Why the Monkees should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

By Scott Shea

September 12, 2024 will mark 58 years since the debut of the Monkees’ television sitcom on NBC and, although it put Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork on the entertainment map for the rest of their lives, it also held them back. A corporate move back in the mid-1960s, which put these four together combined with some archaic thinking, has essentially blacklisted this immensely popular group from a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In fact, I surmise that had these four come together under normal circumstances, they’d probably would’ve been elected decades ago. They had all the characteristics, and then some, of the era’s zeitgeist and made some pretty hot records that ran the gamut of the ever-changing dynamic of the late-1960s pop music landscape. I maintain that this manufactured image with no philosophies should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Allow me to make my case.

Roots

All four of the Monkees had backgrounds that match up similarly with artists who are in the Hall. Let’s start with the two “musician first” members of the band, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork. The former grew up in Dallas, the son of divorced parents, and, in 1955, his mother Bette, a remarried executive secretary for Texas Bank and Trust, struck gold when she invented liquid paper and became a millionairess. Her musical son joined the Air Force in 1960 and, by 1962, was taking classes at San Antonio College and building up his musical reputation by playing around town in folk groups with new friends John Kuehne and Michael Martin Murphey, a future father of the Austin country music scene. His quick wit and charm were evident even then and was greeted like a local hero at a hootenanny held in La Villeta Assembly Hall in August 1963 and wowed the audience with stories of his recent performances in New York City.

Coincidentally, bumming NYC’s Greenwich Village neighborhood at that time was multi-instrumentalist Peter Tork. The D.C. native and his friend Bruce Farwell immigrated there in 1963 and performed as a duo in basket houses, which were popping up along each block like dandelions and had about the same lifespan. While playing one called the Four Winds, Peter met Stephen Stills, another folk wannabe, and a lifelong friendship began. If it sounds like a familiar story, it’s because it is. The Village was ground zero of the folk boom and was filled with out-of-towners looking to start a music career, including John Phillips and his three future Mamas & Papas bandmates, David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Zal Yanovsky and Bob Dylan.

Now, let’s look at the “actor first” Monkees. Micky Dolenz was first introduced to American audiences as Micky Braddock, star the television series “Circus Boy,” which aired in 1956-57 on NBC and then ABC. Upon its cancellation, acting took a backseat to school and his biggest gig was a small, recurring, albeit uncredited, role in Season 1 of “Peyton Place” in 1965. Davy Jones’ acting chops were made by way of the stage, coming to prominence playing the Artful Dodger in productions of “Oliver!” on both London’s West End and Broadway, earning a Tony nomination in 1961. On February 9, 1964, he found himself on stage at the Ed Sullivan Show in New York, performing “I’d Do Anything” with castmates after the Beatles recorded their American debut. Micky and Davy join an exclusive club of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame contemporaries who started out as actors, including Ricky Nelson, Cass Elliot and English drummers Mitch Mitchell, of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Phil Collins of Genesis.

The Series

The summer of 1965 found all four young men in Los Angeles auditioning for one of four spots on a television pilot that centered around “folk & roll.” The deliberately vague advertisement, which appeared in the L.A. Daily Variety, laid out their desired candidates’ qualifications plainly. They had to be musical, 21 or under and L.A. hip. Nearly 500 young men tried out and a thorough process ensued by producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider until they finally whittled their way down to Micky, Davy, Michael and Peter. Nobody involved could’ve ever predicted that these four young men would be tied together for the next 56 years and produce millions of fans worldwide. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out some other future stars who auditioned for the Monkees but didn’t make the cut: Stephen Stills of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby Stills & Nash, Bryan MacLean of Love, Danny Hutton of Three Dog Night and Van Dyke Parks who co-wrote the Beach Boys’ “Smile” album with Brian Wilson. Both the Lovin’ Spoonful and the Dave Clark Five were offered the series but turned it down. And contrary to myth, Charles Manson did not audition.

