In 1968 I was the first caller through to a competition on radio station 4LM in Mount Isa, Queensland. I won 10 45's and one of them was The Stone Poneys singing 'Different Drum' backed with 'Some of Shelley's Blues'. The lead singer of The Stone Poneys was Linda Ronstadt. To this day, 'Different Drum' is one of Linda's best known and loved tracks.
What has this got to do with The Monkees? Well, 'Different Drum' and 'Some of Shelley's Blues' were both written by future Monkee Mike Nesmith.
The line-up of talent on this album is amazing. No, I'm not talking about the lads who make up the band, I'm talking about the people who wrote the songs.
'Daydream Believer' was by John Stewart who had his own hit with the single 'Gold'.
'Pleasant Valley Sunday' came from the powerhouse of Gerry Goffin and Carole King.
Nilsson's 'Cuddly Toy' joined the collection and Neil Diamond threw in 'A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You' and the early hit 'I'm A Believer'.
Five of the tracks came from Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, the stand-out being the Monkees first single and first #1 'Last Train to Clarkesville'.
Band member Mickey Dolenz wrote what is possibly the oddest titled song of them all, 'Randy Scouse Git'. It was a phrase he heard on the British TV show "Till Death Do Us Part", the original show that inspired the US take-off 'All In The Family'. In the UK the song was renamed 'Alternate Title' because of the meaning of the phrase, basically "horny, Liverpudlian jerk" which may have offended a portion of the listening public - and certainly the BBC radio stations.
Far from being a no-talent bunch of faces put together purely for a TV show, the 4 members of The Monkees were artists in their own right.
Peter Tork had been known in the folk music scene in Greenwich Village and was a multi-instrumentalist.
Mickey Dolenz appeared on TV shows and had his own group 'Mickey and the One-Nighters'. He was also a competent songwriter. He had Perthes disease as a child leaving his right leg shorter, so played drums oddly, using a right hand and left foot set-up.
Mike Nesmith as mentioned above was a songwriter and solo artist. Perhaps as well-known as him was his mother Bette who famously invented the correction fluid 'Liquid Paper' and went on to become a millionaire.
Davy Jones, born in Manchester, had a career as a child star, appearing on British television in shows such as 'Coronation Street' and 'Z-Cars' but also on stage as the Artful Dodger in the West End musical 'Oliver'. If it hadn't been for him having early fame, we would never have heard of David Bowie. Bowie of course was born David Jones but after calling himself Davy and Davie he wanted to avoid confusion so renamed himself David Bowie.
It's easy to fob the Monkees off as one of those manufactured groups that seemed to pop up in the 60s. Think of The Archies. In fact they put out some memorable, complex and very long-lived songs that are still being played over 50 years later.
That's not a bad legacy.
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