Today is the 70th birthday of Michael Nesmith of The
Monkees (the one with the green wool hat).
Of all of The Monkees, Nesmith has had the most prolific and
successful solo career. He pioneered the country-rock music format in the early
to mid-1970s, founded the music and video label Pacific Arts, and basically
created the concept of MTV. In addition to producing films and music videos, Nesmith
also won the very first Grammy Award for Best Home Video for Elephant Parts, which later led to NBC’s
short-lived Television Parts. In an
interesting side note, Nesmith’s mother invented liquid paper and sold it to
Gillette for a substantial fortune, which Nesmith inherited.
Nesmith has been very busy in the last year, performing several
solo tour dates in the United Kingdom and rejoining the surviving Monkees for a
small tour in the United States.
For a good overview of Nesmith’s solo music career, I recommend The Older Stuff, The Newer Stuff, Tropical
Campfire’s, and Rays.
More information about Nesmith is available on his Web site at
www.videoranch.com.
--Raj Manoharan
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