Derided by many, the Monkees proved they could actually play
and their music continues to be enjoyed half a century later!
'Here we come, walking' down the street' - the familiar opening words of the Monkees TV series theme tune.
Manufactured by American TV executives the Monkees TV show was surely a new concept for the medium, of television the Monkees were created to ape, if that's the word, the success of the Beatles film 'a hard day's night' but on a half hour episode format
The premise of 4 young men sharing a house, the madcap adventures they got up to and the performance of the occasional song, were essentially a transfer of the old vaudeville theatre music hall template, onto television, except in the modern TV show there was only the same performers for the whole show, not the variety of acts of the 20's vaudeville shows.
The Monkees came along at the right time, in late 1965 into 1966, just as the Beatles had played Shea Stadium and called it a day for live touring. 'One more limousine, one more run for your life' George Harrison quipped on the chaos the Beatles faced every time they played live. Now the Beatles moved into the studio to explore the music and move into another musical dimension, only to play live once more on the famous roof top session in London.
Where the Beatles left off, the Monkees filled the slot, primarily on the commercially lucrative primetime children's hour 'after school' TV slots. Like the British ITV children's program of the same era called 'Do not adjust your set' which featured the Bonzo Dog Doodah band as the resident musical ensemble, the Monkees and ITV's 'set' both found an adult following, who liked the zany antics found in each of the shows.
Do not adjust your set also featured Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Jones, all later Monty Python cast members. At this time, in the 1960's, television was growing massively in terms of content, programs and new directions including this alternative comedy of the day.
American television relied on advertising as a support for the operating costs and the program making and with a big hitter like the Monkees series, endorsement deals and/or endorsements opportunities with entities like Kelloggs Cereals and Gretsch guitars were great opportunities to promote the series. Likely as a result of the Monkees toting Gretsch instruments played through Vox amplifiers, sales of both sets of products in the US rocketed.
The commercially minded American product, had the concept of the Monkees defined into a carry case all of its own, that is that Don Kirshner the music executive had the call on some of the best songwriters in the US, songs were written by many greats such as Mann & Weil, Neil Diamond, Carol King and many more household names for the Monkees project.
Musically, many of the top session players of the time including Glenn Campbell would play on the song backing track recordings, the Monkees at that time only adding a lead vocal. This rankled with the Monkees, who decided they wanted to be playing on the records and writing the songs.
This would be more lucrative for them, but the Kirshner model did allow a greater variety of songs from different writers so the problem of musical leit motifs cropping up in future songs was limited. In retrospect, perhaps a 1 original and 1 imported song might have given the Kirshner / Monkees situation more duration.
There had been mentions in the media of the Monkees not playing their own instruments and for Micky Dolenz, Peter Torq and Mike Nesmith, all people who had been musicians before the Monkees, this did not sit well. Seeing the Monkees playing unplugged electric guitars on the TV shows no doubt added to this view that they did not actually play their instruments.
For all that Don Kirshner held, reputation, musical control and contracts with the best songwriters, the Monkees felt too creatively constrained. As a sop to alleviate the problem, Mike Nesmith did get to contribute songs and these were popular as the public bought them enthusiastically which opened the doors to the Monkees having more creative control and eventual writing, performing and production on their music.
After two series, the Monkees TV shows were cancelled, it was probably only ever going to be a short lived 'Beatlesque' type television show in concept and the next project a film called Head, was started.
Head had an R Rating and as such, many of the Monkees core younger audience could not get to see the film, so commercially this did not really achieve what for the Beatles a 'hard day's night' type of success had been and lead on to further film projects.
Pop music notoriously moves on and musical fashions quickly change, so the shelf life of the Monkees as a format for a TV series was likely never going to last more than another season if that.
The Monkees did take their music on the road to prove they could play live and Beatlemania was now replaced with Monkeemania, which lasted until around 1971 when the group fragmented with Peter Torq and then Mike Nesmith leaving.
Jimi Hendrix opened for the Monkees on a 1967 tour but the young audience couldn't understand or appreciate what Jimi was doing and he was drowned out by an ocean of teenage girls shouting for the Monkees. Jimi Hendrix went onto greater things thankfully securing his own musical legacy, the Monkees live shows were very successful in their own right and disproved the critics who now had to eat their earlier words.
I barely remember the Monkees from the time they were around in their pomp the end of the 60's into the 70's, seeing their shows on BBC children's hours television along with other great US imports like the Hanna Barbera cartoons, Top Cat, Tom and Jerry, the Wacky Races and the Banana Splits cartoons around 1971. This was often the case the UK TV stations buying in a lot of US made television content usually a couple of years or more down the line.
Now there is only one Monkee left - Micky Dolenz, I met him in 1979 or 80 when he was directing a play for the BBC TV corporation in London, my father worked for the BBC as a photographer and the scene Micky was directing was done at a shoe polish factory or similar at Acton, West London, on a saturday afternoon.
Eleanor Bron (who I believe had also had appeared on the ITV 'do not adjust your set' series coincidentally) was acting the scene playing a Czech defector who had to walk through a pair of sliding doors on the camera shot, the doors out of camera shot, were pulled back by pieces of wood taped to them by two camera assistants, oh the power of television!
Micky was really nice to meet and the filming was nice to see, it was only a few months later on BBCTV that there was a rerun of the Monkees shows and I recognised Micky. Musically for me, around this time about 4 musical influences converged and helped me with my guitar playing which I enjoy more than forty years on. The Monkees playing on the TV show reruns was one.
The Monkees were of their time, a commercial opportunity, successful and now provide a great nostalgia fest to the who remember them, or have discovered them since. Their legacy is that they staged reunions years after and filled venues, their music is still popular today. They outlived their initial short project and continue to be popular more than half a century later.
And more importantly, they could really play!
