The Monkees: the 60s pop band that famously started as a TV show. But how did that happen? *Why* did that happen? Are The Monkees even a real band?
The answers to these questions are complicated, and I’d like to guide you with information rather than tell you what to think. The short answer to the question everyone wants to know is: yes, The Monkees are, or were, a real band.
More or less.
Here We Come…
The Monkees were created for a TV show by visionary producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider in the late 1960s. Bob and Bert were creating a sitcom about a fictional rock and roll group living on the beach, trying to carve out a life for themselves different than their parents generation and make it as a band. The roles for The Monkees were cast from an ad that ran in trade publications seeking, “Folk & Roll Musicians-Singers for acting roles in new TV series.”1 Hundreds auditioned, and fourteen were brought back for screen tests.
Raybert ultimately decided on four men based on audience screen test feedback: Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork. In January of 1966, NBC added The Monkees to their fall lineup. 2
Conceptually, The Monkees TV show was fiction. But in addition to the young men acting as members of a band, each episode would have two songs, including a song “romp”: a vignette of something that may have nothing to do with the episode while a Monkees songs played along with it. The music from the series would also be released as singles and albums. Where would this music come from?
“The producers must have had in mind that we were going to perform and record,” Micky Dolenz said in a CheatSheet interview, “because you had to be able to play an instrument and sing to even get in the audition[…] So the producers must have had it in mind that eventually, if the show ever sold and ever got on the air, we would perform, because otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered.” 3
Indeed, the casting for the avant-garde TV series called for musicians. And while it’s a cliche that the men cast for The Monkees were “two actors and two musicians”, all four of the men had some musical background before they auditioned. Peter Tork was a musician working in Greenwich Village before he went west to LA, jamming with the likes of The Mamas And The Papas and Stephen Stills; Michael Nesmith first established a musical career in San Antonio, Texas, playing guitar with a local band, later publishing songs under the stage name “Michael Blessing” with Colpix; while Micky Dolenz was primarily an actor, his most famous role as “Corky” in Circus Boy as a child, Micky also played guitar and was the lead singer local band Micky And The One-Nighters; and while Davy Jones came to America to become a jockey, he was an experienced actor, and gained musical experience as the Artful Dodger in Broadway’s Oliver and recording solo music as a singer with Colpix.
However, despite being interviewed and cast on the basis of both acting and musical talent, in the beginning The Monkees’ music was created using only quartet’s vocals: the rest of the music was done with instrumental tracks laid down by session musicians who would later be known as The Wrecking Crew–a group named retrospectively by drummer member Hal Blaine–who, in addition to working for The Monkees, worked for The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Simon & Garfunkel, The Carpenters, Neil Diamond, and The Byrds, to name a few.
Yes, even bands like The Beach Boys hired session musicians for many of their recording sessions [LOL did you think creating the musical masterpiece “Good Vibrations” was easy? 4]. Hiring session musicians to create musical tracks for bands was actually pretty common in the 1960s.
As well, song-writers were hired to write The Monkees’ songs, another practice that was actually fairly common in the industry at the time. The Monkees song-writers were among the most talented in the industry: Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, Neil Diamond, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Diane Hildebrand, Neil Sedaka, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and David Gates, to name a few. Monkee Michael Nesmith also co-wrote and co-produced a song with Carole King and Gerry Goffin in the very beginning.
It was a powerhouse of gifted artists working alongside clever screenwriters, the hip producers, and the talented Monkees themselves. While on TV The Monkees were struggling to make it as a band, in real life The Monkees brand was an embarrassment of riches.
The Monkees even had a signature car created for them by car designer Dean Jeffries: The Monkeemobile. The Monkeemobile was a red painted modified Pontiac GTO, with a split two-piece windshield, convertible top, exaggerated tail lamps, four bucket seats and third bench seat where the trunk would have been, and a rear-mounted parachute.
Not bad for four rarely-employed young men struggling to make it as a band.
I’m A Believer!
[add more info on Monkees early success]
On September 12, 1966, the first episode of The Monkees aired on NBC. With the help of an early promotional tour in Hawaii, The Monkees faces gracing the covers of teeny-pop magazines like Tiger Beat and 16, and early singles, such as Boyce/Hart penned “Last Train To Clarksville,” hitting the radio air waves, it was a huge success.
Everything was coming up Monkees.
This Just Doesn’t Seem To Be My Day
However, The Monkees TV show/Franken-band went a little too far in the public eye.
While songs and albums being created with the four mens’ vocals and session musician’s backing musical tracks as The Monkees was not that much of a stretch from what other artists of the time were doing, it was too much for critics. When Monkees songs on the radio were reaching number 1 on the Billboard, and singles and albums going gold, it begged the question: who are these people?
