hey I'm Peter Tork endearingly offbeat
bassist and singer in the Monkees dies
at 77 Peter Tork a blues and folk
musician who became a teenybopper
sensation as a member of the Monkees the
wisecracking
made-for-tv pop group that imitated and
briefly outsold the Beatles died
February 21st he was 77 his death was
confirmed by his sister Ann Thorkelson
who did not say where or how he died
Tork was diagnosed with adenoids cystic
carcinoma a rare cancer affecting his
tongue in 2009
if the Monkees were a manufactured
version of the Beatles a prefab four who
auditioned for a rock and roll sitcom
and were selected more for their
long-haired good looks than their
musical abilities torque was the group's
Ringo its lovably goofy supporting
player on television he performed as a
self-described dummy of the group
drawing on a persona he developed while
working as a folk musician in Greenwich
Village where he flashed a confused
smile whenever his stage banter fell
flat off-screen he embraced the Summer
of Love
donning moccasins and loved beads and
declaring that nonverbal extrasensory
communication is at hand and that
dogmatism is leaving the scene a
versatile multi-instrumentalist Tork
mostly played bass and keyboard for the
Monkees in addition to singing led on
tracks including long title do I have to
do this all over again which he wrote
for the group's
psychedelic 1968 movie head and your
auntie Griselda at age 24 he was also
the band's oldest member when the
Monkees premiered on NBC in 1966 not
that it mattered the emotional age of
all of us he told the New York Times
that year is 13 created by producers Bob
Rafelson and Bert Schneider the Monkees
was designed to replicate the success of
a hard day's night and help director
Richard Lester's musical comedies about
the Beatles the band featured
Tork alongside michael nesmith a
singer-songwriter who played guitar and
former child actors Micky Dolenz and
Davy Jones who played the drums in sang
lead respectively like their British
counterparts the group had a fondness
for mischief resulting in high jinks
involving a magical necklace a monkey's
paw high seas pirates and Texas outlaws
the Monkees ran for only two seasons but
won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy
and spawned a frenzy of merchandising
record sales and world tours that became
known as monkey mania in 1967 according
to one report in The Washington Post The
Monkees sold 35 million albums twice as
many as The Beatles and Rolling Stones
combined on the strength of songs such
as Daydream Believer I'm a believer and
last train to Clarksville which all rose
to number 1 on the Billboard record
chart almost all of their early material
was penned by a stable of vaunted
songwriters that included Carole King
Gerry Goffin Neil Diamond David Gates
Neil Sedaka and Jeff berry but while the
band scored a total of six top 10 songs
and five top 10 albums they engendered
as much critical scorn as commercial
success in one typical review music
critic Richard Goldstein declared the
Monkees are as unoriginal as anything
yet thrust upon us in the name of
popular music detractors pointed to the
fact that the band at least initially
existed only in name while the Monkees
appeared on the cover of their debut
album and were shown performing on TV
their instruments were actually
unplugged the songs were mostly done by
session musicians much to the shock of
tork who recalled walking into the
recording studio in 1966 to help with
the group self-titled debut he was
mortified he later told CBS News to find
that music producer Don Kirshner dubbed
the man with the golden ear didn't want
him around they were doing clarksville
and I wrote a counterpoint I had studied
music mr. torque said and I brought it
to them and they said no no Peter you
don't understand this is the record it's
all done we don't need you after the
release of the band's second album more
of the Monkees 1960
Tork and his bandmates rested control of
the recording process and wrote and
performed most of the songs on records
including headquarters 1967 and Pisces
Aquarius Capricorn and Jones limited
1967 they also started touring playing
to sold-out Stadium crowds and backed by
opening acts that briefly included
guitarist Jimi Hendrix
but as torx musical ambitions grew
leading him to envision the Monkees as a
genuinely great group of rockers he
began to clash with bandmates who saw
the Monkees as more of a novelty act he
left the group soon after the release of
head a satirical nearly plot free film
flop that featured a screenplay
co-written by actor Jack Nicholson Tork
seemed to have taken his cue from
musician Frank Zappa who made a cameo in
the movie telling Jones character that
the Monkees should spend more time on
their music because the youth of America
depends on you to show the way for much
of the 1970s
Tork struggled to find his own way he
formed an unsuccessful band called
release was imprisoned for several
months in 1972 after being caught with
three dollars worth of hashish in my
pocket and worked as a high school
teacher and singing waiter as his
Monkees wealth dried up he also said he
struggled with alcohol addiction I was
awful when I was drinking snarling at
people he told the Daily Mail before
quitting alcohol in the early 1980s by
then television reruns and album
reissues had fueled a resurgence of
interest in the Monkees and torque had
come around to what he described as the
essential nature of the music group
which he joined four major reunion tours
about once each decade beginning in the
mid 80s in addition to performing as a
solo artist this is not a band it's an
entertainment operation whose function
as monkey music
he told Britain's Telegraph newspaper
during a Monkees tour in 2016 it took me
a while to get to grips with that but
what great music it turned out to be and
what a wild and wonderful trip it has
taken us on he was born Peter Halston
Thorkelson in Washington DC on February
13 1942 his mother was a homemaker and
his father an Army officer who served in
the
military government in Berlin after
World War Two was an economics professor
who joined the University of Connecticut
in 1950 leading the family to settle in
the town of Mansfield both parents
collected folk records and bought him a
guitar and banjo when he was a boy Peter
went on to take piano lessons and
studied French horn at Carleton College
in Northfield Minnesota where he
reportedly flunked out twice before
settling in New York City at coffee
shops and makeshift folk music venues he
performed with the shortened last name
torque which had been emblazoned on one
of his father's hand-me-down sweatshirts
according to the Los Angeles Times
torque played with guitarist Stephen
Stills before moving to Long Beach
California in 1965 stills moved west as
well and auditioned for the Monkees
after the show's producers placed an
advertisement in variety calling for
four insane boys ages 17 to 21
when stills didn't get the part
purportedly on account of his bad teeth
he suggested that Tork audition I went
yeah sure thanks for the call and hung
up Tork later told the Los Angeles Times
then he called me a few days later
finally persuading Tork to try out he
later appeared in episodes of television
shows such as Boy Meets World playing
the love interest to pangas guitar
strumming father and in recent years
performed with a band called shoe suede
blues torque also released a
well-received 1994 solo album stranger
things have happened and partnered with
folk singer James Lee Stanley for
several records torx marriages to Jody
Babb Raine Stewart and Barbara Eno Lee
ended in divorce
survivors include his wife Pamela grapes
a daughter
Hallie from his second marriage a son
Ivan from his third marriage a daughter
Erika from a relationship with Tammy
szustak a brother and a sister
many of the Monkees reunion tours were
conducted without Nesmith who inherited
a fortune from his mother the inventor
of liquid paper and largely dropped out
of public view after the band first
split up
Nesmith returned to performances after
the death of Jones the Monkees singer in
2012 which helps for a fiftieth
anniversary
reunion tour and album good times four
years later
and while the Monkees were dogged by
reports of squabbling and frequent
tensions torque was once head-butted by
Jones and said he dropped out of a 2001
tour because he had a meltdown and
behaved inappropriately torque insisted
that they were at their best when they
were together their musical chemistry
was special
he said even if it was the result of a
few producers looking to cast a few
handsome men for a television show I
refute any claims that any four guys
could have done what we did he told
Guitar World in 2013 there was a magic
to that collection we couldn't have
chosen each other it wouldn't have flown
but under the circumstances they got the
right guys mistaken
people hey I'm monkey
you
