Neil Leslie Diamond was born January 24, 1941, in Brooklyn, New York, the first of two sons born to Akeeba Diamond (known as Kieve), who operated and owned a series of dry goods stores in the New York City borough, and Rose (Rapoport) Diamond. Except for two years in the mid-'40s that the family spent in Wyoming while Akeeba Diamond served in the military, Diamond grew up in Brooklyn, albeit in changing locations as his father moved from store to store; he later claimed to have attended nine different schools and to have suffered socially as a result. He showed an early interest in music and took up singing and playing the guitar after seeing Pete Seeger perform at a camp he was attending as a teenager. In June 1958, he graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School, and that fall he enrolled at New York University, where he had won a fencing scholarship, as a premed student.
But he seems to have spent much of his time writing songs and trying to place them at music publishing companies. He also formed a duo with Jack Packer, a friend of his younger brother's, and as Neil & Jack they signed a publishing contract with Allied Entertainment Corporation of America and a recording contract with its subsidiary, Duel Records. This resulted in the release of two singles, "You Are My Love"/"What Will I Do" in 1960 and "I'm Afraid"/"Till You've Tried Love" in 1961, Diamond's first commercially released recordings. (In 1996, he reissued "What Will I Do" on his box set In My Lifetime.) The discs were not successful, and Neil & Jack broke up when Packer enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music in January 1961. Diamond, meanwhile, had stopped attending NYU in 1960, but in 1961 he enrolled in the university's School of Commerce, where he maintained his student status until 1965. (Although many accounts of his life repeat the erroneous story that he dropped out of NYU in 1962 just short of earning an undergraduate degree, biographer Rich Wiseman learned the truth by consulting the university's records.)On his own, Diamond continued trying to break into the music business as a songwriter. In 1962, he briefly had a deal at Sunbeam Music, which published some of his songs, followed by a stint at Roosevelt Music. While he was there, an assignment came in from Dot Records to submit a follow-up toPat Boone's novelty hit "Speedy Gonzales." Ten of the firm's writers eventually collaborated on a song, appropriately called "Ten Lonely Guys," which Boone recorded, and which reached number 45 in the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1962. Diamond, one of the ten, was credited under the pseudonym Mark Lewis, but this was his first appearance in the charts. Also in 1962, his composition "Santa Santa" was recorded by the Rocky Fellers and released by Scepter Records. But his next career development involved his own performing. In early 1963, he was signed to a singles deal by Columbia Records, and on January 24th, his 22nd birthday, had his first solo recording session, followed by a second session three months later. The results emerged on July 2 as Columbia single 42809, "Clown Town"/"At Night," his first solo release. Unfortunately, the record flopped, and he was dropped by the label.
Recently married to schoolteacher Jay Posner (with whom he had two daughters), Diamond kept plugging away, even opening his own tiny office above the jazz club Birdland in midtown Manhattan. In early 1965, his song "Just Another Guy" was recorded in the U.K. by Cliff Richard and placed on the B-side of the number one single "The Minute You're Gone," released on the British Columbia label. In February 1965, he met the successful writers and producers Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who took an interest in him and got him signed to songwriter/producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's Trio Music publishing company for three months. This association was over by the time Leiber and Stollerhad one of their clients, Jay & the Americans, record "Sunday and Me," a song Diamond had written at Trio. Released as a single in the fall of 1965, the song peaked at number 18 in December, giving him his first real hit as a songwriter.
By then, he had made other progress in his career. On June 25, he signed a deal with Barry and Greenwich for publishing and recording, the three forming Tallyrand Music with Diamond as president. (This appears to have prompted his decision finally to drop out of NYU.) Tallyrand shopped bothDiamond's songs and Diamond as a recording artist, and on January 6, 1966, it signed a contract with WEB IV, the company controlling the independent Bang Records label. Soon after, Diamond was back in a recording studio, and on April 4, Bang released his label debut single, "Solitary Man," produced, as all his subsequent Bang discs would be, by Barry and Greenwich. "Solitary Man" gave him his first chart entry as a recording artist, peaking at number 55 on the Hot 100 in July.
Diamond quickly followed "Solitary Man" with his second Bang single, "Cherry, Cherry," released in July 1966, which gave him his first substantial hit, peaking at number six in October. The single's B-side, "I'll Come Running," was covered by Cliff Richard, who scored a Top 40 hit with it in 1967. When song publisher Don Kirshner heard "Cherry, Cherry," he called Diamond into his office and asked if the songwriter had a similarly upbeat tune that could be used by the Monkees, a group put together for an upcoming TV series. Diamond played him "I'm a Believer," a song intended for his debut album.Kirshner liked it, and Diamond, Barry, and Greenwich recorded a backing track that Kirshner took to California and had the Monkees sing over. By the time "I'm a Believer" was released as the Monkees' second single in the fall of 1966, the group was a teenybopper phenomenon, and the disc had advance orders of over one million copies. It shot to number one, where it stayed seven weeks, becoming the biggest single of 1967.