The final audition reels and hindsight reveal how it ultimately must’ve been an easy decision for Rafelson and Schneider to pick their final four. All of their powerful personalities are on full display. Michael Nesmith wore a wool hate, which the producers insisted he wear during each show, and psychoanalyzed himself. Davy dressed like Bob Dylan on his debut album cover and artfully dodged questions while Micky and Peter both brandished guitars and waxed hip and poetic about life and the contemporary music scene. The show debuted on September 12, 1966, and was a time capsule for the mid-1960s. Set in an old house on a Los Angeles beach, where the four are roomies, each episode featured a whacky, zany, bizarre, touching and downright silly storyline where they’re almost plucked out of obscurity and headed for the big time, but it ultimately fizzles out and the process begins anew. It was almost like watching an edition of Mad Magazine. Each episode was augmented with musical interludes that either bedded montages with one of their songs or showed the quartet miming a performance in their home or on a stage at some wealthy magnate’s swanky Sweet 16 party for his spoiled daughter. The spirit of this period was over before you could blink, and the show couldn’t sustain its kitsch any longer. It was cancelled after filming for its second season ended in 1968 and its 58 episodes have been syndicated, packaged and repackaged for nearly six decades. It’s dumb. There’s no question. But whenever I catch an old episode or clip, I still find myself chuckling at the stupid jokes and I know I’m not alone.

The Music

For some of the people involved in the Monkees TV series, music was always first and foremost, namely Michael Nesmith and Aldon Music co-founder and Monkees musical supervisor Don Kirshner. Their goals, however, couldn’t have been more disparate. Nesmith wanted an outlet for his art and creativity and the Monkees provided a large platform. Kirshner wanted to make mucho money and the Monkees was a sure cash cow. After all, he’d turned the small music publishing agency he co-founded with Al Nevins in 1958 into a multi-million-dollar entity run out of the Brill Building in New York City that pumped out hit songs by a stable of songwriting teams, including Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, Gerry Goffin and Carole King and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. All would contribute to the Monkees hit catalog in big ways and each were in the middle of a long, incredible roll, writings hits for the Drifters, the Righteous Brothers, the Beatles, the Animals and the Everly Brothers, to name a few. Kirshner, however, dispatched a West Coast songwriting tandem, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, to oversee the musical direction of the show’s pilot episode and first album and came out swinging with their debut, “Last Train to Clarksville,” which hit #1. They brought a distinct quality to their music and set a high bar for the foursome. With the exception of their 1968 soundtrack “Head,” every Monkees album in their original run featured a Boyce & Hart song.

When they parted ways with Kirshner in 1967, after a musically frustrated Nesmith put his fist through a wall and told the executive, “That could’ve been your face,” their connection with Boyce and Hart ended. Nesmith wanted more musical freedom, and he convinced the others to follow him. Kirshner wanted royalties and their singles and albums ensured that. But the hits kept coming through 1968 until running out of gas at the end of that year. In two short years, they gave us pop chestnuts like Neil Diamond’s “I’m a Believer,” and “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and “Daydream Believer.” A 1968 re-recording of Boyce & Hart’s “Valleri” remains one of those songs that even Monkees haters will admit has rock and roll chops.

But it’s the deep tracks that give this group clout as far as I’m concerned. Beginning with their debut album, Michael Nesmith really stood at as the biggest creative force within the group. “Papa Gene’s Blues” featured session guitarist James Burton cutting loose like Luther Perkins and making it sound country rock before that was a thing. His other contribution “Sweet Young Thing” was heavy for 1966 with lots of fuzz, overmodulation, a heavy bass line and an electric fiddle played by Jimmy Bryant. Nesmith was pushy from the start and, for that song, was paired with Gerry Goffin and Carole King at Don Kirshner’s request, neither of whom remembered it fondly. The moody singer/songwriter didn’t feel he needed to be partnered. He’d already had some success on his own. A folky bluegrass band named the Greenbriar Boys had already recorded his song “Different Drum” earlier in the year and, in 1967, a pop version of the song would launch the career of Linda Ronstadt when her group, the Stone Poneys turned it into a Top 15 hit. Perhaps more credibly, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band placed his original, “Mary, Mary” on their sophomore album “East-West” in August 1966. When the Monkees put their own version on their second album, they were mocked by contemporary blues enthusiasts for ripping off a Butterfield number. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded a couple Nesmith Monkees-period originals, including “Some of Shelly’s Blues,” which appeared on their classic 1970 LP “Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy.” His 1968 outtake “Down the Highway” prefigures the heavier country rock songs that would eminate a couple of years later by artists like Little Feat, Commander Cody and even his own high octane country rock solo songs like “Mama Rocker” and “Bye, Bye, Bye.”

