Michael Nesmith, Singer, Songwriter and Guitarist of The Monkees, Dies at 78

Hollywoodreporter.com ^ | 12/10/2021 | CHRIS KOSELUK

[massmike]

Michael Nesmith, the guitar-playing singer-songwriter with the wool hat who along with Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Micky Dolenz became a TV star and 1960s pop sensation as a member of The Monkees, has died. He was 78.

Nesmith died Friday of natural causes, his family told Rolling Stone.

[hardspunned]

I think you’re mistaken. The Monkees were on Monday night. The Beatles had the Saturday morning TV show.

https://youtu.be/oa-qLT2TLJg

[ealgeone]

At my house they came on Saturday mornings around 11 or 11:30. That signaled the end of cartoons for the day.

[GSWarrior]

My favorite Nesmith song would be The Grand Ennui.

[joethedrummer]

“Dolenz was in the Hollywood Vampires drinking club, but somehow outlived them all.“

-the “Keith Richards” of the group.. lol!

[hardspunned]

I’m certain they were originally aired on Monday night right before that goofy Laugh In show.

[SaveFerris]

👍

[ealgeone]

Not saying they weren’t.....just at my house it came on Saturday mornings. It also aired in the afternoons after school.

[hardspunned]

I would guess the show made Saturday morning syndication after it ended prime time. I’m talking about ‘66 and ‘67.

[ealgeone]

makes sense.

[ealgeone]

Yep. I got curious and looked it up. September 12, 1966. Monday night.

[SamAdams76]

In 1967 the Monkees outsold the Beatles and Stones combined.

Correct. In the year of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", the Monkees vastly outsold The Beatles. It wasn't even close.

Another couple of hits, a trip to India and a well-rehearsed side-shuffle over there and The Monkees would have been the biggest selling band in the history of recorded music. The Beatles would have gone the way of Herman's Hermits and Gary Lewis & The Playboys.

[Dr. Franklin]

Very talented.
He wrote this song! Stone Poneys (Linda Ronstadt) - Different Drum - 1967
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO5lq9n6C98

Nesmith wrote the song in '64. It was first recorded by the Greenbriar Boys in '66, and a short comic version of the song aired on the Monkees TV show in December of '66. The Stone Ponies recorded the song in '67. Here is Nesmith singing his song, after which he says, "With apologies and a special thanks to Linda.":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMkiZ9tO-Zs
He had great humility to apologize for performing his own song. Of course, Linda Ronstadt's version is the best.

[hardspunned]

You do know Jimi Hendrix, opened for the Monkees on tour in 1967. Hendrix first was popular in England where he released Are You Experienced in early ‘67. He was pretty much an unknown opening for the Monkees before the album was released in the US. Imagine taking your teenybopper daughter to see the Monkees and out steps this Jimi Hendrix madman pounding out Purple Haze to start the evening.

[GSWarrior]

Tropical Campfires is my favorite Nesmith album.

[dhs12345]

Yes. And apparently after Ronstadt, he performed it like she did.

[Daggerboard]

I had their album. Didn’t care about the Beatles. I was five at the time.