The Monkees themselves began to feel the itch when they accidentally found their second studio album, More Of The Monkees, for sale at a record store across the street from a hotel they were staying in Cleveland, Ohio in early 1967: the LP had been produced and released without their knowledge or input, using earlier recorded vocals of theirs and tracks from the session musicians entirely.
So, what to do?
Become a real band, of course.
I Wanna Be Free…
The Monkees realized they had to actually become this band in real life, and produce real music that they played, and even wrote, themselves. This transition was mutually agreed on, but largely pushed forward by Michael Nesmith especially. Bob and Bert acquiesced, giving Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, and Davy Jones full artistic control of all music going forward, while continuing to act as the fictional Monkees on the television show.
So, while continuing to work tirelessly by day as actors on The Monkees TV show [a show that would go on to win two Emmys], by night, The Monkees were scrambling to make themselves a real band. To do this, they had to master the musical instruments assigned to them on the TV show [not the instruments they were already proficient in, per se], write songs entirely their own [as mentioned, a practice actually not always done in bands in the 60s], rehearse these songs, and record these songs…
Yes, the four men cast as The Monkees were musicians before the show: but they weren’t those musicians. Now they were attempting, at least from a musical standpoint, to become the characters they were on the show in real life, in true life-imitating-art phenomena. Some of it was natural, as Peter Tork for example already knew how to play a wide variety of instruments, and enjoyed playing anything you threw at him [especially the piano]. Michael Nesmith was already several steps ahead of this situation, as he was the only Monkee who pushed to co-write, play on, and produce a Monkees song on the very first album, and was eager to move forward with them fully becoming a real band. Micky Dolenz, alternatively, played guitar in real life but had been playing the role of a drummer on the show, so he had to learn to play the drums. Davy could more or less remain singing, and banging the tambourine, two things he did quite well.
Interestingly, while Micky and Davy sang most of the songs, there was no defined lead singer, and all four Monkees sang lead at some point in various songs.
The decision for The Monkees to become a real band with complete artistic control did not bode well with assigned musical supervisor Donnie Kirshner, “the man with the golden ear”. Donnie, a successful music publisher who was responsible for discovering and launching many singers’ and song-writers’ careers, had been hired by Bert and Bob early on to ensure The Monkees would have hit songs in every episode. So far, Donnie had done that very well. At this point, The Monkees had hit singles, “Last Train To Clarksville”, “I’m A Believer”, and the first two albums, The Monkees and More Of The Monkees were at number 1 positions on album charts, on their way to going gold. The fact that none of The Monkees were playing on these albums meant nothing to Donnie, whose vision was on number one hits no matter how they came.
Now that The Monkees were told they could have artistic control, they felt they no longer needed Don Kirshner, and brought on Chip Douglas to direct them instead. But Donnie felt otherwise, and communication about this did not go well. During a meeting with Donnie and Colgems’ lawyer Herb Moelis, Michael Nesmith punched a hole through a wall after being told, “you better read your contract.” “That could have been your face!” Michael yelled back.
To further the issue, Donnie had released another Monkees song, “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You,” as The Monkees third A-side single, not only without The Monkees consent, but without Columbia Picture’s consent. At this point, The Monkees had planned to have the song “All Of Your Toys” released as their third A-side single. While “All Of Your Toys” was written by Bill Martin, not by the Monkees themselves, this was the first song the Monkees finally recorded with all four of them performing, and served as a symbol of the band they planned to become.
Don Kirshner was ultimately dropped for this power-play. But because “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You,” had already been out, with airplay in both the U.S. and Canada, it was retained as the third A-side single, with “The Girl I Knew Somewhere” as the B-side. As well, while “All Of Your Toys” was the first recorded song to have all four of The Monkees playing, it had been published by Bill Martin’s publisher, Tickson Music, and because it had not been produced with The Monkees contracted publisher, Screen Gems-Columbia Music, it could not be released. “All Of Your Toys” would remain unpublished until Rhino Records bought the rights to The Monkees music, and published under the first Missing Links album in 1987.
But with Don Kirshner out, and Chip Douglas in, The Monkees, now a real band, could begin to produce their first real album made and performed on entirely by them: Headquarters.
Headquarters
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkees_(TV_series)#Conception_and_casting ↩︎
- https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nbc-television-greenlights-the-monkees
↩︎ - https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/music/2025/01/25/micky-dolenz-says-the-beatles-got-the-monkees/77939269007/ ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Vibrations ↩︎