Michael Nesmith, Monkees Singer-Songwriter, Dead at 78
Source: Rolling Stone
Monkees singer and guitarist Michael Nesmith, a pop visionary who penned many of the group’s most enduring songs before laying the groundwork for country-rock with the First National Band in the early Seventies, died Friday from natural causes. He was 78.
“With Infinite Love we announce that Michael Nesmith has passed away this morning in his home, surrounded by family, peacefully and of natural causes,” his family said in a statement. “We ask that you respect our privacy at this time and we thank you for the love and light that all of you have shown him and us.”
Nesmith was known as the Monkee in the green wool hat with the thick Texas drawl, and the writer of songs like “Mary, Mary,” “Circle Sky,” “Listen to the Band,” and “The Girl I Knew Somewhere.” But he raged behind the scenes that the group didn’t have creative control of their albums, and in 1967 led the successful rebellion against record producer Don Kirshner. The group would subsequently release Headquarters and other albums they created largely on their own.
In a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone, Nesmith explained why he was so adamant that the Monkees write and record their own material despite the huge success they were enjoying at the time. “We were kids with our own taste in music and were happier performing songs we liked – and/or wrote – than songs that were handed to us,” he said. “It made for a better performance. It was more fun. That this became a bone of contention seemed strange to me, and I think to some extent to each of us – sort of “what’s the big deal – why wont you let us play the songs we are singing?”
Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/monkees-michael-nesmith-dead-1270079/
= new reply since forum marked as read
I have been listening to SiriusXM's "Holiday Classics" station the past couple weeks and they have included the Monkees' version of "Snowfall".
I sortof thought of him as the "John Lennon" of the group.
R.I.P.
Definitely the most talented one in the group.