Diamond's debut LP, The Feel of Neil Diamond, released in August 1966, was a rush job, featuring "Cherry, Cherry" and "Solitary Man" along with his covers of hits like "La Bamba" and "Monday, Monday." It barely charted. Also featured, however, was "I Got the Feelin' (Oh No No)," an original composition that would be his next single in October. It reached number 16 in December, but the 45 was also significant for its Diamond-penned B-side, "The Boat That I Row." British singer Lulu quickly covered the song, and her version became a Top Ten U.K. hit in the spring of 1967.Diamond's fourth Bang single, "You Got to Me," was released in December 1966 and peaked at number 18 in March 1967. In February, his song "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)" was featured on the Monkees' chart-topping second album, More of the Monkees. The following month, "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You," the Diamond-penned follow-up to "I'm a Believer," entered the singles chart for the Monkees; it peaked at number two in April.Also in March, Bang released its fifth Diamond single, "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon," which became his second Top Ten hit in May. In April, Ronnie Dove entered the charts with "My Babe," written and produced for him by Diamond; it peaked at number 50 in May. Bang's sixth Diamond single, "Thank the Lord for the Night Time," appeared in June, peaking at number 13 in August. That month saw the release of Diamond's second LP, Just for You, which peaked at number 80. Diamond's sixth Bang single, "Kentucky Woman," followed in September, and it reached number 22 in November, giving him his sixth consecutive Top 40 hit.
After nearly two years of hit recording and songwriting, Diamond had a falling-out with his producers and his record label. As popular music turned more serious in the late '60s, he became less satisfied writing simple pop songs, and, instead of "Kentucky Woman," he had proposed that his sixth Bang single be "Shilo," an introspective ballad not about the Civil War battle, but about an imaginary childhood friend, that he had written and recorded. Bang, thinking the song less commercial than "Kentucky Woman," used it as an LP track on Just for You instead, and Diamond, who was also dissatisfied with his royalties, found a loophole in his contract, which, it turned out, failed to bind him exclusively to WEB IV and Tallyrand. He therefore declared himself free to sign a recording contract with another company. Soon, lawsuits were flying.
On March 12, 1968, a judge denied WEB IV's request for a temporary injunction preventing Diamond from signing to another record label while his contract dispute was making its way through the courts. It was a key decision; the lawsuits would continue for another nine years until Diamond settled them on February 18, 1977, when he purchased his Bang master recordings. But on March 18, 1968, he signed a five-year contract with Uni Records, a division of the MCA entertainment company. The first product of the deal was another introspective, autobiographical ballad, "Brooklyn Roads," released in April. Diamond followed with the more uptempo "Two-Bit Manchild" that month, but neither that single nor its follow-up, "Sunday Sun," which appeared in September, restored him to the Top 40, and Velvet Gloves and Spit, Diamond's debut album for Uni, failed to chart. Meanwhile, there was more upheaval in his life. Now romantically involved with TV production assistant Marcia Kay Murphey, he left his wife and moved to California. After their divorce was final in November 1969, he married Murphey one month later.Professionally, Diamond tried to stem the tide of his career decline by recording at American Sound Studio in Memphis, beginning on January 8, 1969. Working with producers Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman, he took more of a gospel-tinged, country-rock approach, starting with the single "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show," quickly released as a single, which peaked at number 22 in April, his best chart showing in 18 months. He quickly returned to Memphis and cut an album also called Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show that was released in April and peaked at number 82.
The song that finally sealed Diamond's commercial comeback was his next single, "Sweet Caroline," a catchy tune that peaked at number four in August, the same month it earned a gold record certification for sales of one million singles. Diamond followed "Sweet Caroline" with the gospel-tinged "Holly Holy," released in October 1969, and scored another big hit, the track peaking at number six in December. It was his second gold (and eventually platinum) single, and the song earned a cover by Junior Walker & the All-Stars that made the R&B Top 40 in 1971. The Diamond recording was included in his fifth LP,Touching You Touching Me, released in November 1969; the disc was his most successful so far, peaking at number 30 and going gold in a little over a year.
Meanwhile, Diamond's career resurgence was not going unnoticed at his former label, Bang Records, which hired American Sound Studio musicians to record a new musical track for "Shilo" under Diamond's vocal. With a sound more like his current records, the single reached number 24 in April 1970. Diamond responded by returning to Memphis himself and cutting a new recording of "Shilo," which was added to later editions of Velvet Gloves and Spit. A more ambitious effort was "Soolaimón (African Trilogy II)," released in April, an excerpt from the side-long "folk ballet" of African-styled songs to be featured on his next album, Tap Root Manuscript, in the fall. The single reached number 30 in May. Diamond's next new single, "Cracklin' Rosie" (famously referring to the cheap wine Cracklin' Rosé), appeared in July and became his biggest hit yet, topping the charts in October.
