We ran our TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART Series for the very first time back in November of 2004. The goal at the time was tell the COMPLETE BOYCE AND HART story … beyond the hits written for THE MONKEES … beyond the hits they scored working together as a singing and songwriting duo ... because, although these were certainly important chapters in the story, they were NOT the WHOLE story.
It quickly became a VERY popular piece … SO much so, in fact, that by popular demand, we have rerun the piece more times than any other series we've ever done in FORGOTTEN HITS. As such, we've decided to permanently place it on our web page so new readers can continue to discover it ... and older readers can enjoy it again and again. (The most popular chapter in this series was the one dealing with the history of the song VALLERI!!! That one piece alone was picked up by a number of websites dedicated to MONKEES and BOYCE AND HART fans around the world, fueling even MORE requests for me to rerun the entire series.)
In 2008 we were thrilled to run the series again along with the personal commentary from MR. BOBBY HART himself!!! (For me, this was kinda like watching The Director's Cut DVD while listening the commentary track voiced by the guy who was actually there!!!)
I mean, think about it ... BOBBY HART was RIGHT THERE while all this great stuff was happening … in fact, HE was one of the people HELPING to MAKE it happen!!! We are VERY grateful to BOBBY for taking the time to participate in our piece.
I believe that this new one-on-one, play-by play version will only help to make this an even MORE interesting and unique piece. BOYCE AND HART still have an AWFUL lot of fans out there … their music is still played on the radio every single day and kids of EVERY generation since have memorized every word of these songs and sing along each time they hear them come on the radio. It's safe to say that the music created by the songwriting team of TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART TRULY transcends time.
When BOBBY and I first talked last year, he was working on a book deal ... my hope was that by the time this piece actually ran, we would be able to let our readers know how THEY might obtain a copy of BOBBY's new memoirs, “MY JOURNEY TO STARDOM AND BACK AND 101 FAMOUS PEOPLE I MET ALONG THE WAY.” He's also been working on a new musical called "UPRISING: THE MUSICAL", which I had hoped to be able to give you information about as well.
Based on a conversation I had with BOBBY HART just this past week, BOTH of these projects are still looking for a home ... he has been talking to publishers about his rock and roll memoirs as well as financiers regarding finding a permanent venue for his musical to call home. (Las Vegas perhaps???)
I also want to take just a quick moment to extend my VERY special thanks to FORGOTTEN HITS List Member (and close, personal friend ... as well as sometime writing partner ... of BOBBY HART), AUSTIN ROBERTS, who put me in touch with BOBBY in the first place ... and, of course, to BOBBY HART himself, for taking the time to talk with me and set the record straight on all this stuff once and for all. But most of all, thank you, BOBBY, for ALL this great music you've given us over the years!
We were also able to top the whole thing off with an EXCLUSIVE FORGOTTEN HITS Interview with BOBBY HART, which is now also posted on The FORGOTTEN HITS Web Page. (It is suggested that you read the complete series FIRST as quite a few of the questions reference points made in the series.)
We hope that you, too, will enjoy this VERY special BOYCE AND HART Series.
CHAPTER 1
TOMMY BOYCE was born on September 29, 1939 in Charlottesville, Virginia. We first learned of him here in Chicago back in 1962 when his solo hit I'LL REMEMBER CAROL went all the way to #9 on the WLS Chart. (Nationally, it stopped at #78.) At the time, BOYCE was pursuing a solo recording career. By this time, however, he had already experienced some songwriting success.
He placed his first chart hit record with 1950's rock and roll pioneer FATS DOMINO back in 1959 and BE MY GUEST went all the way to #8 on the National Charts. (BOYCE found that continued songwriting and chart success was not so easily coming ... he wouldn't hit The Top Ten again until he teamed up with singer CURTIS LEE to write PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES a couple of years later.)
BOBBY HART: A high school buddy introduced me to his college mate, Curtis Lee, and asked if I could help him break into the business. When I introduced him to my manager at a recording studio, we both met Tommy Boyce and we all became good friends. Tommy and I began writing together in 1960. Tommy, my first wife, Becky and I were involved in a freeway collision driving home from a Long Beach show where Curtis was discovered by Stan Schulman, signed to Dunes Records and summoned to New York. Once there, it didn’t take Curt long to convince Stan that he needed Tommy to write with. I tell the full story in my book.
***
In 1961, while still recovering from the injuries he suffered in a
head-on collision in Los Angeles, TOMMY BOYCE was given the opportunity to go
to New York and try to write a song for an up-and-coming young singer named
CURTIS LEE.
