#remembruary

Peter Tork Post #3: For Pete's Sake

For over a year now, this photo has remained pinned to the top of the NP Twitter page. This is the enduring image of Peter Tork: Love beads, long hair, and that dimpled smile. The sweet, blond-haired hippie boy we fell in love with on the Monkees' TV show, and who won us over with his boyish charisma. Peter struggled with addiction, he struggled with his demons, and he especially struggled with being a Monkee--that tremendous thing that brought him into so many of our lives and hearts, yet was only a small part of his own life.

Peter was a raconteur, a bon vivant, a man-about-town. He was a musician to the core, a blues boy in suede shoes and a ubiquitous purple tie. He was charming and infuriating in equal turns, as likely to drive you crazy as to be the Peter you couldn't resist. Peter was honest to a fault. He told you what you needed to hear, even when you didn't want to hear it, and he did it with a flower on his cheek and a song in his heart.

Tactful...sometimes. Truthful...always.

Peter carried this hippie boy in him wherever he went, in everything he did and how he saw the world. At every show, after all the thrumming banjo solos and self-deprecating on stage banter and raucous applause, he took the time to remind us of one thing: Love each other. Stand up and dance. Have fun. Because this is the only shot we get.

"I don't want to stick around if I can't be amused..."

Phyllis Nesmith-Gibson Post #1: Three is Red

From the moment the Monkees appeared on our TV screens, Phyllis Barbour (Nesmith) was beloved by fans, becoming a regular fixture in the glossy pages of the day's teen magazines. She was upheld as the ideal wife and mother, a role model for countless young girls to be inspired by and admire.

Yet Phyllis had a life of her own that she worked to build, both alongside and without Nez. She faced the pressure of newfound celebrity with a grace and poise many of us could only hope to possess. We honor the legacy that she helped to create, both as a homemaker and an activist for Vietnam veterans and numerous other causes in which she so strongly believed.

Samantha Juste Post #3: Been A Long Time Since the Party This week's final post honoring Samantha comes courtesy of a story shared by Chip Douglas. The parties hosted by Micky and Samantha in the '60s and early '70s are the stuff of legend, and the following anecdote proves no exception. With appearances by Ringo, George Harrison, Harry Nilsson, and more, the grace and class displayed by Samantha in the midst of (and following) such chaotic madness set her head and shoulders above the rest, and remind us why we'll miss her so much. With thanks to Chip for sharing this after Samantha passed in 2014.

“In the mid 1970s, I was living in Laurel Canyon across the street from my dear friend and singing buddy Henry Diltz. Micky and Samatha Dolenz lived down the road nearby, and I spent quite a lot of time with the two of them, as well as Davy and Linda Jones. The two couples were quite close in those days,and I was frequently invited to various gatherings, parties, dinners, screenings and so forth. There was one late night party I particularly remember.

One early evening, the phone rang, and it was Micky:

“Chip…Ringo, George, and Harry Nilsson are coming over! Could you stop by and bring some pot?”

I said sure, and my then-girlfriend Suzie–who had a set of false front teeth–and I hopped in the car as quick as we could and drove down to Micky’s place. We arrived before the celebrity guests did, but soon enough a couple of limos pulled up, and a small entourage consisting of Ringo, George, Harry, Mal Evans, Jim Keltner, Ravi Shankar’s son, and a couple of ladies and other friends came up the stairs into the house.

Remembering the reason I had been invited in the first place, I quickly rolled and lit up a doobie and handed it to George Harrison.

“Oh, no thank you,” he said.

Feeling slightly embarrassed, I tried passing it to a few others with no luck until it came to Harry, who was a friend of mine, and he said “Sure.”

I myself had a hit or two, and my brain began to go into producer mode. In those days, I carried my cassette recorder with me everywhere, and I thought to myself, I’ve got to find a way to get this gang downstairs into Micky’s recording studio, and get a jam session going.

Meanwhile, Suzie was going about the living room with her little pipe, offering everyone a hit of the dreaded angel dust (PCP). At one point, she offered some to George, who again said, “No thank you,“ this time followed by, “And, if that’s elephant dust, don’t give it to anybody I like.”

Harry Nilsson was always happy to try anything intoxicating that came his way, and he had more than a few hits as the evening progressed. Mal Evans was enjoying the stuff too, and Suzie would also have a little hit herself. For a little while, she and Harry and Mal disappeared to return to my house to get more of the ‘stash.’

Finally, at about 6:00 AM, after hours of watching people wandering about from room to room looking for something to be happening, or someone of interest to hang with, I heard that Ringo had gone downstairs to the studio.

This could be it! I thought, and made straight away for the studio.

There I found Ringo sitting alone at the drum set with sticks in his hands, playing a slow rock beat. I quickly grabbed the bass, turned on the amp, and started playing an R&B like riff to what he was doing. So after about 35 seconds of semi-grooving together without anyone singing any vocal, he abruptly stopped, plopped his sticks on the snare drum, stood up and said with a kind of grunt:

“Well ya can’t really get much going with just bass and drums-” and left the room.

