{"id":24664,"date":"2023-03-18T05:30:02","date_gmt":"2023-03-18T09:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=24664"},"modified":"2023-01-25T09:04:05","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T14:04:05","slug":"take-five-michael-nesmith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/18\/take-five-michael-nesmith\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Five: Michael Nesmith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Nesmith would have celebrated his 80th birthday last December 30; he passed away in 2021 after an acclaimed tour with former bandmate Micky Dolenz. The talented musician and songwriter was best known as a member of The Monkees, but he was a successful songwriter before joining the group: Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys had a hit with his \u201cDifferent Drum,\u201d and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band cut his \u201cMary, Mary\u201d before the Monkees recorded it. And in his post-Monkees years, Nesmith was a pioneer in both country rock and music video.<\/p>\n<p>And even while with the Monkees, Nesmith wrote some of the band\u2019s best material. Here are five deep album cuts from the pen of Michael Nesmith.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cAll the King&#8217;s Horses\u201d (recorded for <em>The Monkees<\/em>, 1966)<\/strong><br \/>\nMost of the songs that would appear on the Monkees\u2019 debut album were written by outside songwriters (primarily the team of Tommy Boyce \/ Bobby Hart and Gerry Goffin \/ Carole King), and most of the instrumental work featured session musicians. (The four members of the Monkees were hired primarily for their on-screen talents.) But right from the start, Nesmith proved his mettle as a songwriter and producer. This song was recorded during the first album sessions but left unreleased until the late 1980s.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZIJI5PtIfto\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cYou Told Me\u201d (from <em>Headquarters<\/em>, 1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nMuch of Michael Nesmith\u2019s original songs \u2013 like this original composition \u2013 showcased the country music influences of the Texas-born songwriter. This song was featured on the Monkees\u2019 third album, the first on which the group exercised creative control and provided nearly all of the instrumental work.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/splg5okN2ac\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cDaily Nightly\u201d (from <em>Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn &amp; Jones Ltd.<\/em>, 1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nA departure from Nesmith\u2019s country-rock stylings, this hypnotic and psychedelic track \u2013 featuring a lead vocal from Micky Dolenz \u2013 is notable as one of the earliest-ever pop recordings to feature the Moog synthesizer. That\u2019s Micky playing the Moog; the sounds on the imposing instrument had been programmed by synth pioneer Paul Beaver.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AgRRdSKC8GA\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cTapioca Tundra\u201d (from <em>The Birds, the Bees &amp; the Monkees<\/em>, 1968)<\/strong><br \/>\nLike \u201cDaily Nightly,\u201d this Nesmith original features a lyric that doesn\u2019t include the song\u2019s title. Nesmith\u2019s lead vocal is treated to sound as if he\u2019s singing through a megaphone, a nod to early 20th century ragtime jazz singers like Rudy Vall\u00e9e. But there are plenty of country-rock textures in the song as well, thanks to Nesmith\u2019s multiple guitar parts on the recording. Much more recently, in 2022 an acoustic version of the song was featured on a 6th season episode of <em>Better Caul Saul<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hl1PW7nwpJM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cCircle Sky\u201d (from the Head soundtrack, 1968)<\/strong><br \/>\nAfter The Monkees\u2019 television series was canceled, the group embarked on an even more ambitious project, the surreal motion picture <em>Head<\/em>. Featuring a diverse collection of contributors (Jack Nicholson, Frank Zappa, Annette Funicello, Victor Mature and prize fighter Sonny Liston) the film is a psychedelic extravaganza. And it includes a snippet of The Monkees in concert, playing this rocking Nesmith original. The group would re-record the song on their 1996 reunion album <em>Justus<\/em>; this is the original.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8jtKDtT-i0s\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Nesmith would have celebrated his 80th birthday last December 30; he passed away in 2021 after an acclaimed tour with former bandmate Micky Dolenz. The talented musician and songwriter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24665,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5048],"class_list":["post-24664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-mike-nesmith","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24666,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24664\/revisions\/24666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}