BOYCE was met at the airport by LEE, as well as recording artist RAY
PETERSON (who we recently featured in FORGOTTEN HITS with his original version
of the ELVIS tune THE WONDER OF YOU.) Both artists were looking for a hit (and
were about to be produced by the legendary PHIL SPECTOR!)
After a few weeks without so much as a single inspiration, BOYCE's publisher
gave him an ultimatum ... write a hit for CURTIS LEE NOW or accept a plane
ticket back home to Los Angeles. Now under just a LITTLE bit of pressure, TOMMY
BOYCE and CURTIS LEE moved in together as roommates in the publisher's living
room so that, in the event an inspiration struck, they would both be there to
capitalize on it. In his book HOW TO WRITE A HIT SONG AND SELL IT, BOYCE says
he lived and breathed songwriting, turning in song after song after song, only
to be turned down each time with a comment like "It's good ... but write
me a hit for CURTIS." This went on for two more months!!!
While CURTIS LEE and RAY PETERSON went out on tour, TOMMY stayed behind trying
to come up with that elusive hit. As LEE was leaving, BOYCE told CURTIS to just
"think of a title while you're down there in Florida ... come back with
that, and I'll write you a hit song." (This would be a trait TOMMY would
carry on for the rest of his songwriting career, regardless of which other
partners he may have been working with ... coming up with a good title first to
help inspire the "groove" of where the song would go from there.)
When they returned, LEE told TOMMY of a girl he had met down in Florida who had
the prettiest eyes he had ever seen. CURTIS even had a title for his idea: he
called it "ANGEL EYES."
One of the most popular songs on the radio at the time was EBONY EYES by THE
EVERLY BROTHERS. TOMMY started to play the chord progression of that tune,
hoping for some spark of inspiration. When that didn't work, he began to play
the chords to that week's Number One Song, BLUE MOON by THE MARCELS. BOYCE says
that the accelerated tempo of THE MARCELS' song got them to singing their first
lyrics: "Angel Eyes, I really love you so. Angel Eyes, I'll never let you
go." They felt that they were on to something. By evening, the lyrics were
nearly complete.
Feeling pretty good about what they had done, BOYCE decided to take a walk and,
while passing a record store, heard the old CLEFTONES' hit LITTLE GIRL OF MINE
coming out of the loudspeakers. As soon as he heard the beginning:
"Little, little, little, little, lit ... yeah, little, little, little,
little, lit," he knew that he had the intro for their new song. Quickly,
the opening lyrics became "PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES, PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL
EYES" (and, ultimately, so did the title of the song!)
Amazingly, when they first performed the song for their publisher, he wasn't
impressed. "I thought I told you to write me a hit!" he said again.
But BOYCE and LEE were convinced that they HAD written a hit and decided to
play it for their publisher's girlfriend, who immediately loved the song. She
convinced her boyfriend that they had a smash on their hands and he finally
gave the green light for CURTIS to record the tune. And a smash it was ...
PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES shot up the charts to #6, becoming CURTIS LEE's only
Top 40 Hit!!!
BOBBY HART: Meanwhile, in Hollywood I was missing my friend and writing partner. While my two buddies were making it big in Tin Pan Alley, I was stuck working at my day gig at Record Labels, Inc. where I printed the labels for their hits.
CHAPTER 2
Early on, BOBBY HART was ALSO trying
to make it as a solo recording artist. (HART was born ROBERT LUKE HARSHMAN in
Phoenix, Arizona on February 18, 1939.) Back in the late '50's (after falling
in love with the music of ELVIS PRESLEY and GENE VINCENT), BOBBY moved to Los
Angeles in pursuit of a career as a Disc Jockey. To help pay for his classes,
he got a job in a print shop, printing record labels. On the way to work, he
would pass a small record demo studio where, for ten dollars, you could
"come in and hear what your voice sounds like." Pretty soon, he was
stopping by every Saturday (often spending more money than he was earning),
recording little demos of himself singing along with his own piano
accompaniment.
As a Saturday "regular," HART began to be noticed by some of the
music industry figures who also came by this studio. Encouraged by some of
those "in the know" to see a producer / manager, BOBBY was introduced
to JESSE HODGES, who told him at their very first meeting, "You sound
pretty good, kid, but what we need is artists who have their own
material." This was all the encouragement and inspiration that BOBBY
needed to jump start his songwriting career. Before long, he cut a couple of
rock-a-billy sides under his real name, ROBERT LUKE HARSHMAN. A single was
released (STOP TALKING, START LOVING / LOVE WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO ME) and BOBBY
immediately quit his job in order to promote the record. A quick run through
the west coast radio stations left him unemployed and broke ... the record was
NOT a hit ... and pretty soon HART was back working in the print shop.
