Only one Monkee left (Mickey Dolenz). The Monkees were a fun part of my childhood. Damn. RIP. I'm gonna watch 'Head' tomorrow. "Atta boy, Mike."
Hey hey we're the Monkees can't say we monkey around but we're too busy singing . . . EDIT: Ha, found it.
I was in a Monkees cover band as a kid... we were terrible. We pivoted to Doors songs because they were easier to play.
They'll never be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but for two years, from mid-1966 to mid-1968, they produced some of the best pop music around, and this at a time when Motown and artists like The Beatles, The Mamas & the Papas, The Byrds, The Lovin' Spoonful, Simon & Garfunkel, The Rolling Stones, and The Rascals (all represented in the Hall) were churning out hit records. Besides the obvious connections to what became MTV (particularly for Nesmith, who created what some consider the first direct music video in 1979), they were also very influential in the way they took control of their own careers, something that was virtually unheard of at the time (again, with Nesmith taking the lead on that). The music on the first two discs of the 4-CD Listen to the Band collection, which covers 1966-1968, is in regular rotation on my phone/iPad/computer. RIP to the guy that they originally intended to just call "Wool Hat" on the show (until he insisted that he be allowed to use his real name like everyone else).
Nesmith's whole thing - and he was right- was being forced to use Studio musicians who probably didn't get any credit, either.
I read Jones was the best drummer but they didn't want him hidden behind the drum set. Dolenz ended the "drummer" even though he had never played before. He never got any better than bad. I'd say Nesmith was the best all around musician.
It was either him or Peter Tork, who was a perfectly good guitarist and keyboard player (so of course they had him playing bass on the show, when Nesmith was the better bass player). Tork, of course, was famously recommended to the producers by Stephen Stills, after Stills was turned down because of his hair and teeth (Stills and Tork had known each other earlier as part of the Greenwich Village folk scene).
