SINGER-SONGWRITER, AUTHOR BEST KNOWN FOR MONKEES
Michael Nesmith, the singer-songwriter, author, actor-director and entrepreneur who will likely be best remembered as the woolhatted, guitar-strumming member of the made-fortelevision rock band The Monkees, has died at 78.
Nesmith, who had undergone quadruple bypass surgery in 2018, died of natural causes at his Carmel Valley home near California’s Central Coast, his family said in a statement Friday.
Nesmith was a struggling singer-songwriter in September 1966 when “The Monkees” television debut turned him and fellow band members Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and David Jones into overnight rock stars.
Dolenz, the last surviving member of the band who last month completed a farewell tour that included a stop in September at The Magnolia in El Cajon with Nesmith, said on Instagram that he’d lost a dear friend and partner.
“I’m so grateful that we could spend the last couple of months together doing what we loved best — singing, laughing, and doing shtick,” Dolenz said. “I’ll miss it all so much. Especially the shtick.”
After the group broke up in 1970, Nesmith moved on to a long and creative career, not only as a musician but as
a writer, producer and director of films, author of several books, head of a media arts company and creator of a music video format that led to the creation of MTV.
Nesmith was running “hoot nights” at the popular West Hollywood nightclub The Troubadour when he saw a trade publication ad seeking “four insane boys” to play rock musicians in a band modeled after the Beatles.
The show created by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider featured the comical misadventures of a quartet that tooled around Los Angeles in a tricked-out Pontiac GTO called the MonkeeMobile and, when they weren’t chasing girls, pursued music stardom.
Each episode rolled out two or three new Monkees songs, six of which became
Top 10 Billboard hits during the show’s two-year run. Three others, “I’m a Believer,” “Daydream Believer” and “Last Train to Clarksville,” reached No. 1. They had four No. 1 albums in 1967 alone.
Jones, with his British accent and boyish good looks, was the group’s cute lead singer. Dolenz became the wacky drummer. Tork, a folk-rock musician, portrayed the comically clueless bass player. Nesmith, with his twangy Texas accent and the wool hat he’d worn to his audition, became the serious but naive lead guitarist.
After the show concluded in 1968, the band embarked on a lengthy concert tour where members sang many of their own songs and played their own instru
ments before crowds of adoring fans. Jimi Hendrix was sometimes their opening act.
Following the band’s breakup, Nesmith rarely rejoined the others for reunion tours, leading many to believe he disliked the band and the show, something he steadfastly denied.
Over the years, he recorded more than a dozen albums and toured with the First National Band, the country-rock-folk group he assembled.
Nesmith also wrote and produced the 1982 sciencefiction film “Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann” and earned executive producer credits on “Repo Man,” “Tape Heads” and other films.
His 1981 comedy-music video “Elephant Parts” won a Grammy and led to “PopClips,” a series of music videos broadcast on the Nickelodeon cable network that in turn led to the creation of
MTV.
Nesmith even published two well received novels, 1998’s “The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora” and 2009’s “The America Gene.”
After Jones died in 2012, he began to rejoin the Monkees more frequently, their concerts now earning glowing reviews from critics. He attributed that to most of the group’s original critics having died or retired.
Following Tork’s death in 2019, Nesmith and Dolenz took on the name The Monkees Mike & Micky.
Nesmith and Dolenz wrapped up “The Monkees Farewell Tour” at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles after a U.S. tour.
Dolenz told the crowd that “Nez” once encouraged him to write songs, saying, “that’s where the money is.”
“Boy, I wished I had listened,” Dolenz said.
Nesmith, who wore a white suit and shuffled off stage a couple times during the show, said “God bless all of you,” during a standing ovation for “I’m a Believer,” the closing number.
“That tour was a true blessing for so many,” Monkees manager, Andrew Sandoval, said on Facebook. “In the end I know that Michael was at peace with his legacy.”
Robert Michael Nesmith was born Dec. 30, 1942, in Houston, Texas, the only child of Warren and Bette Nesmith.
His parents divorced when he was 4, and his mother often worked two jobs, as a secretary and painter, to support her son and herself. It was that latter job that inspired her to whip up a typewriter correction fluid called Liquid Paper in her kitchen blender. By the mid-1970s it had made her a fortune, which she eventually left to her son and to nonprofit foundations she endowed to promote women in business and the arts.
Her son, who was married and divorced three times, is survived by four children, Christian, Jason, Jessica and Jonathan.