Would the Monkees have released better albums had Chip Douglas stayed?

Sorry, I think it's a dud.

Maybe Chip Douglas could've done something with it!

 

I assumed they just used Dillard because they could. I mean Peter is a great banjo-ist... but he's no Doug Dillard.

Well, that, plus the name recognition that Dillard brought.

 

It's obvious from listening to them that Paul Revere & The Raiders and Tommy James & The Shondells used the *exact* same backing musicians as the Monkees.

 

He meant doing the song they'd planned to do on the show. I would assume Mike left before they could do it in the studio (plus, the others weren't present for his country sessions)

 

Haven't watched much 60's TV have you?

 

Not the Raiders. That's the Wrecking Crew on their records.

 

It looks like some early Tommy James records did use some of the same New York guys that are on the Kirshner/Neil Diamond Monkees songs. I didn't know that.

I find the Wrecking Crew's involvement in Monkees records to be overstated. They're only on two songs on the first album and it's Boyce and Hart's band on everything else, and they're not on the third and fourth albums at all. I think if you look at the average Monkees compilation, Hal Blaine played on less tracks than Billy Lewis, Eddie Hoh, and even Micky Dolenz.

 

Yes, I have. And I've never seen Sonny & Cher, the Temptations, the Supremes or the Four Tops with instruments in their hands that they didn't play. They weren't self-contained groups, so of course they're going to have session musicians behind them.

Just because the Monkees and a few other bands of that era used session musicians doesn't mean everybody did it on down the line. That is a lazy, slovenly way of thinking.

When Terry Melcher was still producing the Raiders, there were studio guys standing in to different degrees (I understand Drake Levin still got to play guitar on those records). However, after Raider lead singer Mark Lindsay took over the reins, the band themselves were more involved with the recordings. By this time, Freddy Weller and Keith Allison were the Raider guitarists, and since they were experienced studio guys themselves before they joined the band, why not use them on the records? It varied from record to record (the only Raider on "Indian Reservation" and the Goin' To Memphis album was Mark), but I'm sure they put in far more studio time as a band than the Monkees did.

 

I've never seen Sonny & Cher, the Temptations, the Supremes, or the Four Tops with instruments in their hands period.

 

I did see Cher beat hell out of a tamborine a few times. Does that count? ^_^

I just accepted that the Monkees played their own instruments, but then I thought that about the Banana Splits too. That's the great thing about having an audience of five year olds.

I drew the line at Lancelot Link and the Evolution Revolution though. No way were chimps playing those songs...

 

Actually, Mata Hairi was quite proficient on several instruments but the studio wouldn't let her play on the records.

Watching "The Monkees" now, I do notice that for all his gripes, Nesmith at least usually learned the right chords to the songs.

 

In the case of the Raiders, I would argue that the mimed performance of "Him Or Me" on the Ed Sullivan show does not meet that definition, although "Kicks" does.

Probably the majority of songs the Monkees mimed on TV were songs they didn't play on (if we are defining "The Monkees" as the four guys who starred on the TV show), but not all. "No Time" and "Randy Scouse Git" are two that definitely were played by the Monkees in the studio. The majority of the other "rainbow room" songs have at least some Monkee involvement such as "Daydream Believer" and "Pleasant Valley Sunday," both of which feature Tork on piano and Nesmith on guitar (and I think Dolenz is playing acoustic guitar on the latter as well IINM).

 

I think someone says "let's do something off our new album," and then someone (I think Micky) says "let's do the song we planned to do." "Nine Times Blue" made sense to do on that show, but it should have been released.

 

Kind of. The song was first cut during the summer of 1966 with no strings and no horns. The later released version was a complete remake done in late 1967 (as opposed to just taking the original and adding overdubs). I personally prefer the earlier version. Much more punch to it, and the guitar part (which I think is much better than on the remake) becomes the lead instrument. (I think it's Louie Shelton on guitar.)

 

True of the entire Indian Reservation album, I think. Not sure that was even made to be a Raiders album before it was released as one.

There was an Action episode that spotlightered the Raiders' live show. I'm not sure it has ever turned up online, though I have seen the previous show where it is teased.

 

Not so. The Raiders' recording setup during their hitmaking years (1965-67) was roughly analogous to what the Monkees did during Pisces Aquarius Capricorn and Jones. Meaning, the band members recorded most of the basic tracks but were sometimes replaced or supplemented by session guys. Most often, it was piano or drums that we're not done by the band members. My understanding is that pretty much all the guitar and bass were done by the Raiders.

Even on the stuff where they used session guys, it was not the exact same musicians anyway, because the Raiders always used the Wrecking Crew whereas the Monkees rarely did. Thee Wrecking Crew only played on a handful of Monkees songs.

 

Thank you for that. The percentage of Wrecking Crew players on monkees tracks is probably 20%.
Yet, the monkees are always one of the first bands mentioned when the wrecking crew name comes up.

 

I made this gripe in another thread. I love Hal Blaine but he didn't do everything, people!

Using the 25-song 2003 "Best Of" as a reference, by my estimation only 2 or 3 tracks feature the Wrecking Crew.

 

I also made note of that in a different thread where a guy was saying that The Wrecking Crew played "everything" on the first two albums, and I pointed out that the bulk of the first album was basically played by The Candy Store Prophets w/Louie Shelton and that the same went for the Boyce and Hart cuts on "More of..." with most of the other stuff featuring New York players, not the west coast Wrecking Crew.

 

Would Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow) be one of the tracks cut in NY? That would make sense to me; the backing track sounds very similar to the band on several of the Super K records that came out later.

 

Yes, "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)" is a NY track... The credits for the 1994 CD release of "More of..." don't list the players though. (I'm not sure if they were named in the credits to the deluxe CD edition of "More of...", I'd have to dig it out to check.)

 

He would have improved them.

 

@sixelsix, I dug out my copy of the deluxe edition (2 cd) of "More of..." and there is a little more information in the credits regarding "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)"... There's not a whole lot of info, but it states: Davy Jones-lead & backing vocals * Neil Diamond-acoustic guitar * Buddy Salzman-drums * Micky Dolenz & Peter Tork-backing vocals * Other personnel unknown.

 

no, because they were simply not that good of writers or musicians.

i am utterly confused by the admiration that the monkees receive. they were a TV cast that morphed into a fair rock band, not a good rock band at all.

had they not been a TV cast and known to just about everyone in the world who had a television, i doubt they would have even received a recording contract.

mind-boggling for sure.

 

It just wouldn't be a Monkees thread without rjp trolling....