In 1959, he met the man with whom he
would enjoy his greatest songwriting success. TOMMY BOYCE had already scored a
Top Ten Record when FATS DOMINO recorded his composition BE MY GUEST and, at
first I'm sure BOBBY looked up to TOMMY as a success he, himself, might aspire
to. In 1960, HART released another single called GIRL IN THE WINDOW (on which
TOMMY BOYCE actually played guitar)! It, too, flopped, but this was the first
time he used the name BOBBY HART. His then-manager LEE SILVER told him "By
the way, your name was too long to go on the label, so I've shortened it to
Bobby Hart."
Shortly thereafter, HART scored his first major recording placement. Teen
heart-throb TOMMY SANDS cut his composition DR. HEARTACHE and, although it,
too, bombed, HART now had some credibility as a songwriter.
BOBBY HART: As a result of GIRL IN THE WINDOW making the charts of the two top forty stations in Los Angeles, I began doing weekend shows for KFWB and KRLA. I met another singer at one of these hops and the two of us decided to put a band together and try to actually make some money doing what we were already doing every weekend. When the BARRY RICHARDS & BOBBY HART twist band was a hit, I quit my day gig and played the L.A. area club scene. On a recommendation from Nino Tempo, I was signed as a writer/artist to DON COSTA and in 1963 I was finally able to join Tommy in New York, which, at the time, (thanks to the likes of THE BRILL BUILDING) was the American songwriting capital.
CHAPTER 3
BOBBY HART met TOMMY BOYCE for the
first time back in 1959. Both were aspiring young songwriters but TOMMY would
soon get an edge up when he was approached about writing a song for CURTIS LEE.
TOMMY was flown to New York, leaving his new friend BOBBY behind.
Although up to this point they had both been writing separately, they found
themselves helping to finish up each other's tunes. Back at the time, it was
VERY common to have songwriters place their tunes with the recording artists
... very few recording acts were writing their own material back then ... and,
thanks to places like THE BRILL BUILDING (who had a HUGE stable of established
songwriters employed there) one could earn a decent living as a full-time
songwriter. Once HART joined BOYCE in New York City, TOMMY and BOBBY quickly
fell in with THE BRILL BUILDING crowd, and soon were hanging out with the likes
of fellow songwriters MIKE LEIBER AND JERRY STOLLER, CAROLE KING AND GERRY
GOFFIN, ELLIE GREENWICH AND JEFF BARRY, ANDY KIM, DOC POMUS AND MORT SHUMAN,
BARRY MANN AND CYNTHIA WEIL, NEIL SEDAKA AND HOWARD GREENFIELD, NEIL DIAMOND
and many others. (This, quite simply, is how it was done back then ... at THE
BRILL BUILDING, you could be walking down the hall or riding on an elevator and
be approached by someone looking for a song they needed RIGHT NOW for CONNIE
FRANCIS or CHUBBY CHECKER or any other number of artists ... opportunities were
literally around every corner.) Ironically, MOST of these songwriters would go
on to place songs with THE MONKEES along with BOYCE AND HART, who had their
greatest chart success supplying their words and music to The Pre-Fab Four. (A
common connection between all these artists was DON KIRSHNER, one of the
biggest "behind the scenes" names in rock and roll history ... it is
a shame that MOST folks out there only know of him through his late night
television series DON KIRSHER's ROCK CONCERT ... he was a MAJOR force in the
music industry in the early '60's...a virtual hit-making machine!)
BOBBY HART: The story of Don Kirshner would make a
great series, from the phenomenal success of his ALDON MUSIC to selling out to
SCREEN GEMS and his ultimate firing over his handling of the Monkees.
(Boy, it SURE would!!!)