Also released in July 1970 was the live album Gold, which had been recorded in March at the Troubadour nightclub in Los Angeles. Another major commercial success, it peaked at number ten in September. As the result of "Cracklin' Rosie" and Gold, by the fall of 1970 Diamond had graduated to the theater and arena circuit as a live act. For his next single, he made the odd choice of releasing a cover of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," a song that had been a Top Ten hit for the Hollies the previous spring. Competing with Bang's release of the former B-side "Do It," it still managed to peak at number 20 in December and, along with "Soolaimón" and "Cracklin' Rosie," served as a good calling card for Tap Root Manuscript, which appeared in November. Consistent with Diamond's current status, the album peaked at number 13.Reportedly, Diamond worked months on the lyric of his next single, the autobiographical "I Am...I Said," released in March 1971. An impassioned statement of emotional turmoil, the song was very much in tune with the confessional singer/songwriter movement of the time, and it became a major hit, peaking at number four in May, with even its B-side, "Done Too Soon" (previously released on Tap Root Manuscript), earning a chart placing. "I Am...I Said" earned Diamond his first Grammy nomination, for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male. Diamond returned to the record racks in the fall with the ballad "Stones," released in October, followed by an album of the same name in November. The single reached number 14, while the LP stopped just short of the Top Ten and went gold in two months.
Diamond's next album, Moods, was prefaced by another of his standards. "Song Sung Blue," released in April 1972, became his second number one hit on the Hot 100 in July, also becoming his fourth gold single and earning Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. In August, Diamond performed ten shows at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, recording them for a live album. The double-LP set Hot August Night, which appeared in November, cemented his status as a concert attraction by hitting number five and going gold in a month. (It was later certified double platinum.) A single of "Cherry, Cherry" was excerpted from the release and made number 31.Hot August Night marked Diamond's ascension to superstar status, and it also marked the end of a phase of his career. After three weeks of shows at the Winter Garden on Broadway in October, he temporarily retired from live performing. At the same time, he had completed his recording contract, and he signed a new, lucrative one with Columbia Records. His first project for the new label was a song score for the film version of the best-selling novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It was a troubled project, and by the time the movie was released in October 1973, both Diamond and Richard Bach, the book's author, were suing the film producer. Reviews were awful, and the picture bombed. But Diamond's score, released as a solo album by him, was a hit. The single "Be" only grazed the Top 40, yet the LP reached number two in December. It also won Diamond the 1973 Grammy Award for Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or TV Special.
Even after completing Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Diamond continued to stay off the road. He was next heard from in the fall of 1974, when he released his first regular album for Columbia, Serenade, prefaced by the single "Longfellow Serenade," which was his biggest hit since "Song Sung Blue," peaking at number five on the Hot 100 and number one on the AC chart in November. Serenade hit number three in December, another instant gold album that has since gone platinum.
Another year went by before Diamond finally returned to live work, doing a few shakedown shows in California and Utah in late January and early February 1976 before launching a tour of Australia and New Zealand, followed by more dates in the U.S. in the spring. Meanwhile, working with Malibu neighbor Robbie Robertson of the Bandas his producer, he had finished a new album, Beautiful Noise, its songs reflecting back on his early-'60s days in Tin Pan Alley. Leadoff single "If You Know What I Mean," issued in June, reached number 11 on the Hot 100, and the album, which followed a couple of weeks later, hit number four. On July 1, 1976, for a hefty fee, Diamond made his Las Vegas debut at the Aladdin Hotel, though he would avoid the entertainment mecca afterward until well into the '90s. In September, he returned to the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, this time with both cameras and recording equipment in tow. On November 25, 1976, he appeared as one of the special guests at the Band's farewell concert at Winterland in San Francisco, performing the Beautiful Noise track "Dry Your Eyes," which he had co-written with Robertson. The show was filmed and recorded for the 1978 movie and triple-LP set The Last Waltz.
Both of Diamond's albums of 1977 were associated with television specials. First came Love at the Greek, like Hot August Night a two-LP concert set drawn from shows at the Greek Theatre. It appeared in February 1977, two weeks ahead of The Neil Diamond Special, broadcast February 21. The LP reached number eight in April, selling a million copies by July, with another million registered since. Diamond undertook a lengthy tour of Europe in the spring and summer. In November, Diamond was back with a new studio album, I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight, again tied into a TV special. The simultaneously released single "Desirée" went Top 20, while the album reached number six in February 1978, racking up the usual sales number of a million copies with another million to come.
One of the album tracks for I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight was a sad breakup ballad called "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" that Diamond had written for a television pilot about reversed sex roles (hence the novelty of having a man complain about romantic neglect in terms usually used by a woman). Labelmate Barbra Streisand knew a big ballad when she heard one, especially one co-written by her personal lyricists, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and she quickly covered the song, which appeared on her Songbird album in May 1978. A disc jockey, realizing that both Diamond's and Streisand's versions were in the same key, spliced them together and began playing on the air the duet he had created, leading to requests for a record. On October 17, 1978, that desire was satisfied, as the two singers cut a new recording of the song. Credited to "Barbra & Neil," the single was quickly released and soared to number one on the pop charts, eventually earning a platinum certification.
Diamond had been working on an album to be titled after a tune called "The American Popular Song," written by his pianist, Tom Hensley; the LP was to be a collection of covers. The unexpected success of the duet upset these plans, however, and Diamond quickly cobbled together an album for release under the title You Don't Bring Me Flowers, which appeared in November. By the end of January, it peaked at number four, having been certified platinum, with a double platinum award to follow. In February, Columbia released another single from it, the uptempo "Forever in Blue Jeans" (co-written by Richard Bennett), which reached the Top 20.
