Monkees New Christmas Album?

Which is deeply unfortunate... My Monkees wish list right now is a completed deluxe edition set, 2o11 and 2018 live releases, and an affordable release of the Bluray set.

Can't say that I'm pleased to discover a Christmas album could possibly take the place of those items, and god-forbid it sell poorly... we might not get those releases at all.

 

Yes. This puzzles me most. Such an odd project (that I can't imagine having as much commercial appeal as a regular studio album) being used as a barometer for future releases. Again I ask, whose idea was this?!

 

Well, here's Davy doing an uptempo Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree. Not bad. Ron

 

It's not letting me view the article.

 

Here you go. The Globe likes to charge to read Ron

The Wikipedia page for Michael Nesmith, the reluctant Monkee, includes an unusual statement about his first solo project, the country-tinged First National Band. “No clear answer has ever been given for the band’s breakup,” the entry reads.

So we asked. And Nesmith laughed.

“Here is all the sufficiency I think you’re going to need,” he says. “We couldn’t get work! How’s that?”

Now, however, nearly 50 years since Nesmith struck out on his own, he’s on the road celebrating the belated interest in his country-rock albums of the early 1970s. With cosmic imagination and pedal steel guitar, those records were Americana long before the style was christened. The tour, featuring a new version of the National Band, hits the Somerville Theatre on Wednesday.

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When he went solo, “I was surprised to see that the traction, the acceptance was virtually zero,” says Nesmith, on the phone from his home in Monterey, Calif. “It may have been there was an overshadow from the Monkees.” Over the years he has often called himself a “pariah,” both for his tendency to resist many of the expectations of being part of the original prefab band, and the backlash the band got from “serious” music fans.

“The people who did come, and bought the records, not that there were very many, but they have stayed with it. Now every place I play is jammed.”

There are plenty of great tunes on those First National Band albums and on Nesmith solo outings such as 1973’s “Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash.” The FNB debut actually featured the sole hit single of Nesmith’s solo career, “Joanne.” On their second album, they remade “Listen to the Band,” one of Nesmith’s biggest contributions to the Monkees catalog.

And on “Ranch Stash” he sang a moving version of “Some of Shelly’s Blues,” better known by then from cover versions by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Linda Ronstadt’s Stone Poneys. Ronstadt, of course, also had her first big hit with Nesmith’s “Different Drum.”

Nesmith, who is 75, had to cancel some dates earlier this year on tour with fellow Monkee Micky Dolenz. What was initially reported as a “minor” health scare turned out to be quadruple bypass surgery.

“I feel back to normal,” he reports. “Right now my strength and voice are good.”

The Monkee known simply as “Mike” is a complex character. He’s a Houston native who retains a bit of his drawl despite more than a half century stationed on the left coast. He was a video innovator before there was an MTV, an early convert to televised sketch comedy (look up his silly-surreal one-hour special “Elephant Parts”), and the Hollywood producer who got “Repo Man” made.

“There’s a lot of dark magic in video television,” Nesmith says. “You have to parse it very carefully as an artist.”

His solo career was all but over by the time the video age ramped up. In hindsight, his work with the First (and Second) National Band was way ahead of its time, more in line with the fractured roots music of Chris Gantry and David Crosby’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name” than the more routinely cited examples of country-rock pioneering, such as Gram Parsons’s Flying Burrito Brothers.

In “Infinite Tuesday,” his 2017 memoir, Nesmith describes the uncanny playing of his old friend Red Rhodes, a session musician who played pedal steel with Nesmith until his death in 1995, as “a string section and a brass section and a Mars section all rolled into one.”

‘The people who did come, and bought the records, not that there were very many [at first], but they have stayed with it. Now every place I play is jammed.’

That proved a neat fit with the music Nesmith envisioned: “a cross between cafeteria-organ-Latin-blues music and Hank Williams.”

The current edition of Nesmith’s band — FNB Redux, he calls it — features Pete Finney on pedal steel. Like Rhodes, Finney is capable of “wild excursions.”

“I was gratified by how quickly they understood what the First National Band was,” Nesmith says of his young touring mates.

The surviving Monkees, Nesmith, Dolenz, and Peter Tork — Davy Jones died of a heart attack in 2012 — recorded a well-received comeback album, “Good Times!,” in 2016. True to form, Nesmith was not enthralled when the band asked him to take part in a follow-up, a Christmas album. But he relented, cutting two songs for the upcoming release, covers of “The Christmas Song” and “Snowfall,” the weird seasonal standard written by Claude Thornhill.

Though he still takes those Monkees gigs, he remains as stubborn as ever. “Just make good records,” he says, “and at some point they’ll come around and take care of you.”

