Michael Nesmith(1942-2021)
- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Singer, composer, heartthrob, pioneer--all are accurate descriptions
of Robert Michael Nesmith. Most easily identified by his trademark
blue wool hat with pompom, Nesmith fashioned a diversified career
within music and also in film. Born in Saint Joseph's Hospital in downtown
Houston, Texas, Nesmith was a self-described "failure" growing up. "I
just didn't do anything," he said in his famous 1965 screen test for
_The Monkees (1966)_ ; he expanded on this in a 1968 Australian radio
interview by noting, "I was just starving and writing music." He got
work as a session guitarist up and down the East Coast before moving to
Los Angeles with his wife Phyllis Barbour in 1965. He managed to get a
record contract with Colpix Records and released several 45s as well as
appearing on 'Lloyd Thaxton's' syndicated teen-dance show. When Nesmith
won the role for The Monkees (1966) he was the first of all involved to
see where the show and the music would go. Nesmith produced tracks for
The Monkees even before TV series filming began; he has said "about a
hundred" tracks were made by himself, Micky, Peter, and Davy in the
first half of 1966, and among the songs recorded was his composition
"The Girl I Knew Somewhere." The hiring of
Don Kirshner quashed this group gestation,
but Nesmith continued to produce tracks for the group, usually with
Micky Dolenz providing co-lead or harmony
vocals; the trademark of Nesmith's 1966-produced tracks was the stellar
deep bass work of Robert West. The leader of the group by having the
strongest musical vision and polish, Nesmith challenged the controlling
powers, culminating in the famous "That could have been your head!"
near-brawl with Columbia executives in late 1966-early 1967 that left a
wall torn open and ultimately 86ed Don Kirshner from the project.
Nesmith took a controlling involvement in the group's albums, but given
the strong egos of each member, breakage was inevitable. Nesmith
finally left after 1969. He joined longtime bassist friend John London
and pedal-steel ace 'Orville "Red" Rhodes' for The First National Band,
a group that pioneered the mixture of country music with rock'n'roll. The
song "Joanne" off their first album, "Magnetic South", became a big hit.
Though the FNB broke up after three albums, Nesmith and Rhodes kept
going with the Second National Band. Their records were critical successes,
but unfortunately were not big hits. Nesmith then invented and sold the
concept of 24-hour-music-television to Time-Warner. He produced a proof
of concept called "Pop Clips," which Time-Warner aired on the Nickelodeon
Channel as a test. It was an instant success, and the MTV Network was
developed from it. He also branched into TV and film production, with such
works as 'Elephant Parts' (1981), 'Timerider' (1983), 'Repo Man' (1984),
'Square Dance,' and 'Tapeheads,' as well as several TV specials. Nesmith
also continued to make records on a sporadic basis--13 solo albums in
total. He reunited with Red Rhodes in 1992 and a Latin-flavored masterpiece
called "Tropical Campfires". He was nominated for a Grammy for his 1994
album "The Garden". He reunited with the Monkees in 1996 for the "Justus"
album. In 1997 he wrote and directed an ABC television Monkees special. In
1998 St. Martins Press published his first novel, "The Long Sandy Hair of
Neftoon Zamora". In 2005 he finished his second novel, "The America Gene".
He also started a small video game development company called Zoomo
Productions, based in Monterey, California.
