Song of the Day 2/22: The Monkees, “For Pete’s Sake”
Peter Tork of the Monkees died yesterday at age 77. Tork was 24 and playing folk music in Greenwich Village when his friend Stephen Stills urged him to audition for this TV show that was looking for musicians, as Stills had. (Imagine the alternate-universe possibilities).
Derided as the Prefab Four because their first two albums used session musicians with the stars contributing only vocals, the Monkees had four No. 1 albums in 1967. It wasn’t until the third one, “Headquarters,” that they gained enough control to play their own instruments and record more of their own compositions. Tork’s first contribution, with its Summer of Love lyrics, became the end-credit theme for the TV show’s second season.
In 1967 I was eleven years old, the impact was near Beatles like and the TV show was required watching if you didn’t want to face ridicule the next day in school. I remember an in class “party” where the kids could bring their own records, nearly all brought “Monkees Headquarters”.
I played the grooves off my copy of ‘The Monkees’ and never missed the show.
Re the session musicians, the same wrecking crew that played on ‘The Monkees’ played on almost every hit during that period.
http://wreckingcrewfilm.com/about.php
Boyce and Hart used a more diverse crew than became common a few years later. Glen Campbell plays guitar on a few tracks.