MICHAEL NESMITH

At the Somerville Theatre, Somerville, Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets $39.50 and $49.50, 800-745–3000, www.livenation.com



James Sullivan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @sullivanjames

 

Yes, The Monkees performed and recorded as many different configurations over their career, but this is a Christmas album which conveys different feelings than a "regular" album, and I don't think representing Davy with, say, one holiday tune, is necessarily creepy or overdoing it. I like Elliotmarx's idea of choosing a song (or two!) from Davy's Christmas album, maybe changing the arrangements slightly and augmenting it with Mickey, Peter, and Mike's harmonies. I think that would be very touching. A Monkees' Christmas album without Davy...it just wouldn't feel right.

 

Wow, there's going to be a weird assortment of new Christmas CD's in my CD player this holiday season. Eric Clapton, William Shatner and the Monkees. Can't wait!

 

I have mixed feelings over a holiday album. But at this point I'm glad for any new recorded product.

Always thought "Riu Chiu" or "Christmas is My Time of Year" could have been big hits if they had been released as a 45 in October 1986 as a follow-up to "that was then."

I'm assuming Peter will be re-recording his "I Remember Christmas."

 

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I know this guy and he's quite a good writer. But it doesn't look like Mike was into saying much.

 

I’m dreaming of a White Out Christmas ?

 

hmmm ... Not really excited about a Christmas album, but I would buy it anyway.

 

Don't forget Mike Love.

 

But that will be on there so they can have a whole band with Davy performance.

 

Is it likely that the Christmas album will be mostly previous recorded/released tracks (ex. Riu Chiu) with a few newly recorded tracks as a incentive for purchase? I don't know exactly how that would work out, but I can see that being done. A remastered version of the MTV medley and a few outtakes here and there with maybe 3 or 4 new cuts.

 

I can't even fathom that possibility. I give them much more credit than that. Come on, the MTV medley isn't even fit for mainstream consumption on an album. Could they recycle Riu Chiu (or re-envision it?), or re-record "Christmas is My Time of Year", or even sweeten the already recorded Davy/Monkees "White Christmas" like they did with "Love To Love" to include Davy? At most. Personally, I don't think Davy has to be included (and sorry, but I hope that he isn't included, especially with his awful later years output/vocals that some are suggesting). As the follow up to Good Times, I expect this to be a professional attempt at actually making a good album, even if it is a holiday album.

 

Probably not. There are really only three possible tracks to re-release: Riu Chiu (which has been on a million Rhino comps already) and the two from the 70s single. Even though Chip Douglas produced it, Davy's Christmas album is not very Monkees-like and not really that good.

 

Agreed that Davy’s Christmas album is not very good and wouldn’t really want anything from that.

As to not interrupt Adam’s production, they could include a deluxe edition bonus disc to include:
Riu Chiu
Soundbites from the show (Deck The Halls, etc.)
Christmas Is My Time Of Year
White Christmas
Christmas At This Isthmus (Chip Douglas outtakes from the 76 sessions)
MTV Christmas Medley

 

I don't know what you guys are smoking. Davy's Christmas album is very good. It might not be up to the standards set by Nat King Cole and others but it's a fun holiday record.

 

I started to get more Christmasy, but it has to be after Thanksgiving. Christmas music prior to that makes me want to attack the radio with a meat thermometer.

My daughter said her classmates are already requesting Christmas music when the teacher plays tunes in class.

 

I am a big fan of Christmas music, but just don’t love many things about it. It’s cool that you have a connection to it though. What’s your favorite from it? Mine is When I Look Back At Christmas.

 

I'll have to think about that one. Unfortunately I probably won't spin it again until after Thanksgiving. By then, we'll have new things to argue about.

 

I don't see Rhino releasing anything that would be included in the Monkees' "official studio album catalog" that wouldn't include all four guys at this point. The approach taken with Davy's contribution to "Good Times" worked just fine as far as I'm concerned, though I wish Michael would've added a backing vocal to "Love to Love" as well. I do believe they would have taken the same "archive track" route with Michael to have him represented if he would've passed on partaking on the 2016 G.T. sessions. Fingers & toes crossed that the TV version (which DOES feature Davy) of "Riu Chiu" is included here. Vocally, it's a peak Monkees moment, Peter has called it out as one of his all time favorite Monkee performances and I agree. I believe it's only official appearance was as a bonus track on the 2 disc set of PAC&J. I wonder if a slightly cleaner version has turned up on a mag reel since the blu-ray restoration? I think it's a given that we'll see new songwriting contributions from Andy Partridge, Adam Schlesinger, Ben Gibbard, Difford & Tilbrook, maybe Bobby Hart? etc. Coupling these with a few X-Mas "classics" and (here's hoping) the guys appearing on at least half or more of the tracks together which of course they can do without actually being in the studio together, I'm excited to see what transpires here.

 

I'd give it a shot...

 

It's beginning to look like a Monkees Christmas!

 

And then let's have 2 new songs called "You and I" and "Little Girl"