Monkees
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Line-Up: America's answer to the FAB FOUR, the PREFAB FOUR +++ A classic case of how to form and "sell" a pop group +++ In 1965, producers Robert Rafelson and Bert Schneider, picked the group members out of a pile of 437 musicians, all answering to an ad in trade papers looking for "insane boys", for a TV comedy series (rejecting young Stephen Still in the process) +++ After 3 months of hard musical training, in October 1966, the Monkees had their first US hit, "Last Train To Clarksville", helped to quite an extent by their own TV-show +++ Their first LP (see picture on the left) sold more than 3 million copies in the first three months and managed to stay 13 weeks at the top of the LP charts in 1966 +++ The next two years, several other hits climbed to the TOP 10 of the US charts and other charts worldwide, including "I'm A Believer", "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You", "Daydream Believer", "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and "Valleri" +++ A lot of the Monkees' material was written by the best songwriters and composers of the time, incl. Carole King, Neil Diamond and Neil Sedaka +++ The Monkees Craze went on for some time, especially in the US and Great Britain +++ In 1970 and 1971, first Michael Nesmith (moderate success with "Joanne"), and then Davy Jones started to record on their own +++ Dolenz and Jones reappeard shortly for some tours during the 70's, teaming up with Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart +++ The group reunited during the 90's for a number of concerts, however, without any further chart success +++ |
