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"The Monkees were now an established worldwide junior showbiz sensation, a nicely calculated financial operation turning a pretty penny while the press was busy making a dog's breakfast out of the trumped-up beauty contest: Monkees vs. Beatles. Formed by some very sharp Hollywood types, the Monkees foursome now had a place in the sun; their rejection by 'hip' America and Europe
notwithstanding, their records were making a fortune and the television show a smash hit. Mike Nesmith, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Davy Jones (three Americans and an Englishman) had been chosen out of hundreds of aspirants (including Stephen Stills and Charles Manson) to be 'American Beatles' and 'clown around by numbers' on television, singing songs carefully drafted for chart success.
The Monkees always seemed to me to be a perfectly legitimate exercise in showbusiness, and I always said so - to support the 'boys' themselves and to annoy the puritans. I still believe that. The Beatles themselves were always happy to acknowledge the Monkees, and Paul invited Mickey Dolenz, the drummer, around to his house to underline the point - an overture heralded in the press: 'Beatle Paul welcomes Monkee Mickey to St. John's Wood home.' For a
while it was only the uptights who, as usual, took offense at this manufactured group. Then the four Monkees, themselves unhappy at not having been allowed to play on early records, started to demand real musical status within their recording arrangements.
In an article I wrote I insisted: 'Let's hear no more of this Monkees vs. Beatles rubbish....Let us say the Monkees are OK and valid and real and good and honest and hopeful. Let us welcome them to "the Scene". Let us enjoy them. Let us pray that they enjoy themselves for I hear that there are times when they do not enjoy being Monkees.'"
"The Monkees? In hippie terms seemed like an impossibility to include the Monkees, but in a really balanced pop festival they would have been there. They had it all: inwardly, they were quite as 'hip' as anyone else, some of them just as interested in expanding their minds as the next acidhead. As for acid cred, Mickey Dolenz
had genuine ancestral links with American Indians. Indeed, he was at the festival for all three days, dressed without embarassment as a cheif in full headdress. Joan and I had become friendly with Peter Tork, who was quite a flower child, and I invited him to write a piece for the souvenir magazine. (I had to cut it for lack of space, and
he hasen't spoken to me since.) He was also encouraged by Lou Adler to MC one of the concerts. The Monkees could, by June 1967, all play in concert very well (and would later that year tour with, incredibly, Jimi Hendrix) and were working with Jack Nicholson (a huge upcoming hero of the counter-culture) in his role as a writer of their feature film. But there was never any question of their performing at Monterey. Were they any less appropriate than
Lou Rawls or Johnny Rivers, who did appear - never mind some hipster's doubts - did well? No. But it is, alas, always the case that fears of not seeming to have whatever cred is currently the fashion can make yellow-bellies of most people (most, but not all).
Derek Taylor was the publicist for The Beatles in their first few years before becoming the publicist for The Byrds and a number of other L.A groups. He also played a major role in putting together The "Monterey Pop Festival." Taylor passed away a couple years ago. |