HART eventually moved to New York as well, since that seemed to be the
songwriting capitol of America at the time. It was here that BOYCE AND HART
finally wrote their first their first chart hit together. Twister CHUBBY
CHECKER recorded their composition LAZY ELSIE MOLLY, and it became a Top 40
Record in 1964, peaking at #39 in Cash Box Magazine. Teamed with songwriter /
producer WES FARRELL, they enjoyed their first Top Ten Hit together later that
year when JAY AND THE AMERICANS recorded the smash COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER, a
#3 National Hit that Fall. Shortly after this success, BOYCE was offered a
contract to become a staff writer for Screen Gems and took off again for the
west coast. HART stayed behind in New York City where he was signed to TEDDY
RANDAZZO's and DON COSTA's publishing company. When RANDAZZO went to perform in
Las Vegas, he offered BOBBY a job singing background in his stage act. One
night, TEDDY and DON told him that they were looking for a song for LITTLE
ANTHONY AND THE IMPERIALS to record ... something with a similar sound and feel
to their recent Top Five smash GOIN' OUT MY HEAD, written by TEDDY RANDAZZO and
BOBBY WILDING. Between sets, HART, RANDAZZO and WILDING went upstairs to a
conference room and wrote HURT SO BAD, which quickly followed it into The
National Top Ten! It looked like ... together or apart ... BOYCE AND HART were
on their way as successful songwriters!
DIDJAKNOW?: The CHUBBY CHECKER
hit LAZY ELSIE MOLLY was based on a children's nursery rhyme. When BOYCE AND
HART first decided to tackle a song together, they looked through a volume of
MOTHER GOOSE for inspiration and came across the tale of LAZY ELSIE MARLEY, a girl
who loved to stay in bed late and sleep. Setting the poem to music (and
changing the girl's name to MOLLY) they embellished the story, added a couple
more verses and a chorus, a typical CHUBBY CHECKER rhythm and soon had a Top 40
Hit!
BTW: Today, BOBBY HART considers HURT SO BAD his crowning achievement as a songwriter. It's been a Top 20 Hit THREE TIMES (#10 for LITTLE ANTHONY AND THE IMPERIALS in 1965, #12 for THE LETTERMEN in 1969 and #8 for LINDA RONSTADT in 1980.) However, he also recognizes the fact that, despite writing songs that were nominated for Emmys, Golden Globes and Academy Awards, he will always BEST be remembered as one of the guys who wrote the songs for THE MONKEES!!!
CHAPTER 4
With TOMMY back on the west coast
after signing with SCREEN GEMS - COLUMBIA MUSIC ... and BOBBY stuck on the road
with TEDDY RANDAZZO ... SCREEN GEMS paired TOMMY with another of their contract
writers, STEVE VENET, and together they wrote the hit PEACHES 'N' CREAM for THE
IKETTES (#36 in 1965.) They were then approached by DICK CLARK about writing
the theme song for a new daily music show he was putting together.
The program would star PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS as the musical hosts. Each
day, they would preside over other hit recording artists of the day. The
program was to be called WHERE THE ACTION IS (in fact, one of our FORGOTTEN
HITS List Member's father was a producer on this show!!!) and an up-tempo song
was needed for the title tune.
Together, BOYCE and VENET came up with
ACTION, a song that was often performed by PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS on the
program ... but was released as a single by late-'50's Pop Star FREDDY CANNON.
(Hey, HE's on our FH List, too!!!) The tune resurrected his career, which had
been somewhat dormant since THE BRITISH INVASION ... and ACTION went all the
way to #13, FREDDY's biggest chart hit since 1962's PALISADES PARK.
BOYCE AND HART would make several appearances on this series, as well as its
follow-up, HAPPENING, which was also hosted by MARK LINDSAY and PAUL REVERE. In
the meantime, they would write a tune for THE RAIDERS' MIDNIGHT RIDE album.
That track was the pop / rock classic (I'M NOT YOUR) STEPPIN' STONE.
PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS never released STEPPIN' STONE as a single and, as
an album track, it was virtually ignored. However, six months later when THE
MONKEES cut it as the B-Side to their monster chart-topping single I'M A
BELIEVER, it became a HUGE hit, earning nearly as much airplay as the A-Side.
We've got BOTH versions for you here today.
DIDJAKNOW-1?: TOMMY BOYCE's inspiration for the
IKETTES' hit PEACHES AND CREAM was THE NEWBEATS' song BREAD AND BUTTER, a HUGE
hit on the charts at the time. Going for the same feel (even the title is
similar), he and STEVE VENET composed the song and pitched it as the perfect
follow-up single to BREAD AND BUTTER to THE NEWBEATS. Their management turned
the tune down, saying it sounded TOO much like BREAD AND BUTTER to consider for
release! (lol) BOYCE then placed the song with THE IKETTES ... and it became
their last Top 40 Hit!
DIDJAKNOW-2?: THE MONKEES' single
and LP mono release of STEPPIN' STONE differed drastically from the stereo LP
version in that it had a couple of extra lines of instrumental added during the
instrumental break. It also went into a full verse rather than a "half-chorus."
