The Monkees-medlemmen Michael Nesmith är död

The Monkees were an American rock and pop band originally active between 1966 and 1970, with reunion albums and tours in the decades that followed. Their original line-up consisted of the American actor/musicians Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork with English actor/singer Davy Jones. The group was conceived in 1965 by television producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider specifically for the situation comedy series of the same name, which aired from 1966 to 1968. Music credited to the band was also released on LP, as well as being included in the show. While the sitcom was a mostly straight-forward affair, the music production quickly generated tension and controversy. The band's music was initially supervised by record producer Don Kirshner, backed by the songwriting duo of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. Kirshner viewed the actor/musicians as having questionable commercial viability and limited their involvement during the recording process, though all four members contributed lead vocals to various tracks. As the band members became dissatisfied with the arrangement as well as facing public backlash for not playing on the recordings, they began to push for more production input. Within a year, they had gained full control over the recording process, and producer Chip Douglas was brought in to help shape their third album, Headquarters, which featured the band playing most of the instruments, with only the aid of Douglas and few other players. The follow-up album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., used session musicians to a greater extent, and The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (their first album not to reach #1 on the charts) saw the Monkees dropping Douglas as producer and no longer recording as a unit at all, each member instead seeking to pursue his own musical interests. By then, no one was interested in continuing the television series, and it was cancelled after its second season. Their commercial film, Head, flopped along with its soundtrack album in 1968, and Tork left the band soon after, alleging exhaustion. The trio of Dolenz, Jones and Nesmith released two more albums and toured until Nesmith's exit, in 1970, to focus on his own solo project. Dolenz and Jones recorded one more album before breaking up later that year. Over the next several years, Dolenz and Jones and occasionally Tork participated in unofficial reunions, until a revival of interest in the television show came in 1986. This led to a series of official reunion tours (with different line-ups but always comprising Micky Dolenz and at least one of the other original members) and ultimately four new full-length records. 1987's Pool It! continued the tradition of limited involvement by the band members on studio albums, but less than a decade later Justus became the first and only Monkees album containing no involvement by outside musicians or producers. Despite Jones' death in 2012, use of archival vocal work allowed all four Monkees to appear on the final two Monkees studio albums, as 2016 saw the album Good Times! released to positive reviews, and 2018's Christmas Party closed out the Monkees studio catalog. With Tork's death in 2019, Dolenz and Nesmith were left to embark on a farewell tour in 2021. Nesmith died in December 2021, leaving Dolenz the only surviving member.Dolenz described The Monkees as initially being "a TV show about an imaginary band ... that wanted to be the Beatles that was never successful". Ironically, the success of the show led to the actor-musicians becoming one of the most successful bands of the 1960s. The Monkees have sold more than 75 million records worldwide making them one of the biggest-selling groups of all time with international hits, including "Last Train to Clarksville", "I'm a Believer", "Pleasant Valley Sunday", and "Daydream Believer", and four chart-topping albums. Newspapers and magazines reported that the Monkees outsold the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined in 1967, but Nesmith admitted in his autobiography Infinite Tuesday that it was a lie that he told a reporter.