And, by the way, as a young teenager, I absolutely idolized The Monkees. Watched the show every Saturday, had all their records...didn't have a clue that they weren't really making all that music, Haha.
I always resented the fact that the Monkees were once a much larger band. Just before they made it big, sold their soul so to speak, the band fragmented because the other members didn't feel they were treated as equals. They were not being taken serious enough. They did go on to achieve limited fame, but it was relatively short. Thereafter, they completely disappeared, and were never seen again.
The name of this shooting star powerhouse of a band was.....
The Banana Splits. Some of us still remember!
Bob Marley wrote "Buffalo Soldier" in tribute to the Banana Splits theme (tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la...
buffalo soldier....) although to be fair he thought they were the Banana
Spleefs.
Always was kinda curious how the Monkees sounded live on that first tour, never heard any of it back then although I was a Monkees fan too. Still have a compilation CD and the original "Pleasant Valley Sunday" 45.
Both Mike and Peter were actually accomplished musicians already when they did the casting call, but on the tour they did have a backing band of Boyce-Hart's Candy Store Prophets, I've found out in the last couple of years.
SO found this just the other day and realized the sounds on some of the Monkees tunes weren't so far removed from Jimi's at the time.
A Nesmith tune, BTW, was always one of my favorites:
Another Nesmith tune, "Mary Mary", already covered and released on Butterfield Blues Band's legendary
East West in '66 before the tune ever appeared on the show:
Sure the first 2 albums made extensive use of the Wrecking Crew, but by
Headquarters they were 100% in charge of material and backing musician selection but playing their own instruments extensively.
OK, last up, one of my favorite Tork tunes, conceived at a late night after-sessions jam where, well,
you know what musicians do late at night....
Was used as the closing theme in season 2, "For Pete's Sake". The album take.
Mickey had one of the all time great voices of pop rock, too.
And speaking of "Pleasant Valley Sunday" Peter was still doing it years later with his trusty F30 he'd had ever since at least a '67 episode of the Monkees on which it makes a playing cameo appearance
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