Mike Nesmith of The Monkees Died Friday
MIKE NESMITH of THE MONKEES died Friday of natural causes. He was 78 years old. He and the other surviving Monkee, MICKY DOLENZ, just finished a farewell tour one month ago. He was 78 years old. He had undergone a quadruple bypass in 2018.
Nesmith had already written "Different Drum" for Linda Ronstadt's band the Stone Poneys when he was chosen as one of the four stars of NBC's "The Monkees", along with Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, and Peter Tork.
Originally, the band didn't write their own songs or play their own instruments, they just sang the songs. It was Nesmith who urged them to become a real band although he ended up going solo in 1969.
Nesmith also basically created MTV. He started making music videos for his own songs, and that turned into a music video show called "Popclips". It ran for six episodes on Nickelodeon in 1980.
The suits decided to turn the concept into a NETWORK, and thus MTV was born. They actually wanted Nesmith to run it, but he wasn't interested.
Nesmith reunited with the Monkees on-and-off over the years. Earlier this year he toured with Dolenz. who is now the LAST MONKEE STANDING. The tour ended less than a month ago on November 14th.
Dolenz issued a statement saying, quote, "I'm heartbroken. I've lost a dear friend and partner. I'm so grateful that we could spend the last couple of months together doing what we loved best singing, laughing and doing shtick."
"I'll miss it all so much. Especially the shtick. Rest in peace, Nez."
One other thing you may have known about Mike Nesmith: His mother invented Liquid Paper in 1951 and turned it into a multimillion-dollar company. When she died in 1980, he got a massive inheritance.