Michael Nesmith Wiki
Michael Nesmith Biography
Who was Michael Nesmith ?
Monkees singer and guitarist Michael Nesmith, a pop visionary who wrote many of the group’s most enduring songs before laying the foundations for country rock with the First National Band in the early 1970s, died of natural causes on Friday. . He was 78 years old.
Robert Michael Nesmith was an American musician, songwriter, actor, producer, novelist, businessman, and philanthropist, best known as a member of the pop rock band the Monkees and co-star of the TV series The Monkees. Nesmith’s songwriting credits include “Different Drum”. Wikipedia
“With Infinite Love we announce that Michael Nesmith passed away this morning at his home, surrounded by family, in peace and of natural causes,” his family said in a statement. “We ask that you respect our privacy at this time and we thank you for the love and light that all of you have shown him and us.”
Nesmith was known as the Monkee in the green woolen hat with the Texas accent and the author of songs like “Mary, Mary,” “Circle Sky,” “Listen to the Band,” and “The Girl I Knew Somewhere.” But he was enraged behind the scenes that the group lacked creative control of their albums, and in 1967 he led the successful rebellion against record producer Don Kirshner. The group would later release Headquarters and other albums that they created largely on their own.
Monkees to write and record their own material despite the enormous success they were enjoying at the time. “We were kids with our own taste in music and we were happier performing songs that we liked, and / or wrote, than songs that we had been given,” he said. “He did a better performance. It was more fun. That this became a bone of contention seemed strange to me, and I think to some extent for each of us, a kind of “What’s the problem, why don’t you let us play the songs we’re singing?”
Before even joining the Monkees, Nesmith wrote a breakup song called “Different Drum.” The Monkees producers “told him, ‘That’s not a Monkees song,’” Micky Dolenz told Rolling Stone in 2016. “Michael said.” Wait a minute, I’m one of the Monkees. “He gave it to Linda Ronstadt. , And the rest is history “.
When the Monkees disbanded in the late 1960s, Nesmith formed the First National Band. And despite recording three classic country rock albums, escaping the Monkees’ shadow proved nearly impossible. The group disbanded shortly before the Eagles hit it big with “Take It Easy.”
“They broke my heart beyond words,” Nesmith told Rolling Stone in 2018. “I couldn’t even pronounce the words ‘The Eagles’ and I loved the Hotel California and I love the Eagles, the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Sweetheart of the Byrds. ” Rodeo, all those things. That was right in my wheelhouse and I was dying, Van Gogh dying, not to compare myself to him, but I wanted to cut something because I was like, ‘Why is this happening?’ The Eagles now have the best-selling album of all time and is mine in the closet of a closed record company? ”
Nesmith spent the rest of the 1970s recording solo albums that were not known. In 1977, he promoted his single “Rio” with a clever music video that was widely viewed in Europe and Australia, making the song a minor hit. He gave her an amazing idea. “[I realized that] radio is for recording like television is for video,” he told Rolling Stone in 2013. “So it was like, ‘Of course!’ And so MTV was born. I just took that idea, put together some shows and sent them to Warner Bros. and so on. The next thing you know, it was there. ”
How old was Michael Nesmith ?
He was December 30, 1942, Houston, Texas, United States
Partner:
Nurit Wilde
Spouse:
Kathryn Bild (m. 1976–1988), Phyllis Barbour Nesmith (m. 1964–1972)
Personal life
Nesmith was married three times and had four children.
He met his first wife, Phyllis Ann Barbour in 1964 while at San Antonio College.Together they had three children: Christian, born in 1965; Jonathan, born in 1968; and Jessica, born 1970. Nesmith and Barbour divorced in 1972.
Nesmith also had a son, Jason, born in August 1968 to Nurit Wilde, whom he met while working at The Monkees.
In 1976, he married his second wife, Kathryn Bild.
In 2000, he married his third wife, Victoria Kennedy, but the marriage ended in divorce in 2011.
When he finished the Monkees television series in 1968, Nesmith enrolled part-time at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied American history and music history. In 1973, Nesmith founded the Countryside Records label with Jac Holzman, the founder of Elektra Records. [Citation needed] In 1974, Nesmith founded Pacific Arts Records and released what he called “a book with a soundtrack,” titled The Prison, as the company’s first release.
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Michael Nesmith’s Net Worth
$ 50 million
What was Michael Nesmith’s net worth?
Michael Nesmith was an American musician, songwriter, and producer who had a net worth of $ 50 million at the time of his death. Michael was best known for being a member of the 1960s pop band sensation The Monkees. Aside from Nesmith, The Monkees consisted of lead singer Davy Jones and members Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork. The wildly popular band also had a television series called The Monkees that ran from 1966 to 1968. The group’s biggest hits include “Daydream Believer” and “I’m a Believer.”
Did Michael Nesmith’s mother invented White Out?
