The Monkees

No rating, not touring  The Monkees were a pop rock quartet assembled by Robert “Bob” Rafelson and Bert Schneider in Los Angeles in 1966 for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, and so were primarily in acting roles. The members were Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Englishman Davy Jones, who were supervised and popularized by Don Kirshner. At the time of the band’s formation, its producers saw The Monkees as a Beatles-like band. At the start, the band members provided vocals, and were given some performing and production opportunities, but they eventually fought for and earned the right to collectively supervise all musical output under the band’s name. The group undertook several concert tours, allowing an opportunity to perform as a live band as well as on the TV series. Although the show was canceled in 1968, the band continued releasing records until 1970. In the 1980s, the television show and music experienced a revival, which led to a series of reunion tours, and new records featuring various incarnations of the band’s lineup. Aspiring filmmakers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider were inspired by the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night to develop a television series about a fictional rock ‘n’ roll group. The duo, jointly calling their firm “Raybert Productions”, sold the idea to Screen Gems television and in September, 1965, Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter ran an ad seeking “Folk & Roll Musicians-Singers for acting roles in new TV series”. As many as 400 hopefuls showed up to be considered as one of the “four insane boys” who would be the stars of the show. From this pool, four were chosen to become the fictional band The Monkees. George Michael “Micky” Dolenz had been the 10-year-old star of the Circus Boy series in the 1950s, during which time he had used the stage name “Micky Braddock”, and was a working actor. He found out about The Monkees through his agent. Englishman Davy Jones had achieved some initial success on the musical stage. Already recording for the Colpix record label and already under contract at Columbia/Screen Gems, he had been identified in advance as a potential star for the TV series. Indeed, he later acknowledged that The Monkees was initially created primarily around him, even with its linkages to A Hard Day’s Night. Texan Robert Michael “Mike” Nesmith was a songwriter and guitarist who had recorded for Colpix under the name “Michael Blessing”. He was the only Monkee who had come in to audition from seeing the original advertisement. He repeatedly denied having been the only musician in the team or, for that matter, much of a musician. Peter Tork, whose real name was Peter Halsten Thorkelson, was recommended to Rafelson and Schneider by friend Stephen Stills. Tork, a skilled multi-instrumentalist, had performed at various Greenwich Village folk clubs before moving west, where he was a dishwasher before becoming a Monkee. Nesmith subsequently called Tork a better musician, by several orders of magnitude, than Nesmith himself was. Several hundred other actors and musicians auditioned for the roles. Among those who were turned down were Stills, Bobby Pickett (at 27 deemed “too old”), Gary Lewis, brothers Matt and Mark Andes (later of Spirit and Heart), and Van Dyke Parks. Years later, an urban legend would arise that Charles Manson also auditioned, but this was impossible, as he was in Federal prison in Washington state at the time. When first creating their pitch for the show, Rafelson and Schneider wanted to cast an actual Los Angeles-based folk rock group, the Lovin’ Spoonful. However, they were already contracted to a record label, which would have denied Screen Gems the right to market records under their own label imprint, Screen Gems. Source and more information: Wikipedia