Peter Tork (1942-2019)

Peter Tork (1942-2019)

Peter Halsten Thorkelson, better known as Peter Tork, was an American musician, composer and actor, best known as the keyboardist and bass guitarist of The Monkees.

He grew up in Connecticut and in the mid-1960s was part of the Greenwich Village folk scene, and as an accomplished musician, befriended Stephen Stills. After moving to Los Angeles with Stills, he was recruited for the musical television sitcom The Monkees, and became a teenage idol between 1966-68. Tork recorded his debut solo album Stranger Things Have Happened in 1994, and later toured with his blues band Shoe Suede Blues.

Achievements: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkees_discography

The Monkees, selected specifically to appeal to the youth market as American television's response to the Beatles with their manufactured personae and carefully produced singles, are seen as an original precursor to the modern proliferation of studio and corporation-created bands. But this critical reputation has softened somewhat, with the recognition that the Monkees were neither the first manufactured group nor unusual in this respect. The Monkees also frequently contributed their own songwriting efforts on their albums and saw their musical skills improve. They ultimately became a self-directed group, playing their own instruments and writing many of their own songs.

Noted Monkees and 1960s music historian Andrew Sandoval noted, in The Hollywood Reporter, that the Monkees "pioneered the music video format [and band member Mike Nesmith dreamed up the prototype for what would become MTV] and paved the way for every boy band that followed in their wake, from New Kids on the Block to 'N Sync to the Jonas Brothers, while Davy set the stage for future teen idols David Cassidy and Justin Bieber. As pop stars go, you would be hard pressed to find a successful artist who didn't take a page from the Monkees' playbook, even generations later. Monkee money also enabled Rafelson and Schneider to finance Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, which made Jack Nicholson a star. In fact, the Monkees series was the opening salvo in a revolution that brought on the New Hollywood cinema, an influence rarely acknowledged but no less impactful."

The Chicago Tribune interviewed Davy Jones, who said, "We touched a lot of musicians, you know. I can't tell you the amount of people that have come up and said, 'I wouldn't have been a musician if it hadn't been for the Monkees.' It baffles me even now," Jones added. "I met a guy from Guns N' Roses, and he was overwhelmed by the meeting, and was just so complimentary."

The Monkees found unlikely fans among musicians of the punk rock period of the mid-1970s. Many of these punk performers had grown up on TV reruns of the series, and sympathized with the anti-industry, anti-Establishment trend of their career. Sex Pistols and Minor Threat both recorded versions of "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" and it was often played live by Toy Love. The Japanese new wave pop group the Plastics recorded a synthesizer and drum-machine version of "Last Train to Clarksville" for their 1979 album Welcome Back.

Mediaite columnist Paul Levinson noted that "The Monkees were the first example of something created in a medium—in this case, a rock group on television—that jumped off the screen to have big impact in the real world."

The highly respected Criterion Collection, whose stated goal is to release "a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, [and] has been dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements" recognized The Monkees film Head as meeting their criteria when they fully restored and released it on DVD and Blu-ray in 2010. They stated that Head was "way, way ahead of its time" and "arguably the most authentically psychedelic film made in 1960s Hollywood", Head dodged commercial success on its release but has since been reclaimed as one of the great cult objects of its era." 

In the book, Hey, Hey We're The Monkees, Rafelson explains, "[Head] explored techniques on film that hadn't been used before. The first shot of Micky under water is a perfect example. Now you see it on MTV all the time, but it was invented for the movie [...] I got two long-haired kids out of UCLA who created the effects that the established laboratory guys said couldn't be done. We invented double-matted experiences. Polarization hadn't been used in movies before. [...] When it was shown in France, the head of the Cinematheque overly praised the movie as a cinematic masterpiece, and from that point on, this movie began to acquire an underground reputation." In 2010, Nick Vernier Band created a digital "Monkees reunion" through the release of Mister Bob (featuring the Monkees), a new song produced under license from Rhino Entertainment, containing vocal samples from the band's recording "Zilch." The contract bridge convention known as either Last Train or Last Train to Clarksville was so named by its inventor, Jeff Meckstroth, after the Monkees' song.

During a trip to London in December 1967, Tork contributed banjo to George Harrison's soundtrack to the 1968 film Wonderwall. His playing was featured in the movie, but not on the official Wonderwall Music soundtrack album released in November 1968. Tork's brief five-string banjo piece can be heard 16 minutes into the film, as Professor Collins is caught by his mother while spying on his neighbour Penny Lane.

Charity: The Oral Cancer Foundation