Diamond collaborated with French singer/songwriter Gilbert Bécaud on the title track of his next album, September Morn, released in December 1979. The single reached the Top 20 of the pop chart, and the album peaked at number ten in February 1980. Any thought that Diamond's popularity might be cooling, however, was belied by his next project. Almost without acting experience, he had nevertheless agreed to star in a second screen remake of The Jazz Singer. The response was very similar to what had greeted Jonathan Livingston Seagull seven years earlier, except that this time Diamond was actually in the picture. Upon release in December 1980, it was panned by critics and became a box office failure. But the Capitol Records soundtrack album, consisting of a Diamond-written and performed song score, was a remarkable hit. "Love on the Rocks" (co-written with Bécaud) came out in advance of the LP, and it peaked at number two in January 1981. By February, the album was up to number three, having already sold a million copies. "Hello Again" (co-written byAlan Lindgren of Diamond's band), the second single, reached number six in March, and the anthemic "America" peaked at number eight (number one AC) in June as the album kept selling. (Eventually, it was certified for sales of five million copies, making it Diamond's most successful LP. It earned him another Grammy nomination in the category of Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or TV Special.)
Diamond picked a good time to reach a career peak: his record contract was up for renewal, and he re-signed to Columbia Records in October 1981 committing himself to ten more albums at a guarantee of $30 million dollars. It was, briefly, the most lucrative record contract in history. At the same time, of course, he had a new Columbia album ready, On the Way to the Sky, advanced by the single "Yesterday's Songs," which topped the AC chart and reached number 11 in the pop chart. The album, however, became his first in ten years to miss the Top Ten, peaking at number 17. The title track, co-written withCarole Bayer Sager, failed to chart as a 45, but a third single, "Be Mine Tonight," made the Top 40. Having worked with Bayer Sager, Diamond now turned to collaborating with both her and her then-husband, Burt Bacharach, a fellow graduate of the Brill Building era, on his next album, Heartlight. The title song, written by the three and inspired by the recently released movie E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, emerged in August 1982 as a single that hit number one in the AC chart and returned Diamond to the pop Top 5.Diamond's record sales slumped somewhat in the 1980s and 1990s, his last single to make the Billboard's Pop Singles chart coming in 1986. However, his concert tours continued to be big draws. Billboard Magazine ranked Diamond as the most profitable solo performer of 1986. In January 1987, Diamond sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. His "America" became the theme song for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign. That same year, UB40's reggae interpretation of Diamond's ballad Red Red Wine would top the Billboard's Pop Singles chart and, like the Monkees' version of "I'm a Believer", become better known than Diamond's original version.
During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classics from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard's Album chart. Keeping his songwriting skills honed, Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus.
The 1990s and 2000s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events, starting with Boston College football and basketball games. Most notably it is the theme song for Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox, although Diamond noted that he has been a lifelong fan of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers.[24] The song is also played during the 8th inning of every New York Mets home game. The New York Rangers have also adapted it as their own, and play it when they are winning at the end of the 3rd period. The Pitt Panthers football team also plays it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers play it at the end of each home game when they win. Urge Overkill recorded a version of Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, released in 1994. In 2000, Johnny Cash recorded the album American III: Solitary Man, and won a Grammy Award for his cover of Solitary Man. Smash Mouth covered Diamond's "I'm a Believer" for their 2001 self-titled album. In the 2001 comedy film Saving Silverman, the main characters play in a Diamond cover band, and Diamond made an extended cameo appearance as himself. Diamond even wrote a new song, "I Believe in Happy Endings", especially for the film. During this period, comedian Will Ferrell did a recurring Diamond impersonation on Saturday Night Live, with Diamond himself appearing alongside Ferrell on Ferrell's final show as a "Not Ready For Prime Time Player" in May 2002. "America" was used in promotional ads for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
The handprints of Neil Diamond in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park]On March 19, 2008, it was announced on the TV show American Idol that Diamond would be a guest mentor to the remaining Idol contestants who would be singing Diamond songs for the broadcasts of April 29 and 30, 2008. on the April 30th broadcast, Diamond premiered a new song, "Pretty Amazing Grace" from his album Home Before Dark.On April 28, 2008, Diamond appeared on the roof of the Jimmy Kimmel building to sing "Sweet Caroline" after Kimmel was jokingly arrested trying to sing the song dressed up as a Diamond impersonator.
Diamond performing at The Roundhouse, London on October 30, 2010Through his Diamond Music Company, Diamond now belongs to that small group of performers whose names are listed as copyright owners on their recordings.In August 2008, Diamond allowed cameras to record his entire four-night run at New York's Madison Square Garden and released it in the United States on August 14, 2009, on DVD, one year to the day of the first concert. Hot August Night/NYC debuted at No. 2 on the charts and is exclusively available at Wal-Mart and has sold out at many locations all over the country. Also, on the same day the DVD was released, CBS (the former parent of his label, Columbia Records) aired an edited version of the DVD, which won the ratings hour with 13 million viewers. The next day, the sales of the DVD surged and prompted Sony to order more copies to meet the high demand.
