The Monkees were, however, exerting more control over their brand new career. Musical Director Don Kirshner would soon be fired and The Pre-Fab Four would have more say over what material they recorded as well. Micky Dolenz often made the statement that they were hired as actors to PLAY musicians. The fact that they also had some singing talent was a bonus. But this would be like telling Mannix to use a real gun and hunt down criminals in his spare time … or Captain Kirk to fly a spaceship. Once these guys left the set, they were done for the day … but The Monkees would be whisked right from the television studio over to the recording studio to add their voices to some prerecorded tracks … and then out on the road for concerts on the weekend. They had to BECOME the characters they played on TV.
Michael and Phyllis Nesmith spend the night at John and Cynthia Lennon's home in Weybridge where John plays them some unfinished tracks from their forthcoming "Sgt. Pepper" alum.
Sammy Davis Jr. is the host on tonight's episode of The Hollywood Palace. He performs his hit "What Kind Of Fool Am I" along with "Birth Of The Blues" and "The Lady Is A Tramp" but there are no pop or rock acts on the bill this evening.
This week's edition of TV Guide features an interview with Adam West, riding high thanks to the INCREDIBLY popular new camp television series "Batman". (Little did he know back then that he would be typecast for the majority of the rest of his career!) He'll appear again a month from now as the cover story (see below). The issue also offers a spotlight feature on television's newest super hero, "Mr. Terrific".
Billboard Magazine reports that Monkees album sales have now passed six million copies and singles sales now exceed five million copies.
A couple of great tracks from the new "More Of The Monkees" LP ...
From our friends Jeff March and Marti Smiley Childs ...
"Darling, Be Home Soon," the ninth chart single by the Lovin' Spoonful, made its debut on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 11, 1967.
Lovin' Spoonful member John Sebastian wrote the song, which was on the soundtrack of the Francis Ford Coppola motion picture "You're A Big Boy Now," and Erik Jacobsen produced the session. The song peaked at No. 15, and remained on the chart for eight weeks.
"The Lovin' Spoonful was truly the first American band in post-Beatle America that was not seeking to imitate the English sound," Sebastian said in the Lovin' Spoonful chapter in the e-book version of the book "Echoes of the Sixties" (http://www.editpros.com/bookshelf/echoes_ebook.html) by Marti Smiley Childs and Jeff March.