Crap, I thought, that may have been the only chance for a jam at this party. The sun is beginning to come up, and pretty soon people will be leaving.

Imagine my joy, however, when a few minutes later Harry came down the stairs and sat down at the piano. Everyone else soon followed, and the jam session began.

Jim Keltner took to the drums, Ringo grabbed a tambourine, George was on electric guitar, Ravi’s son began strumming away on the acoustic, while attentively watching every move and chord his mentor George would make. I pressed the record button on my cassette recorder and proceeded to ‘get into it’ on the bass.

We all began following Harry and what he was doing. He was certainly well ‘dusted’ by this time, and the things that were coming out of his brain were definitely bizarre. He began playing in unusual time signatures like 9/8 and 7/4, which wasn’t exactly easy for everyone to follow, but nevertheless, the entourage had a strange avant-garde musical unity that seemed to continue.

We played on and on, while other normal folks in Laurel Canyon were by now having coffee and getting ready for work. After a while, Suzie, who had been sitting cross-legged but with her face flat on the rug, abruptly stood up and disappeared up the stairs. I remember thinking that I hoped she was all right, but I didn’t want to deprive the gang of a bass player by running after her to check, so I just kept playing.

After a while Ringo, who had been sitting on the floor in front of one of those large, puffy pillow chair-seats,began to nod out from the monotony and the tambourine sounds grew faint. Harry stopped eventually, too, and spoke:

“Rich, you still with us?”

Ringo with eyes closed and reclining on the pillow, raised the tambourine and jangled it sleepily.

The sounds of the entourage started up again. By this time, the tempo count was something that I’m quite sure no human has ever attempted to play before, and I noticed then that Micky, who had been in the control room of the studio all the while, was nowhere to be seen.

He soon returned and seemed concerned and agitated as he rushed over to me.

“Chip, you’d better get upstairs; Suzie is freaking out up there!”

Yikes,I thought. Now what?

I bolted up the stairs from the studio and Samantha grabbed me by the arm and led me over to the living room couch, which happened to be in a darker part of the room, underneath a small overhanging part of a loft above.

There I found Suzie swinging her head violently from side to side and saying “No, no,no, no, no, no, no, no,” repeatedly. It was a constant unstoppable stream of nos at the rate of approximately two per second. I had no idea what to do except to call out to her and try to snap her out of it. I picked her up in my arms and carried her out the door.

Around 4:30 PM that same day, she was still sleeping it off at my place when the phone rang. It was Samantha.

“Chip, could you come over please? I have something here for you.”

She sounded a bit stern and humorless. I got in the car and drove back down to the Dolenz residence. I walked up the steps and knocked on the front door. Samantha opened it directly and handed me what seemed to be a wad of several Kleenex tissues.

“Here,” she said. “It’s Suzie’s teeth.”

Peter Tork Post #2: Piece Of My Heart

In the 1960s, Peter became great friends with numerous icons of the hippie era: Stephen Stills, Jackson Browne, Jim Morrison, Zal Yanovsky, Mama Cass, and more. But one in particularly truly stands out: The long gone--but never forgotten--force of nature that was Janis Joplin. Peter and Janis are seen here at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, together not as rock stars or celebrities, but as friends and fellow musicians sharing in and grooving to the music.

Peter spoke fondly of his friendship with Janis, and in a 2009 radio interview, candidly revealed that they became more than friends on a few occasions. Click here to listen to Peter describe his encounters with Janis as only he could (*WARNING* Clip contains adult content. Listen at your own discretion!).

Peter Tork Post #1: Another Side To This Life

This past weekend, the Peter Tork Memorial Convention was held in Peter's home state of Connecticut. Among those in attendance was James Lee Stanley, Peter's best friend and musical compatriot of more than fifty years, who reminisced and regaled the crowd with tales of Tork.

James's anecdotes of Peter were alternately touching and hilarious (often both). One story that he shared came from the early days of their friendship, in the 1960s. James did what many struggling musicians of the time had to do to survive, which was sell his guitar for rent money. "This is not okay," his buddy Peter said, lamenting the loss of something so precious, as we know how Peter treasured his instruments. So Peter went to a store not long after and found a guitar, after which he phoned James excitedly. "There's a great guitar here, and they only want $50 for it. I'll buy it for you and you can pay me for it," James recalled Peter saying. With a wistful smile, James concluded the tale: "Looking back, it's only now that I realize he just told me it was $50, but the guitar actually cost a lot more than that."

So much of what we hear about Peter--what resonates in the public consciousness--is as Peter Tork Of The Monkees. What James's story gives us is a look at Peter Tork the person, and the fraught humanity that flowed so deeply through him. 

Samantha Juste Post #2: Lady's Baby

This is a photo of Samantha with her daughter Ami, who is wearing a panther costume for Halloween that Samantha made for her.

We almost always hear Samantha discussed as being Micky's first wife, but less so about her role as a mom. Making this costume for Ami is just one example of the love and kindness Samantha showed as a mom, along with providing a calming oasis for Ami in the midst of the swirling chaos that was being married to Micky Dolenz in the 1970s.

What do you think it would've been like to trick-or-treat at Samantha and Micky's house?