Michael Nesmith, the singer-songwriter who was the creative heart of the 1960s pop group the Monkees, died of heart failure at his home in Carmel Valley, Calif., on Friday. He was 78.
“With infinite love we announce that Michael Nesmith has ed away this morning in his home, surrounded by family, peacefully and of natural causes,” his family said in a statement to Rolling Stone.
Nesmith came to stardom when he was cast as a member of the Monkees, a made-for-television rock ‘n’ roll group masterminded by Bob Rafelson and Don Kirshner. The Monkees became one of the most successful rock bands of the 1960s, selling more than 75 million records worldwide and topping the charts with “Last Train to Clarksville,” “I’m a Believer” and “Daydream Believer.”
Despite their success, Nesmith bristled at the notion that the group was a creation of the producers and steered the Monkees away from their prefabricated origins, pushing the band’s record label to let the group play their own instruments on “Headquarters,” their third album. Nesmith was the only member of the Monkees to write original material on a regular basis, with “Mary, Mary,” “You Just May Be the One” and “The Girl I Knew Somewhere” among his signature tunes for the band. He achieved success as a songwriter outside of the group as well, when Linda Ronstadt’s Stone Poneys had a hit with his “Different Drum” in 1967.
By that point, the wool-capped guitarist started introducing elements of country music into the Monkees, a musical direction he’d continue to pursue after he left the band in 1970. He formed the First National Band, one of the first country-rock bands to achieve commercial success, but he wound up spending most of his career operating on the fringes of pop-rock music while working as a pioneer in home video.
Nesmith launched Pacific Arts Corporation in 1974, using it as a platform to experiment with music video — he won the first Grammy Award for video for his 1981 video “Elephant Parts” — and produced such cult films as “Repo Man” and “Tapeheads.”
After sitting out the Monkees’ 20th anniversary reunion, he returned to the fold for the 30th anniversary, recording the new album “Justus” in 1996. Nesmith would participate in most Monkees reunions for the rest of his life, including the recent “The Monkees Farewell Tour.” The last stop of the tour was at L.A.’s Greek Theatre on Nov. 14, 2021.
Nesmith was the only child of Bette Nesmith, the inventor of Liquid Paper, a typewriter correction product; she sold the company to Gillette in 1979 for $48 million, a fortune her son would inherit after her death in 1980. Nesmith is survived by four children: Christian, Jonathan and Jessica, with ex-wife Phyllis Barbour Nesmith; and Jason, with Nurit Wilde.
This story will be updated.