With the musical zeitgeist all around them and finding themselves in an incredible position, Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz quickly jumped into the musical fold and even ventured into songwriting during the group’s post-TV shows albums. I’ve always maintained that Dolenz had a great rock and roll voice and, had he been in a non-TV show rock group, he probably would’ve found some measure of success. Take a listen to songs like “She,” “Let’s Dance On,” “No Time,” or his own “Randy Scouse Git,” a rude colloquial British term that translated means “horny Liverpudlian jerk.” His pure, smooth tenor lifted each song and it’s no wonder he was the feature vocalist on seven of their 11 Top 40 hits. Davy’s originals were pleasant but never reached the status of Mike and Micky. His strength lay in his relaxed vocal delivery on their hits. He sang lead on three of them, each of which hit the Top 3, including the #1 hit “Daydream Believer.” Peter Tork was the musical oddball of the group. Even though he was a talented multi-instrumentalist, you can count the number of songs where he sang lead on or wrote on one hand. He was a mess in the studio, coming in unprepared and meticulously changing his arrangements along the way and drove the studio musicians batty. One song, “Lady’s Baby,” took months to record, resulting in over $100,000 in studio fees. Michael Nesmith agreed to pay the bill in 1970 in order to get out of his contract and be a free agent. Let’s just say that Peter served more of a Brian Jones-type role, supplementing songs with his unique guitar, piano and banjo work.

The Case

Their albums followed the trends that many of the revered artists of the mid-to-late-1960s did. Beat and folk-rock morphed into psychedelia, which rolled into the more genuine and adult-oriented sound of the late-1960s and featured a good dose of country rock, of which Michael Nesmith can be considered a pioneer. For a 1967 tour, the Jimi Hendrix Experience was brought on board as their opening act. It was a bold move that failed magnificently after only two weeks, but the group enjoyed them. Hendrix was a musician’s musician and on the cutting edge of what lay ahead. Many pictures of Mike and Peter jamming with the guitar god in their hotel rooms grace the internet. Google Image it. Anti-establishment-and-everything-else icon Frank Zappa appeared at the end of their 1968 episode, “The Monkees Blow Their Minds” in a mock interview with Mike as Mike. Mike pretended to be Frank. Is your mind blown? Shortly after leaving the Monkees, Peter played an uncredited banjo part in George Harrison’s “Wonderwall Music” film.

The Monkees had many rock and roll moments away from the TV cameras and recording studios. Micky and Peter were both in attendance at the Monterey Pop Festival with the latter introducing Buffalo Springfield. Stephen Stills was an old Village friend of Peter’s and he and Mike jammed with the group one year earlier at the Whisky a-Go-Go in Los Angeles. Still a poor rock and roller, Stills could often be found staying at Peter’s Hollywood Hills mansion. All four of them hung out with the Beatles in London during their Sgt. Pepper period with Mike receiving an invitation to hang out with John Lennon privately in his home. During the group’s four-year existence, Micky developed a friendship with Harry Nilsson who donated a handful of songs to their catalog. And during Harry and John Lennon’s “Lost Weekend” period in 1974, Micky could be spotted monkeying around with them in various L.A. clubs. Mike went into television production after his solo career fizzled and helped bring music videos to the fore, pre-MTV. Peter became a teacher at an L.A. private school in the 1970s before relaunching his performing career by appearing regularly on the Uncle Floyd Show in New Jersey.

This is a remarkable list of rock and roll achievements for a group put together by a television studio looking to seize on a trend. Their music speaks for itself. In 1967, the Monkees received a lot of flack for not playing on their albums and rectified it by putting out an album called “Headquarters” where they played on all tracks with little assistance from studio musicians. The Beach Boys, the Mamas & the Papas, Elvis Presley, the Impressions and just about every Motown group in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame can’t say that. Not only that, but the album is considered one of their best. A lot of old prejudices from that time period still linger and it’s really not fair. It shouldn’t be about how the group came together, but what they did with their shot when they got it. Jann Wenner and many of the old Rolling Stone guard will have you believe that these guys were no different than the phony made-for-television bands that appeared on episodes of “Gilligan’s Island” and “I Dream of Jeannie,” but that’s intellectually dishonest.

The four Monkees were music fans first and sought to make the best records they could in an era of intense creativity, competition and change, and they succeeded. If you need more convincing, check out Michael Nesmith’s psychedelic Side A trifecta on “The Birds, the Bees and the Monkees.” And 58 years later, we’re still talking about them and having this debate! In the mid-1980s, they received a whole new generation of fans when MTV began replaying their TV show, which is where I came in, and it eventually moved over to Nick-at-Nite. They’ve sold over 75 million records worldwide, toured regularly and new collections of previously unreleased material continue to emerge thanks to Rhino Records and Andrew Sandoval. In the last 12 years, we’ve lost three of them. Only Micky Dolenz remains.

Do the right thing, Hall. Put the boys in and do it before none of them are with us.

Further information

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