On September 28, 2010, Diamond was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
On December 14, 2010, it was leaked by numerous sites that Diamond had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with Alice Cooper, Darlene Love, Dr. John, and Tom Waits. The induction ceremony was on March 14, 2011, at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City.
In December 2011, he appeared at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors gala to accept the honor.On August 10, 2012, Diamond received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
On April 20, 2013, Diamond made an unannounced appearance at Fenway Park to sing "Sweet Caroline" during the 8th inning. This was the first game at Fenway since the bombings at the Boston Marathon. On July 2, he released the single "Freedom Song (They'll Never Take Us Down)," with 100% of the purchase price benefiting One Fund Boston and the Wounded Warrior Project.
Sporting a beard, Diamond performed live on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol as part of A Capitol Fourth, which was broadcast nationally by PBS on July 4, 2013.
Decision: Among the most successful songwriters of all time, and over 35 top 40 hits as an artist puts Neil Diamond in the Pop Music HOF..
The Monkees
"Hey hey, we are the Monkees/You know we love to please/A manufactured image/With no philosophies." In 1968, the Monkees addressed their own reputation in the song "Ditty Diego (War Chant)," which summed up the bad rap they'd received in the music press since they first emerged in the summer of 1966. the Monkees were talented singers, musicians, and songwriters who made a handful of the finest pop singles of their day (as well as a few first-rate albums) and delivered exciting, entertaining live shows. But at a time when rock music was becoming more self-conscious and "serious," the hipper echelons of the music press often lambasted the Monkees, largely because they didn't come together organically but through the casting process for a television series, and they initially didn't write the bulk of their own material or play all the instruments on their records. The fact they later took creative control of their music was often overlooked, and the quality of their music, which featured the work of some of the finest session players and songwriters of the 1960s, often seemed to be beside the point. Time has ultimately vindicated the Monkees, and their music still sounds fresh and engaging decades after it was recorded, but in some circles they never fully shook being branded as "the Pre-Fab Four," no matter how far they moved from the circumstances that brought them together.
The Monkees story began in the fall of 1965, when Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, a pair of producers whose Raybert Productions had a deal with Columbia Pictures and their TV branch Screen Gems, came up with an idea for a television series about a rock group. Inspired by Richard Lester's groundbreaking comedies with the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Help!, Rafelson and Schneiderimagined a situation comedy in which a four-piece band had wacky adventures every week and occasionally burst into song. The NBC television network liked the idea, and production began on The Monkees in early 1966. Don Kirshner, a music business veteran who was a top executive at Colgems Records (a label affiliated with Columbia/Screen Gems), was appointed music coordinator for the series, and Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, a producing and songwriting team, signed on to handle much of the day-to-day chores of creating music for the show's fictive band. A casting call went out for four young men to play the members of the group, and Rafelson and Schneider's choices for the roles were truly inspired. Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork were musicians with solid performing and recording experience who also had a flair for playing comedy, while Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones were primarily actors but had also dabbled in pop music and had strong vocal abilities. As the show went before the camera, Kirshner had Boyce and Hart take the four leads into the studio to begin recording the songs that would be featured on the show each week. While initially the cast was only going to provide vocals for material Boyce and Hart had already recorded, the producers were impressed enough with Nesmith's songwriting skills that they chose to use a few of his tunes and let him produce them. With this, the Monkees took their first step toward evolving into a proper, self-sufficient rock band.
The Monkees debuted on NBC in the fall of 1966 and was an immediate hit in the ratings, while "Last Train to Clarksville," the group's first single, had become a number one hit a few weeks earlier (the self-titled debut album would top the chart in October). Rafelson, Schneider, and Kirshner shrewdly allowed the show to promote the records and vice versa, and while the notion that television time could sell pop records was hardly new (Ricky Nelson proved that almost a decade earlier), no one had made it work with quite the success the Monkees achieved almost immediately. Dozens of Monkees-related products flooded the marketplace, from toy guitars and lunch boxes to board games and models of the custom Pontiac the guys drove on the show. In late 1966, someone got the idea of booking a few live shows with the Monkees, and recordings of their early concerts prove that while not all four were virtuoso musicians, they worked well together on-stage and were a energetic, rough-and-ready rock band who could work a crowd. As the Monkees gained confidence in their abilities as performers, they began to chafe under the restrictions imposed on them by Kirshner, who had full control over what songs they would record and who would produce and play on the sessions.
the Monkees' early recordings found them working with a stellar team of songwriters (including Neil Diamond, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and David Gates along with Boyce and Hart) and musicians (such as Glen Campbell, James Burton, Hal Blaine, and Larry Taylor), but Nesmith and Torkin particular were eager to show off their own talents (Nesmithwas responsible for some of the Monkees' most distinctive tunes), and all four were stung by the negative publicity they'd received as rock critics declared they weren't a "real" band and couldn't play their instruments (Nesmith and Tork certainly could, and Dolenz and Jones would become capable instrumentalists, but they weren't allowed to play on their earliest recordings). When the Monkees were presented with copies of their second album, More of the Monkees, in January 1967, Nesmith andTork were furious -- it was filled with material recorded for the TV show and the bandmembers had no input into its packaging or sequencing. This led to a standoff between the four Monkees, who demanded autonomy over the music they performed, and Kirshner, who didn't want to disrupt the hitmaking machine he'd helped create. Eventually, Rafelson and Schneider sided with his stars (who could not be readily replaced) and Kirshner was fired in the spring of 1967. (Kirshner would later coordinate the music for the Archies, who as cartoon characters lacked the power to rebel against their producers.)
