Peter Tork: More Than a Monkee
Birthday remembrance to a showman and dynamo musician
A lot has already been written about Peter Tork the Monkee and how he intersected with pivotal people and events in popular culture—from the Greenwich Village folk scene to the San Francisco Summer of Love to the Monterey Pop Festival to the Laurel Canyon SoCal music scene (they’re still talking about Peter’s house parties).
More can be said about Peter’s apparent and diverse talents as a composer…
and multi-instrumentalist skilled on French horn, bass, guitar, keyboards (he created the piano intro for “Daydream Believer”), and banjo—his contribution to George Harrison’s 1967 WONDERWALL soundtrack is just one of Peter’s notable banjo sessions.
In the 80s, Peter broke into hard-edged New Wave rock with The New Monks. He was also a curator of American roots music and attracted an international audience with his band Shoe Suede Blues.
Peter’s showbiz journey really grew from his relationship with fellow musician Stephen Stills. In 1965 they were both roomates and starving folkies. Stills told Peter about the casting call for “The Monkees” TV Show, of which Stills had been in contact with (country to urban legend that Stills auditioned for the show, the real deal is that he auditioned as a songwriter in order to obtain a publishing deal with Colgems).
Stills, along with Buffalo Springfield members Dewey Martin, Bruce Palmer, and Neil Young, later played on Monkees’s recordings. Example: Stills played lead on “Lady’s Baby,” a song written by Peter.
Once in The Monkees, Peter was cast as the smiling imp, like a Harpo Marx who spoke.
Offstage, however, he was a pensive, book-smart guy concerned with the grand questions of philosophy and religion.
I’m also indebted to Peter for his role in introducing me to my beloved fiance, Uma Robin, in 2013.
I started working in the Davy Jones/Monkees orbit in 1992. One day Peter was jamming in the den at Davy’s home in Pennsylvania. Someone said, “If you play the blues with Peter, you’ll be friends for life.” I grabbed an instrument and off we went. Fast forward to the blues-y soundchecks during the 2011 Monkees tour. On the road Peter gave me laundry tips and food advisements. During that tour we performed the HEAD film soundtrack. Here’s a clip of Peter’s song “Long Title: Do I Have to do This All Over Again?”—the fidelity is rough but it shows the multi-media staging. I joked to Peter, “This is a Quicksilver Messenger song you wrote, right?”
Happy Heavenly Birthday to my friend, musical compadre, and occasional laundry-mate, Peter Tork.
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