.3
Footnote
Despite Jimi's fame as an innovative and pioneering guitarist, he never had a #1 hit, and he only broke into the Top 40 once when "All Along The Watchtower" reached #20 in 1968. His other records reached no higher than #50. Even "Purple Haze" only made it to #65 and "Foxy Lady" peaked at #67.
Of course, a group as popular as the Monkees had to make a movie and that happened in 1968 with Head. People who came to see another wild and crazy Monkee adventure were surprised to say the least. Instead Head was a stream-of-scene picture drawn from the absurdist theater genre and it had no real plot. Some viewers sat down and wondered what was going on.
Head, despite having cameos with big name celebrities like Victor Mature (Horemheb in The Egyptian), Annette Funicello (former Mousketeer and star of beach movies), boxer Sonny Liston, Green Bay linebacker Ray Nitschke, other-world musician and composer Frank Zappa, and two actor/directors Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson (who co-wrote and produced the film), was not financially successful.
In fact to say it was a flop is high praise. The film failed to scrape out even $20,000 in its first week. This was probably less than garnered by Roy Orbison's only movie The Fastest Guitar Alive.4
Footnote
The Fastest Guitar Alive was not about a musician with extraordinary skills. Instead Roy played the part of a Confederate spy named Johnny Banner. Johnny was going to San Francisco to steal gold bullion from the United States Mint and thus shore up the South's sagging war effort. In his travels Johnny posed as a musician, and he toted a guitar that at the twist of a knob converted into a rifle. Hence the punning title.
The producers had high hopes for Roy as a movie star - the next Elvis perhaps - and had contracted him for a total of five movies. Unfortunately, the turnout and return on The Fastest Guitar Alive were so low that the plans for the other movies were quickly scotched.
Scholars have pointed to Head and its departure from a typical Monkees' television show as the beginning of the end for the group. Although some critics tried to be charitable in their comments, others lambasted the film, the lack of plot, and the performances. In any case, like much of the 1960's phenomena, the duration of Monkeemania was brief.5 The show ended in 1968 although the group continued performing regularly until 1970.
Footnote
A point often not appreciated by those who look into the history of post-World War II America is that much of what is thought of as being part of The Swinging Sixties is really from The Synthetic Seventies. The 1960's didn't really begin until 1964 and was over by 1970. It was in the 1970's that the 1960's institutions - or near parodies thereof - became mainstream and continued long after the real things were long past.
But Peter wasn't in the group. He had left immediately after the show ended. Both Davy and Mickey later went on to independent musical and acting careers. Mike, who was quite entrepreneurially minded and had produced some of the Monkees recordings, launched a career as a composer and record and film producer. Among Mike's accomplishments was a Grammy Award for the first music video.
Peter certainly had the toughest going in the post-Monkee Era. After he left the group he began performing in nightclubs in California either by himself or in his own band but with little success. One of his bands recorded two singles - four sides - before disbanding.
Certainly a near nadir in Peter's life was when at age 29 he was nabbed while crossing the US Border from Mexico with reportedly $3 of drugs. That landed him four months in the Federal Correction Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, where he celebrated his 30th birthday. After his release Peter worked at various jobs which included teaching at private schools where a college degree and teaching certificate weren't required. By 1977, he was living in a three-room apartment in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles with his second wife, their infant son, and his daughter from his first marriage.
But things began picking up when Davy and Micky decided to have a Monkees 20 Year Reunion Tour. Peter joined them and although Mike had other commitments he told them if they came by Los Angeles he'd join in. The tour kicked off renewed interest in the group and from then on they performed regularly.
The later concerts were generally successful and to date nearly 90% of the Monkees' live appearances were after 1986. In 2016, Micky and Peter toured on the Monkees 50th Anniversary Tour but by 2026, Micky was having to go it alone in celebrating 60 Years of the Monkees.
References and Further Reading
"Monkees Keep Police, Youngsters Hopping", Ronald Butler, Tulsa World, August 19, 1967. p. 19.
The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story of the 60's TV Pop Sensation, Andrew Sandoval, Thunder Bay Press, 2005.
They Made a Monkee Out of Me, Davy Jones, Beaverton Press, 1987.
I'm a Believer: My Life in Music, Monkees & Madness, Micky Dolenz and Mark Bego, Hyperion, 1993, (Updated Edition: Cooper Square Press, 2004).
Infinite Tuesday: An Autobiographical Riff, Michael Nesmith, Crown Archetype, 2017.
Love Is Understanding: The Life and Times of Peter Tork and The Monkees, Sergio Farias, BearManor Media, 2022.
"Peter Tork", Whatever Became Of...? - Giant 2nd Annual, Richard Lamparski, Bantam, 1977.
"Michael Nesmith & The Monkees Set a Billboard Chart Record in 1967 That Still Stands Today", Paul Grein, Billboard, December 19, 2021.
"Peter Tork Was 'Mortified' When He Wasn't Allowed to Play on The Monkees' 'Last Train to Clarksville'", Matthew Trzcinski, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, November 10, 2022
"Peter Tork Was Once Asked By 'Monkees' Producers 'Do You Mind Playing The Dummy?'", Lucille Barilla, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, January 19, 2023.
"Why Peter Tork Wanted To Leave 'The Monkees' After Season 1", A. Peace, Do You Remember, December 28, 2022.
"The Monkees", Billboard.
"The Monkees Concert History", Concert Archive.
"Monkee Mike Nesmith and Liquid Paper", David Mikkelson, Snopes, February 14, 2000.
"Medley of Maladies", Qi, Stephen Fry (presenter/host), Alan Davies (permanent panelist), Lucy Porter (guest panelist), Ross Noble (guest panelist), Matt Lucas (guest panelist), BBC, October 16, 2015.
"Discoveries", Qi, Stephen Fry (presenter/host), Alan Davies (permanent panelist), Arthur Smith (guest panelist), Vic Reeves (guest panelist), Clive Anderson (guest panelist), BBC, September 29, 2006.