Now calling their own musical shots, the Monkees recorded their third album, Headquarters, with Chip Douglas (aka Douglas Farthing Hatlelid) of the Turtles producing and playing bass. Outside of Douglas and a few string and horn players, the Monkees played all the instruments onHeadquarters, and the album rose to number one on the charts in May of 1967, proving the group members were more than capable of making memorable records on their own (and the closing track, "Randy Scouse Git," showed the cultural changes that were making themselves known in America had not escaped the attention of TV's leading pop group). AnotherMonkees album appeared in November 1967, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., which is generally regarded as the group's finest work; while all four Monkees played and sang on the album, they also brought a few session players in for the recordings, hitting a middle ground between the polished studiocraft of the first two LPs and the more organic sound of Headquarters. While the Monkees now had the freedom to chart their own path in the recording studio, this also led to the musicians discovering their creative differences, and by the time they recorded The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees (released in April 1968), the foursome was starting to splinter, with each member essentially producing and coordinating 25 percent of the album, and the band's collaborative energy began to dissipate.
After two successful seasons, the Monkees' television series was not renewed for the fall 1968 season, as the group hoped to launch a career in the movies. But Head, their first (and last) feature film, was a commercial disaster; it was an often clever and challenging satire of the Monkees' own curious stardom and the culture that surrounded them, but it also quite literally had no plot and confounded the younger viewers who were the TV show's strongest fan base. The soundtrack album struggled to a relatively dismal number 45 on the charts, and shortly afterwards Peter Tork opted to leave the band. the Monkees released two albums as a trio in 1969, Instant Replay and The Monkees Present, but while they both contained fine music that showed the group was continuing to mature, neither launched any major hits, and the band's commercial fortunes were clearly beginning to wane. In late 1969, Nesmith left to pursue a solo career (he'd already released an instrumental solo album, The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, in 1968), and after a final Monkees album featuring just Dolenz and Jones, 1970's Changes, the group quietly dissolved.Nesmith went on to a critically respected and modestly successful solo career, cutting several excellent country-rock albums, and he enjoyed considerable success in the entertainment business, producing music videos and feature films as well as running a film and video label, Pacific Arts. Both Dolenz andJones moved back and forth between acting and music, and in 1975 they teamed up with Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to record a new album and the foursome went out on the road, playing their new material as well as many of the Monkees' hits. Tork's music career stayed under the radar through much of the '70s, though he led a band called Release, operated a music production firm, recorded a Christmas single with Dolenz and Jones in 1976, and was courted for a solo deal with Sire Records.
the Monkees' television show stayed on the air for years in reruns after the group broke up, and in 1985, MTV presented a daylong marathon of Monkees episodes, tipping their hat to the show and the band that helped bring rock and television together. The marathon was a hit in the ratings and Monkeesreruns became a regular feature on the network. That same year, producer and promoter David Fishof put together aMonkees reunion tour; while Nesmith's business commitments prevented him from joining his bandmates,Dolenz, Jones, and Tork were game, and the tour was a massive commercial success, and much of the group's back catalog bounced back into the charts. (Nesmith also made a guest appearance with the Monkees for their sold-out appearance at L.A.'s Greek Theater, and appeared with them on an MTV Christmas video.) In 1986, Dolenz and Tork cut a new single, "That Was Then, This Is Now," which was tagged onto aMonkees hits compilation and became a hit. The success of the single prompted the Monkees (again minus Nesmith) to record a new album, but 1987's Pool It! didn't fare well with critics or fans, and the members soon went their separate ways again, though Dolenz and Jones occasionally worked as a duo.
As the 30th anniversary of the Monkees' debut loomed in the mid-'90s and Rhino Records (who had reissued the group's back catalog in the 1980s) assumed full control of the group's filmed and recorded legacy and began a series of definitive reissues, another reunion tour was proposed, and the talks led to Dolenz, Jones, Nesmith, and Tork getting together to jam for the fun of it. They enjoyed the process enough that they decided to record a new album, and Justus, released in October 1996, became the first Monkees album written, performed, and produced solely by the four members of the band. The four Monkees appeared in a television special tied into the album's release (called Hey Hey, We're the Monkees), and they were set to take part in a world concert tour to promote the record. However, after a string of dates in the United Kingdom in 1997, Nesmith dropped out, and while the tour went on without him, the other three did little to hide their disappointment with Nesmith in the press. Another tour by the three-piece Monkees took place in 2001, but Tork left the show before the final dates; Tork told reporters he'd quit, while Dolenz and Jones said he'd been fired. Since then, Dolenz, Jones, and Tork have all toured as solo acts; Nesmith, meanwhile, released a solo album in 2006, Rays, and has taken up writing fiction, having penned two novels, The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora and The American Gene.
Decision: Memorable TV stars of the 60s, Yes. Red hot from 1966-1968, Yes. Pop Music HOFers, No.
