December marked the passing of Robert Michael Nesmith and Robert Warren Dale Shakespeare — two musicians whose names, I’m pretty sure, will be unfamiliar to most readers. I never met either man, but both had, upon reflection, pretty profound impacts on my life.
Nesmith is best known as the tall, wool-cap wearing guitarist of The Monkees, the 1960s bubble-gum pop group. Four actors were hired for the gig, each one to fit a type: Nesmith was the quiet thoughtful guy. They were to play the role of musicians in a TV show that would re-create each week the manic insanity of the Beatles’ movie “A Hard Day’s Night.” The joke may have been on the producers. While the four were actors, they were also real musicians who quickly tired of being the public face of a manufactured band that had no say over their material.
They soon staged a coup, kicked out the musical mercenaries — some of the top studio talent in LA — and started writing, performing and producing their own songs. Despite starting out with more sales than the Beatles at their launch, The Monkees flamed out after two years and Nesmith moved on to more challenging projects.