Monkees’ lovable bassist dies at 77
Peter Tork, who really did have musical talent, had been battling a rare form of cancer since 2009
LOS ANGELES — Peter Tork, a talented singer-songwriter and instrumentalist whose musical skills were often overshadowed by his role as the goofy, lovable bass guitarist in the made-for-television rock band The Monkees, has died at age 77.
Tork’s son Ivan Iannoli told The Associated Press his father died Thursday morning at the family home in Connecticut of complications from adinoid cystic carcinoma, a rare cancer of the salivary glands. He had battled the disease since 2009.
“Peter’s energy, intelligence, silliness, and curiosity were traits that for decades brought laughter and enjoyment to millions, including those of us closest to him,” his son said in a statement. “Those traits also equipped him well to take on cancer, a condition he met like everything else in his life, with unwavering humour and courage.”
Tork, who was often hailed by the other Monkees as the band’s best musician, had studied music since childhood. He was accomplished on guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, banjo and other instruments. Michael Nesmith, the Monkees’ lead guitarist, said Tork was the better of the two. Tork said he played bass because none of the others wanted to.
He had been playing in small clubs in Los Angeles when a friend and fellow musician, Steven Stills, told him TV casting directors were looking for “four insane boys” to play members of a struggling rock band.
Stills, a member of the legendary rock bands Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills and Nash, reportedly told Tork he’d auditioned and was rejected because his teeth were ugly. He thought the handsome Tork might fare better.
When the show debuted in September 1966 Tork and fellow band members Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and David Jones became overnight teen idols.
Nesmith was the serious Monkee, Jones was the cute one and Dolenz the zany one.
Tork said he adopted his “dummy” persona from the way he’d get audiences at Greenwich Village folk clubs to engage with him in the early 1960s.
He knew only one member of the Monkees before the show’s debut, Nesmith who had been running “Hoot Nights” at the Troubadour nightclub in Los Angeles where Tork would occasionally perform.
“As I write this my tears are awash, and my heart is broken,” Nesmith posted on his Facebook page Thursday. “I have said this before — and now it seems even more apt — the reason we called it a band is because it was where we all went to play.”
During its two-year run the show would win an Emmy for outstanding comedy series and the group itself would land seven songs in Billboard’s Top 10.
Initially, the Monkees didn’t play their instruments or write many of their songs. That was something that infuriated both Tork and Nesmith.
Eventually Tork and Nesmith wrested control of the band’s musical fate from Don Kirshner, who had been brought in as the show’s music producer.