Monkees, the

▪ American music group

      American pop-rock group created as a made-for-television answer to the Beatles (Beatles, the) in the mid-1960s. The members were Micky Dolenz (byname of George Michael Dolenz; b. March 8, 1945, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.), Davy Jones (byname of David Jones; b. Dec. 30, 1945, Manchester, Eng.), Mike Nesmith (byname of Robert Michael Nesmith; b. Dec. 30, 1942, Houston, Texas, U.S.), and Peter Tork (byname of Peter Thorkelson; b. Feb. 13, 1942, Washington, D.C., U.S.).

       Motown's special case aside, the Monkees may have been the ultimate refutation of the 1960s rock audience's folk-derived precepts of authenticity. When the quartet was picked from more than 400 audition applicants to play frolicsome ersatz Fab Four in an American television series (The Monkees) broadcast from 1966 to 1968, only folk rocker Nesmith, who had some ability as a songwriter, and sometime folksinger Tork, who had a nice smile, could claim musical experience. Jones, the diminutive token Britisher who did double duty as “the cute one,” was an ex-jockey but had been nominated for a Tony Award as best supporting actor in 1963 for Oliver!. Dolenz was a former child actor who had starred in the late 1950s television series Circus Boy. Anonymous studio musicians supplied the backing on the “group's” records until the foursome, hoping to gain respectability, pushed for and got autonomy (including the opportunity to actually play their instruments) on the third Monkees album, Headquarters (1967).

      However synthetic the premise or cynical the inspiration, their rich crop of Top 40 singles written to order by crack tunesmiths (including the teams of Gerry Goffin–Carole King and Tommy Boyce–Bobby Hart) remains 1960s pop at its tunefully rambunctious best, with the Neil Diamond-written, Dolenz-sung “I'm a Believer” standing as the group's—certainly Dolenz's and quite possibly Diamond's—finest hour. Since the late 1980s Dolenz, Jones, and Tork, occasionally joined by Nesmith but more often not, have periodically cashed in on baby boomer nostalgia via tours, sporadic TV ventures, and a 1996 reunion album, with predictably negligible if also irrelevant artistic results.

Tom Carson

 

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