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Michael Nesmith is dead and I’m not feeling so well myself.

I’ve used this headline before, borrowed from now deceased Atlanta columnist Lewis Grizzard.

I thought I should say a word about Michael Nesmith who died of heart failure Dec. 10, given the fact that the Monkees were a big influence on my 9-year-old self.

The wool-hat wearing Nesmith was perhaps the most serious of the four-member Monkees, a pop/rock band formed for a TV show of the same name in the mid 1960s. It was an obvious attempt to tap into the enormous success of the Beatles. (Get it: Monkeys and Beetles!!!)

I was all in as a youngster. It came on Saturdays about noon after the cartoons were winding down. I probably knew Monkees songs before I even heard a Beatles song. ‘Here They Come,’ ‘Stepping Stone,’ ‘Last Train to Clarksville,’ and ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday,’ among other Top 40 hits.

So in reading the extensive Wikipedia profile of Nesmith, it was good to hear he had a full life before dying at 78.

Although all Monkees were supposed to have musical skills, the instrumentation for much of the featured songs on shows were done by studio musicians, a source of friction between band members, especially Nesmith, and the producers. Of the Monkees, Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Mickey Dolenz, Nesmith seemed to be the one with the most musical talent.

He wrote several of the Monkees songs, he formed a pioneering rock/country band, and he wrote songs for other people including the classic ‘Different Drum’ by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys.

I have a hit single, 45 rpm, from Michael Nesmith and the First National Band, called Joanne.

The song is a plaintive love song complete with some octave climbing hiccups — yes this Monkee could yodel. Nesmith also worked on several film projects and won awards for his video work.

Other fun facts:

He was an Air Force veteran, trained as an aircraft repairman, and honorably discharged after a tour of duty.

His mother invented ‘Liquid Paper” and created a company around it which she sold for $42 million,

He received a Grammy for Video for his hour-long television program Elephant Parts.

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The Monkees — 314

ALBUMS: Greatest Hits

MVC Rating: 4.0/ $$

There are several examples of successful ‘assembled’ bands that made music, or at least pretended they were making music.

The Archies come to mind; Josie and the Pussycats, the Partridge family and Spinal Tap for that matter. The Rutles were a band parodying the Beatles.

I haven’t researched all ‘fictional’ bands but I can’t believe there’s any one of those that was or is more successful than the Monkees.

The Monkees have sold more than 75 million records worldwide, according to its Wikipedia entry. That makes them one of the top selling groups of all time with hits such as Last Train to Clarksville“, “Pleasant Valley Sunday“, “Daydream Believer“, and “I’m a Believer“.

I think their hits, many from the Boyce/Hart songwriting tandom, sound pretty good. I especially like (I’m not) Your Steppin’ Stone’..

In a 2012 interview, Dolenz described The Monkees as being “a TV show about an imaginary band… that wanted to be the Beatles that was never successful.”

Looking back I find it kind of weird — the show I mean. It was almost like pre-psychedelia TV effects (sped-up action, filming in reverse, the in and out camera lens thing. I’m sure there was some backmasking going on. “Mom, what’s in those Fruit Loops?”

I was about 9 and 10 years old, and a big fan. I remember it coming on about 11:30 and it usually capped off a full morning of cartoon watching. (Superceded sometimes by chores my mother would give us). So end of the Monkees or Johnny Quest would be a signal to the beginning of a long afternoon outdoors. Had to be home by sundown.