Tommy James & The Shondells
Tommy James & the Shondells -- the very mention of their name, even to someone who doesn't really know their music, evokes images of dances and the kind of fun that rock & roll represented before it redefined itself on more serious terms. And between 1966 and 1969, the group enjoyed 14 Top 40 hits, most of which remain among the most eminently listenable (if not always respected) examples of pop/rock. The group was almost as much of a Top 40 radio institution of the time as Creedence Clearwater Revival, but because they weren't completely self-contained (they wrote some, but not all, or their own hits) and were more rooted in pop/rock than basic rock & roll, it took decades for writers and pop historians to look with favor on Tommy James & the Shondells.
Tommy James was born Thomas Jackson on April 20, 1947, in Dayton, OH. He was introduced to music at age three, when he was given a ukulele by his grandfather. He was an attractive child and was working as a model at age four, which gave him something of a taste for performing. By age nine he'd moved to the next step in music, taking up the guitar, and by 1958, when he was 11, James began playing the electric guitar. In 1960, with his family now living in Niles, MI, 13-year-old James and a group of four friends from junior high school -- Larry Coverdale on guitar, Larry Wright on bass, Craig Villeneuve on piano, and Jim Payne on drums -- got together to play dances and parties. This was the original lineup of the Shondells, and they became good enough to earn decent money locally, and even got noticed by an outfit called Northway Sound Records, who recorded the quintet in a Tommy Jamesoriginal entitled "Judy" in 1962. That single didn't make much noise beyond their immediate locale, but in late 1963, the group came to the notice of a local disc jockey starting up a new label called Snap Records. They cut four sides, two of which were issued and disappeared without a trace on their first Snap single.
The second Snap label release, "Hanky Panky," was golden, at least in the area around Niles. A Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich song that the couple had already recorded under their nom de plume, the Raindrops, as a B-side that James and company had heard done by a rival band, "Hanky Panky," had become part of James' group's stage act. It was enormously popular on-stage, and the Snap single took off locally in Niles and the surrounding area, but it never got heard any further away. James and company picked up their marbles and went home, abandoning aspirations for a recording career in favor of pursuing music part time -- the singer/guitarist took a day job at a record store and confined his music efforts to the nighttime hours. The two years that ensued, from early 1964 until 1966, saw the originalShondells break up, as members left music or were drafted. This didn't seem to make much difference until a day came when James got an urgent request from a promoter to do a concert in Pittsburgh, PA.
Considering that the group had never even played there, he was puzzled. He soon found that the Snap Records single "Hanky Panky," recorded back in 1963 and overlooked in Chicago and Detroit at the time, had suddenly broken out in Pittsburgh. A promoter, having found a copy of the Snap single in a used-record bin, had liked what he heard and gotten the record played locally at dances. In one of those fluky instances that made the record business in those days a complete marvel, people suddenly started requesting "Hanky Panky," and in response to the demand, bootleggers began producing it, attributed to various labels -- some sources estimate that as many as 80,000 copies were sold in Pittsburgh before the smoke cleared.
James saw what he had to do, but he no longer had a band and was forced to recruit a new group of Shondells. The lucky winners were the Raconteurs, a local Pittsburgh quintet. They became the Shondells, with Joe Kessler on guitar, Ron Rosman on keyboards, George Magura on sax, Mike Valeon bass, and Vinnie Pietropaoli on drums; Peter Lucia and Eddie Gray, respectively, replaced Pietropaoli and Kessler, and Magura and his saxophone didn't last long in the lineup.
From near-total obscurity, this version of Tommy James & the Shondells went to playing to audiences numbering in the thousands, and were being courted by Columbia Records and RCA-Victor. It wasMorris Levy and Roulette Records, however, who outbid everybody and won the group's contract, and got a number one national hit with "Hanky Panky," in the version cut by the original group nearly three years earlier.
Tommy James & the Shondells, revamped, revised, and reactivated, spent the next three and a half years trying to keep up with their own success. "Say Am I," their second Roulette single and the first by the extant group, only got to number 21, but it was accompanied by a pretty fair Hanky Panky LP, showing off the group's prowess at covering current soul hits by the likes of the Impressions, James Brown, and Junior Walker & the All-Stars. A third single, "It's Only Love," reached number 31, but the fourth, "I Think We're Alone Now," issued in early 1967, got to number four, and the fifth, "Mirage," was another Top Ten release. The latter record was truly a spin-off of the previous hit in the most bizarre way -- according to James, "Mirage" was initially devised by playing the master of "I Think We're Alone Now" backwards. Those recordings were the work of songwriter and producer Ritchie Cordell, who became a rich source of material for the group for the remainder of their history.
Tommy James & the Shondells were lucky enough to be making pop-oriented rock & roll in an era when most of the rest of the rock music world was trying to make more serious records and even create art (often even when the act in question had no capacity for that kind of activity). They were at a label who recognized the need to spend money in order to make money, and didn't mind the expense of issuing a new LP with each major single, despite the fact that Roulette was mostly a singles label where everything but jazz was concerned. The group members themselves were having the time of their lives playing concerts, making personal appearances, and experimenting with advancing their sound in the studio. Audiences loved their work and their records, and it only seemed to get better.
