Monkees bassist was shocked to find his musical skills were not required
Peter Tork, who has died aged 77, was a blues and folk musician who became a teeny-bopper sensation as a member of the Monkees, the wisecracking, made-for-TV pop group that imitated and briefly outsold the Beatles.
If the Monkees were a manufactured version of the Beatles, a ‘‘prefab four’’ who auditioned for a rock’n’roll sitcom and selected more for their long-haired looks than their musical abilities, Tork was the group’s Ringo, its loveably goofy supporting player.
On television, he performed as the selfdescribed ‘‘dummy’’ of the group, drawing on a persona he developed while working as a folk musician in
Greenwich
Village, where he flashed a confused smile whenever his stage banter fell flat. Off-screen, he embraced the Summer of Love, donning moccasins and ‘‘love beads’’ and declaring that ‘‘nonverbal, extrasensory communication is at hand’’ and that ‘‘dogmatism is leaving the scene’’.
A versatile multi-instrumentalist, Tork mostly played bass and keyboard for the Monkees. At 24, he was also the band’s oldest member when The Monkees TV show premiered in 1966, featuring Tork alongside Michael Nesmith, a singer-songwriter who played guitar, and former child actors Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones, who played the drums and sang lead, respectively. Like their British counterparts, the group had a fondness for mischief, resulting in high jinks involving a magical necklace, a monkey’s paw, high-seas pirates and Texas outlaws.
The Monkees ran for only two seasons but won an Emmy Award for outstanding comedy and spawned a frenzy of merchandising, record sales and world tours that became known as Monkeemania. In 1967, according to one report in The Washington Post, the Monkees sold 35 million albums on the strength of songs such as Daydream Believer, I’m a Believer and Last Train to Clarksville, which all rose to No 1 in the United States.
Almost all of their early material was penned by a stable of vaunted songwriters that included Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Neil Diamond, David Gates, Neil Sedaka, Jeff Barry, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. But while the band scored a total of six Top 10 songs and five Top 10 albums, they engendered as much critical scorn as commercial success. In one typical review, music critic Richard Goldstein declared, ‘‘The Monkees are as unoriginal as anything yet thrust upon us in the name of popular music.’’
Detractors pointed to the fact that the band, at least initially, existed only in name. While the Monkees appeared on the cover of their debut album and were shown performing on TV, their instruments were actually unplugged. The songs were mostly done by session musicians – much to the shock of Tork, who recalled walking into the recording
musician b February 13, 1942 d February 21, 2019
‘‘We couldn’t have chosen each other. But under the circumstances, they got the right guys.’’
Tork on the chemistry of The Monkees
Contact us studio in 1966 to help with the group’s self-titled debut.
He was ‘‘mortified’’, he later said, to find that music producer Don Kirshner didn’t want him around. ‘‘They were doing Clarksville, and I wrote a counterpoint, I had studied music,’’ Tork said. ‘‘And I brought it to them, and they said: ‘No, no, Peter, you don’t understand. This is the record. It’s all done. We don’t need you.’ ’’
After the release of the band’s second album, More of the Monkees (1967), Tork and his bandmates wrested control of the recording process and wrote and performed most of the songs on subsequent records. They also started touring, playing to sold-out stadium crowds and backed by opening acts that briefly included guitarist Jimi Hendrix. But as Tork’s musical ambitions grew, leading him to envision the Monkees as a genuinely great group of rockers, he began to clash with bandmates who saw the Monkees as more of a novelty act.
He left the group soon after the release of Head, a satirical, nearly plot-free film flop that featured a screenplay co-written by actor Jack Nicholson. For much of the 1970s, he struggled to find his own way. He formed an unsuccessful band called Release, was imprisoned for several months in 1972 after being caught with ‘‘$3 worth of hashish in my pocket’’, and worked as a high school teacher and ‘‘singing waiter’’ as his Monkees wealth dried up. He also said he struggled with alcohol addiction, before quitting alcohol in the early 1980s.
By then, television reruns and album reissues had fuelled a resurgence of interest in the Monkees, and Tork had come around to what he described as the essential nature of the group, which he joined for reunion tours about once each decade, in addition to performing as a solo artist.
He was born Peter Halsten Thorkelson in Washington, DC. His parents collected folk records and bought him a guitar and banjo when he was a boy.
In New York, he played with guitarist Stephen Stills before moving to Long Beach, California, in 1965. Stills moved west as well and auditioned for The Monkees. When Stills he didn’t get the part he suggested that Tork audition.
Tork’s marriages to Jody Babb, Reine Stewart and Barbara Iannoli ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife, Pamela Grapes; a daughter from his second marriage; a son from his third marriage; a daughter from a relationship with Tammy Sustek; a brother; and a sister.
The musical chemistry of The Monkees was special, he said, even if it was the result of a few producers looking to cast a few handsome men for a television show.
‘‘I refute any claims that any four guys could’ve done what we did,’’ he said in 2013. ‘‘We couldn’t have chosen each other. But under the circumstances, they got the right guys.’’ – Washington Post
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