The Monkees

The Monkees are an American rock band that released music in their original incarnation between 1965 and 1971, with subsequent reunion albums and tours in the decades that followed. They were formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968. The musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork and Englishman Davy Jones. The band's music was initially supervised by producer Don Kirshner.

Dolenz described the Monkees as initially being "a TV show about an imaginary band ... that wanted to be the Beatles, [but] that was never successful". The actor-musicians, however, soon became a real band.

For the first few months of their initial five-year career as the Monkees, the four actor-musicians were allowed only limited roles in the recording studio. This was due in part to the amount of time required to film the television series. Nonetheless, Nesmith did compose and produce some songs from the beginning, and Peter Tork contributed limited guitar work on the sessions produced by Nesmith. They eventually fought for and earned the right to collectively supervise all musical output under the band's name. The sitcom was canceled in 1968, but the band continued to record music through 1971.

The Monkees (TV series)

The Monkees is an American situation comedy that aired on NBC from September 1966 to March 1968. The series follows the adventures of four young men (the Monkees) trying to make a name for themselves as rock 'n roll singers. The show introduced a number of innovative new-wave film techniques to series television and won two Emmy Awards in 1967. The program ended on Labor Day 1968 at the finish of its second season and has received a long afterlife in Saturday morning repeats (CBS and ABC) and syndication, as well as overseas broadcasts.

Overview

The series centered on the adventures of The Monkees, a struggling rock band from Los Angeles, California consisting of Micky, Davy, Michael, and Peter. The comic elements of the storyline were provided by the strange encounters that the band would have while searching for their big break.

Production

Conception and casting

In the early 1960s, aspiring filmmakers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider had formed Raybert Productions and were trying to get a foot in the door in Hollywood. Inspired by the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night, the duo decided to develop a television series about a fictional rock 'n' roll group. In April, 1965, Raybert sold the series idea to Screen Gems, and by August, a pilot script titled "The Monkeys" was completed by Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker. Rafelson has said that he had the idea for a TV series about a music group as early as 1960, but had a hard time interesting anyone in it until 1965, by which time rock and roll music was firmly entrenched in pop culture.

The Monkees (album)

The Monkees is the first album by the band The Monkees. It was released in October 1966 by Colgems Records in the United States and RCA Victor in the rest of the world. It was the first of four consecutive U.S. number one albums for the group, taking the top spot on the Billboard 200 for 13 weeks, after which it was displaced by the band's second album. It also topped the UK charts in 1967. The Monkees has been certified quintuple platinum by the RIAA, with sales of over five million copies.

The song "Last Train to Clarksville" was released as a single shortly before the release of the album and went to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was the only hit single from the album. "I'll Be True to You" was previously released as a single by The Hollies in January 1965 under the title "Yes I Will".

History

Recording

The album was recorded in several separate sessions around Los Angeles from July 5-25, 1966. The earliest sessions were produced by the trio of Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart and Jack Keller, while later sessions were produced by the team of Boyce and Hart. Michael Nesmith also produced two sessions scheduled around the work done by Boyce, Hart and Keller.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is a Christmas carol that first appeared in 1739 in the collection Hymns and Sacred Poems, having been written by Charles Wesley. Wesley had requested and received slow and solemn music for his lyrics, not the joyful tune expected today. Moreover, Wesley's original opening couplet is "Hark! how all the welkin rings / Glory to the King of Kings".

The popular version is the result of alterations by various hands, notably by Wesley's co-worker George Whitefield who changed the opening couplet to the familiar one, and by Felix Mendelssohn. In 1840, a hundred years after the publication of Hymns and Sacred Poems, Mendelssohn composed a cantata to commemorate Johann Gutenberg's invention of the printing press, and it is music from this cantata, adapted by the English musician William H. Cummings to fit the lyrics of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, that propels the carol known today.

Textual history

The original hymn was composed as a "Hymn for Christmas-Day" by Charles Wesley, included in the 1739 John Wesley collection Hymns and Sacred Poems. Wesley's original hymn began with the opening line "Hark how all the Welkin rings." This was changed to the familiar "Hark! the Herald Angels sing" by George Whitefield in his 1754 Collection of hymns for social worship. A second change was made in the 1782 publication of the Tate and Brady New version of the Psalms of David.