Their songs ran almost counter to the trend among serious rock artists. "Mony Mony," a number three hit coming out in the midst of Vietnam, the psychedelic boom, and just as rock music was supposed to be turning toward higher, more serious forms, was a result of the group looking for a perfect party record and dance tune; even the name was sheer, dumb luck, a result of James spotting the Mutual of New York (MONY) illuminated sign atop their building in mid-town Manhattan at a key moment in the creative process. The group did grab a piece of the prevailing style in late 1968 with "Crimson and Clover," an original by James and drummer Peter Lucia that utilized some creative sound distortion techniques. A number one hit that sold five million copies, it was the biggest single of the group's history and yielded a highly successful follow-up LP as well -- ironically, the latter album included liner notes by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had gotten to know the band in the course of their performing at some of his campaign events during his 1968 run for the presidency.
James and company were among the top pop/rock performers in the world during 1969, with two more major hits, "Sweet Cherry Wine" and "Crystal Blue Persuasion," to their credit. Indeed, their presence on the Crimson and Clover album, in addition to the title cut, helped loft that record to a 35-week run on the charts, an extraordinary achievement not only in the history of the band but also -- for a non-greatest hits album -- for Roulette Records, who weren't known as a strong album label. They also began experimenting more with new sounds during this period, most notably on their next album, Cellophane Symphony. The latter record, whose release was delayed for four months because of the extraordinary sales of Crimson and Clover, had its share of basic rock & roll sounds but also plunged into progressive/psychedelic music with a vengeance, most notably on "Cellophane Symphony," a Moog-dominated track that sounds closer to Pink Floyd than anyone ever imagined possible. Cellophane Symphony sold well without breaking any records by its predecessor, and proved in the process thatTommy James & the Shondells could compete in virtually any rock genre. The only miscalculation made by the band was their declining an invitation to perform at Woodstock; the mere credit, coupled with perhaps an appearance in the movie or on the album, might have enhanced their credibility with the counterculture audience.
The end of the Shondells' history came not from any real decision, but simply their desire to take a break in 1970, after four years of hard work and a lot of great times. The moment also seemed right -- Jameswas getting involved in other projects and moving in other directions, including writing and producing records for acts like the Brooklyn-based band Alive and Kicking, whose "Tighter and Tighter" got to number seven, and his own solo recordings. the Shondells continued working together for a time as well, under the name Hog Heaven, cutting one album for Roulette before withdrawing back to the Pittsburgh area where they'd started.
James went through a lot of different sounds on his own records, including country (My Head, My Bed, & My Red Guitar) and Christian music (Christian of the World), and charted in the Top Ten one last time in 1971 with "Draggin' the Line," although he also saw more limited success for another two years with records such as "I'm Comin' Home" and "Celebration."
In the mid-'70s, he made a jump from Roulette Records, where he'd based his career for nearly a decade, to Fantasy Records, and he later recorded for Millennium Records. Following his 1980 Top 20 hit, "Three Times in Love," he resurfaced as a concert artist playing his old hits as well as new songs, although some of these shows were marred by reports of late arrivals and less-than-ideal performances; he has since reestablished a record as a serious crowd-pleasing act, cutting records anew with Cordell and even releasing a live hits collection in 1998.
Tommy James & the Shondells have even achieved something that they saw relatively little of in their own time -- respect. In the years 1966-1970, they were regarded as a bubblegum act and part of the scenery by the few discerning critical voices around, but in the '80s, their music revealed its staying power in fresh recordings (and hits) by Joan Jett, Billy Idol, and Tiffany, with "Crimson and Clover," "Mony Mony," and "I Think We're Alone Now," respectively; indeed, in one of those odd chart events that would have seemed more likely in the '60s, in 1987, Tiffany's version of "I Think We're Alone Now" was replaced at the number one spot after two weeks by Billy Idol's rendition of "Mony Mony." Rhino Records' reissue of the Crimson and Clover and Cellophane Symphony albums, in addition to greatest hits collections and a survey of James' solo recordings from the decade 1970-1980, also seemed to speak for the group's credibility, and a 1997 Westside Records double CD, It's a New Vibration, offering unreleased songs from the '60s as well as all of the key single tracks, confirmed the level of seriousness with which the group was perceived.Tommy James was no Mick Jagger or Jim Morrison, to be sure, and his songwriting -- which was usually not solo, in any case -- lacked the downbeat, serious tone or the little mystical touches of John Fogerty. He's usually put more comfortably in the company of such figures as Paul Revere & the Raiders' Mark Lindsay, or with Johnny Rivers or Tommy Roe, in the middle or early part of the '60s. But from 1968 through 1970, when artists like Jagger, Fogerty, and Morrison were in their heyday,Tommy James & the Shondells sold more singles than any other pop act in the world, many of them written, co-written, or at least chosen by James. The mere fact that he released a concert DVD in the fall of 2000 is loud testament to the power and impact of his work four decades into his career.
Decision: Several memorable hits from 1966-1969, but not quite enough to be in the Pop Music HOF.
Tomorrow: 1967 Nominees(Part 1): The Bee Gees, 5th Dimension, Glen Campbell
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