Bette Nesmith Graham (March 23, 1924 – May 12, 1980) was an American typist, commercial artist, and the inventor of the correction fluid Liquid Paper. She was the mother of musician and producer Michael Nesmith of The Monkees.
Michael Nesmith Cause of Death
Nesmith died at his home on December 10, 2021 of unspecified natural causes, according to a family statement sent to Rolling Stone magazine,20 days before his 79th birthday.
Amid the struggle for power, and despite the deteriorating health of her, Graham managed to regain control of the company and design selling it to Gillette for $ 47.5 million in 1979 in a deal that restored the royalties from her . She died on May 12, 1980 from complications of a stroke.
His life changed forever in 1980 when his mother, liquid paper inventor Bette Nesmith Graham, died and left him his substantial fortune. He used the money to invest in a number of businesses along with movies like Repo Man and Tapeheads. He did not participate in the Monkees reunion tours of the eighties, which gave the false impression that he was ashamed of his pop past.
“Quite the contrary,” he told Rolling Stone in 2013. “It was a good part of the resume. It was fun for me and a great time in my life. I mean, where do you want to be in the sixties except in the middle of rock & roll, hanging out with the scene? London was a real wonder, like Los Angeles back then. Back then a lot of things were happening. ”
He returned to the Monkees in 1996 for the Justus LP and a brief UK tour, but would not return permanently until 2012, when the surviving members toured after Davy Jones’ death. He followed a series of American Monkees tours, and was featured on their 2016 comeback LP Good Times! Despite all this, he was never sure that the Monkees, which were formed by television producers, were actually a real band.
“The three of us have our own ideas,” he told Rolling Stone in 2016. “This is, ‘What is this? What do we have here? What is required of us? Is this a band? Is this a TV show? When you go back to the genesis of this, it is a television show because it has all those traditional rhythms. But something else was happening, and he struck a chord out of proportion to the hammer’s original motion. You play the gong and all of a sudden it’s huge. ”
The Monkees launched a farewell tour earlier this year and played their final show at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles on November 14.
Early life
Nesmith was born in Houston, Texas, in 1942.He was an only child; his parents de el Warren and Bette Nesmith (née McMurray) divorced when he was four. His mother of he married Robert Graham in 1962, and they remained married until 1975. Nesmith and his mother of he moved to Dallas to be closer to her family of hers. She took temporary jobs ranging from clerical work to graphic design, eventually attaining the position of executive secretary at Texas Bank and Trust. When Nesmith was 13, his mother of he invented the typewriter correction fluid known commercially as Liquid Paper. Over the next 25 years, she built the Liquid Paper Corporation into a multimillion-dollar international company, which she sold to Gillette in 1979 for $ 48 million. She died a few months later at age 56.
Nesmith participated in choral and drama activities at Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas, but he enlisted in the Air Force in 1960 without graduating. He completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, was trained as an aircraft mechanic at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, and then was permanently stationed at the Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base near Burns Flat, Oklahoma. He obtained a GED certificate and was honorably discharged in 1962. He enrolled in San Antonio College, where he met John Kuehne and began a musical collaboration. They won the first San Antonio College talent award, performing a mixture of standard folk songs and a few of Nesmith’s original songs. Nesmith began to write more songs and poetry, then he moved to Los Angeles and began singing in folk clubs around the city. He served as the “Hootmaster” for the Monday night hootenanny at The Troubadour, a West Hollywood nightclub that featured new artists.
Randy Sparks from the New Christy Minstrels offered Nesmith a publishing deal for his songs, and Barry Freedman told him about upcoming auditions for a new TV series called The Monkees. In October 1965, Nesmith landed the role as the wool hat-wearing guitar player “Mike” in the show, which required real-life musical talent for writing, instrument playing, singing, and performing in live concerts as part of The Monkees band. The Monkees television series aired from 1966 until 1968, and has developed a cult following over the years.
Career
After a tour of duty in the Air Force, Nesmith was given a guitar as a Christmas present from his mother and stepfather. Learning as he went, he played solo and in a series of working bands, performing folk, country, and occasionally rock and roll. His verse poems by him became the basis for song lyrics, and after moving to Los Angeles with Phyllis and friend John London, I signed a publishing deal for his songs by him. Nesmith’s “Mary, Mary” was recorded by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, while “Different Drum” and “Some of Shelly’s Blues” were recorded by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys. “Pretty Little Princess”, written in 1965, was recorded by Frankie Laine and released as a single in 1968 on ABC Records. Later, “Some of Shelly’s Blues” and “Propinquity (I’ve Just Begun to Care)” were made popular by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their 1970 album Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy.
Nesmith began his recording career in 1963 by releasing a single on the Highness label. He followed this in 1965 with a one-off single released on Edan Records followed by two more recorded singles; one was titled “The New Recruit” under the name “Michael Blessing”, released on Colpix Records, coincidentally also the label of Davy Jones, though they did not meet until the Monkees formed.
Source: https://wikisoon.com/
