Michael Nesmith, singer and guitarist of the pop group Los Monkees, died this Friday at the age of 78, his family announced in a statement. The Monkees, a pop group born in the 1960s in the United States, rose to fame with hits such as I’m a Believer, Daydream Believer, She or Last Train to Clarkville. Nesmith wrote songs like Listen To The Band, Sunny Girlfriend and Tapioca Tundra.
“With infinite love we announce that Michael Nesmith died this morning at home, surrounded by his family, in peace and due to natural causes,” explains the family in the note that has been sent to the media. “We ask that this time for privacy be respected and we thank you for the love that all of you have shown that you felt for him and for us,” he adds. Nesmith, who had been on tour last month, has died of heart failure at his Carmel Valley, California home.
The Monkees were born in the 1960s on an American television program that had many doses of comedy – they were selected from hundreds of candidates – and rose to fame with songs that had been written for them by several of the most popular musicians and songwriters. prominent United States at that time, such as Neil Diamond or Neil Sedaka. The television program was also a kind of response in the United States to The Beatles, who accumulated their first great successes at that time. Despite the obvious overlaps that The Monkees had with the Liverpool group, the show became a hit.
Nesmith and his colleagues — Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Brit Davy Jones — wanted to be in control of their music, that is, to compose their own songs. Little by little they succeeded, with songs written by themselves on some of their albums, as is the case with Headquarters, an album released in 1967. In an interview with the magazine Rolling stone In 2012, Nesmith summed up: “We were happier performing songs that we liked or wrote than songs that were delivered to us.”
All the culture that goes with you awaits you here.
Subscribe
The Monkees disbanded in 1969, after which Nesmith began his solo career, in which he came to be considered one of the forerunners of the movement. country rock, with several solo albums released. Nesmith, who also wrote the theme Different Drum, which became a huge country hit for singer Linda Ronstadt, returned to The Monkees in 1996 – she didn’t take part in the ’80s tours, when the group reunited for the first time – but it wasn’t until 2012 that she returned. definitively to the group after the death of one of its members, Davy Jones, and the tour they organized after his death.
The Monkees toured with Nesmith earlier this year. In fact, his last performance was on November 14 at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles.
#Michael #Nesmith #singer #guitarist #Monkees #dies