Colgems 101
Producers: Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart, Keller, Michael Nesmith
Track listing: (Theme from) The Monkees / Saturday’s Child / I Wanna Be Free / Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day / Papa Gene’s Blues / Take a Giant Step / Last Train to Clarksville / This Just Doesn’t Seem to Be My Day / Let’s Dance On / I’ll Be True to You / Sweet Young Thing / Gonna Buy Me a Dog
November 12, 1966
13 weeks
The Monkees, a half-hour situation comedy inspired by the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, made its television debut in September 1966, but by then, the fictitious a put together for the TV show was already on its way to becoming a reality. “After the pilot was sold, we went into frantic and intense rehearsals,” says Micky Dolenz. “I had to learn how to the drums. I was a guitar player at the time, but they cast me as the drummer.”
Dolenz was one of more than 400 people who answered an ad in Daily Variety that read, “Madness!! Auditions. Folk and Rock Musicians-Singers for Acting Roles in a New TV Series. Running parts for four insane boys, age 17-21.” The others cast for the show along with Dolenz were Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davy Jones. (Among those auditioned but didn’t get the part Stephen Stills.)
Although the Monkees weren’t actually a performing band, they would nonetheless have own material and records: The TV show’s producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson turned to music publisher Don Kirshner for songwriters and producers for the new “band,” and the Monkees’ records would be released on Colgems, a new label started by Screen Gems, the Columbia Pictures company that produced the series.
Eventually, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were chosen to produce and write material for the Monkees, but not all the band members made it to the sessions.
“Mike Nesmith had already been writing a lot of tunes and he was in quite frequently, as was Peter, who was a rather accomplished musician,” says Dolenz. At the time, Jones didn’t play an instrument and Dolenz was still trying to master the drums, so a number of studio players, such as Glen Campbell, Leon Russell, and Hal Blaine were called in to play on the tracks.
“Everything was basically treated as a single,” says Dolenz. “The producers were going to their stable of hit writers, which included Carole King, David Gates, and Neil Diamond.”
Although the hit material was important to the Monkees, the success of the group of TV actors as an actual recording act came as a surprise. “The Monkees was a television show about a rock ‘n’ roll group. The fact that we became a group, we went on the road, did all the concerts, and recorded all the music was the equivalent of Leonard Nimoy becoming a Vulcan,” says Dolenz.
Yet the Monkees’ career as a recording act began even before the show debuted. “Last Train to Clarksville” was released on August 16, 1966. “By the time the show premiered, it was on the Hot 100. “It was a radio hit with massive promotion behind it,” says Dolenz. “A lot of people had a vested interest in The Monkees and made sure it was a hit.”
On November 5, the song, penned by Boyce and Hart, went to Number One. A week later, The Monkees hit the summit in its sixth week on the Top LP’s chart. Monkeemania was in full effect as the TV show “band” had been transformed into a legitimate chart-topping force.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of November 12, 1966
1. The Monkees, The Monkees
2. Dr. Zhivago, Soundtrack
3. Supremes a Go-Go, The Supremes
4. The Mamas and the Papas, The Mamas and the Papas
5. What Now My Love, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass