For decades, Mike Nesmith’s relationship with The Monkees, the band and television show that made him a household name, was fraught with tension, creative friction, and a lingering desire for distance.
Nesmith brought undeniable musical chops to a band created for television, only to spend the years following their split carving out a legendary career as a pioneer of country-rock. While his bandmates periodically reunited to relive the magic of Monkeemania, Nesmith largely kept a distance.
The entertainer ended his run with the pre-fab four in April 1970. He told the Arizona Republic that the band, including himself, Peter Tork, Mickey Dolenz, and Davy Jones, was “tired.”
“We all were — very tired — and the show was starting to repeat itself. Things like the Monkees show have a specific lifetime, and when it’s through, it is through, left for history to assess. It does not however, ever, die,” he explained.
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Following his Monkees’ success, Nesmith formed The First National Band for a trio of albums, including Magnetic South, Loose Salute, and Nevada Fighter, all recorded in the span of two years. Magnetic South‘s single “Joanne” peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Nesmith said those songs, “play out in my life the way any early work persists and nourishes the way they nourish. The First National Band was to be my private yacht to take me to shore. It still serves that purpose.”
Following the First National Band’s end, Nesmith left the traditional record label system behind entirely. He pioneered the home video market with his production company Pacific Arts and won the very first Grammy Award for Video of the Year in 1982. Yet no matter how far his eclectic career took him, the pull of his early music never truly faded.
When Nesmith ultimately chose to rejoin his bandmates for a series of deeply moving late-career tours, fans received something far more special than a trip down memory lane. They got to witness a beloved icon proudly embrace the music and the memories.
In September 1986, almost 17 years after he walked away from the band, Nesmith joined Tork, Jones and Dolenz on stage at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. He formally rejoined The Monkees to record the LP Justus, which featured all four original members, and together they briefly toured the UK in 1997.
In 2012, following the death of Davy Jones, Nesmith toured the US with Micky and Tork. He subsequently toured with Dolenz in 2016 and from 2018 through 2021.
He told the Arizona Republic in 2018, “I enjoy the Monkees and the music and working with the other three guys. The Monkees are mostly the same from iteration to iteration, so there is not a lot of exploring. Without the TV show we don’t have a straight and level foundation, which makes projects like this not that easy to build or to produce as a show. With Mike and Micky we can do what we please while holding the Monkees carefully in hand.”
Mike Nesmith had just wrapped a tour with Dolenz in November 2021 when, less than a month later, he died on December 10. He was 78.
Related: 56 Years Later, Mike Nesmith’s 1970 First National Band Trilogy Remains Country Rock’s Greatest Hidden Gem
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