8/4/2023 0 Comments Mike nesmith nurit wilde![]() The Monkees made one more venture into visual arts, filming the trippy, postmodern comedy “Head” with director Rafelson and co-screenwriter Jack Nicholson, but the movie flopped, bolstering the notion that the Monkees were in commercial decline. The group may have been thriving on record - “The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees” generated hits in “Daydream Believer” and “Valleri” - but their television show was canceled after its second season wrapped in 1968. “Headquarters” and its swift sequel, “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.,” found the Monkees at their commercial and creative apex as they dabbled with psychedelia and nascent country-rock. Nesmith rallied his bandmates to have a greater say in their music, and by the time the group recorded its third album, “Headquarters,” with producer Chip Douglas, Kirshner was no longer working with them. Kirshner did agree to record original songs from Nesmith - he placed “ Papa Gene’s Blues” on the debut, “Mary, Mary” (later sampled by Run-D M C) on “More of the Monkees” - but the songwriter soon grew frustrated not only at being creatively stifled but by the growing perception they were puppets of the producers. Frankie Laine cut Nesmith’s “Pretty Little Princess” in 1965, and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band recorded “ Mary, Mary” on its groundbreaking 1966 LP, “East-West.”Īlthough the Monkees played instruments on television, musical director Don Kirshner didn’t allow the group to play in the studio. It didn’t garner much attention, nor did recordings he released in 1965 under the pseudonym Michael Blessing, but his songs started to find an audience through other performers. Nesmith released his first single, “Wanderin’,” in 1963. ![]() ![]() While attending San Antonio College, he began singing folk music with John Kuehne, who adopted the name John London by the time the pair headed to Los Angeles to attempt to break into the music business. He left school to join the Air Force in 1960, earning an honorable discharge in 1962. Michael Nesmith showed some interest in music and theater while attending Thomas Jefferson High School. While working as a secretary for Texas Bank and Trust in 1951, she developed Liquid Paper, a typewriter correction product she sold the company to Gillette in 1979 for $48 million, a fortune her son would inherit after her death in 1980. His parents divorced when he was 4, and he stayed with his mother, who relocated to Dallas to be closer to family. The only child of Warren and Bette Nesmith, Michael Nesmith was born in Houston on Dec. He formed the First National Band, one of the first country-rock bands to achieve commercial success, but he wound up spending most of his career operating on the fringes of pop-rock music while working as a pioneer in home video. ![]() He achieved success as a songwriter outside of the group as well, when Linda Ronstadt’s Stone Poneys had a hit with his “ Different Drum” in 1967.īy that point, the wool-capped guitarist started introducing elements of country music into the Monkees, a musical direction he’d continue to pursue after he left the band in 1970. ![]() Nesmith was the only member of the Monkees to write original material on a regular basis, with “ Mary, Mary,” “ You Just May Be the One” and “ The Girl I Knew Somewhere” among his signature tunes for the band. Despite their success, Nesmith bristled at the notion that the group was a creation of the producers and steered the Monkees away from their prefabricated origins, pushing the band’s record label to let the group play their own instruments on “Headquarters,” their third album. ![]()
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