The first time I heard the stereo version, I thought the record had skipped!
The ONLY way they EVER played STEPPIN' STONE on the radio at the time of its
original release was the mono single version ... but now on the Oldies Stations
they seem to only play the stereo, shortened mix. Since we all grew up
listening to the mono mix, that's the one I've sent along today ... as far as
I'm concerned, the ONLY way this song should ever be played!!!
DIDJAKNOW-3?: Years later, when both MARK
LINDSAY and various configurations of THE MONKEES were out on the oldies / teen
idols circuit tour, LINDSAY reportedly tore into MICKY DOLENZ, saying that he
ripped off his vocal style and arrangement EXACTLY when he sang THE MONKEES'
version of STEPPIN' STONE. DOLENZ maintained that he simply followed the demo
he was given by BOYCE AND HART ... but, that if LINDSAY was so sure the
RAIDERS' version was “identical”, then why wasn't IT the hit version?!?!? They
feuded for years after this exchange of comments. Ironically, on one of THE
MONKEES' many comeback LPs (THEN AND NOW), MICKY cut a version of the PAUL
REVERE AND THE RAIDERS' classic hit, KICKS at the direction of ARISTA RECORDS
President, CLIVE DAVIS. DAVIS also picked another BOBBY HART song, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE,
ANYWHERE (written with eighties partner, Chicago native, DICK EASTMAN ... OMG,
HE's on our FH List, too!!! lol) as one of the three new songs to be included
on the platinum Then and Now album.
DIDJAKNOW-4?: STEPPIN' STONE actually topped
the charts here in Chicago for one week back in 1966! Although it clearly was
the B-Side to I'M A BELIEVER, our local surveys showed BOTH sides of the single
at the same chart position, always listing the A-Side first. On the WLS Silver
Dollar Survey dated December 30, 1966, they showed the #1 Single as STEPPIN'
STONE / I'M A BELIEVER ... every week thereafter (and on every other major
chart that I'm aware of) I'M A BELIEVER was always shown as the A-Side ... but
officially (for one week anyway) in Chicago, STEPPIN' STONE was the #1 Record
in the city!
DIDJAKNOW-5?: The greatest chart
success and recognition TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART ever received was for their
work with THE MONKEES. In fact, not only were they hired as music producers of
the new television series, they also recorded the original tracks for the pilot
that THE MONKEES simply lip-synced along with! (TOMMY BOYCE has since stated
that he and BOBBY were promised two of the actors' roles in the show ... sort
of the LENNON and McCARTNEY of the group ... but that after the four parts had
been cast without them, they were told that they could stay on as producers
while a brand new television series was developed around their talents. The new
series never materialized. BOBBY HART has said that if any such conversation
ever took place, he wasn’t aware of it!!!) Once the pilot was sold, the BOYCE
and HART vocals were removed and THE MONKEES' voices were added. BOYCE and HART
DO, however, sing background on some of these tracks ... most notably, one of
today's tunes, STEPPIN' STONE!!!
DIDJAKNOW?-6: RON DANTE of THE ARCHIES and
STEPHEN STILLS of THE BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD BOTH auditioned for THE MONKEES,
DANTE losing HIS role to DAVY JONES and STILLS losing his to his then
room-mate, PETER TORK. Contrary to rumors that have circulated for decades,
CHARLES MANSON did NOT audition for THE MONKEES!!!
***
Coming up next in FORGOTTEN HITS: THE MONKEES Connection ... Three Chapters of TOMMY BOYCE / BOBBY HART hits as performed by THE MONKEES!!!
BUT FIRST ... ANOTHER FORGOTTEN HITS EXCLUSIVE BONUS!!!
With FREDDY "BOOM BOOM" CANNON now on our FORGOTTEN HITS Mailing List, I couldn't help but ask him about his record, ACTION, the theme to the brand new DICK CLARK Teen Television Series, WHERE THE ACTION IS!
FORGOTTEN HITS: This was a HUGE hit for you, coming at a time when things HAD to be on the quiet side after THE BRITISH INVASION. How were you first approached about recording this tune? I mean, PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS were the ones performing the song on the television show ... how was it that you ended up scoring the hit single? And how did this hit revive your career? Suddenly you were HOT again! Was this a bit like deja vu or just more of a huge relief???
FREDDY "BOOM BOOM" CANNON: YES,
IT WAS A GREAT HIT FOR ME AND IT DID VERY WELL IN 1965. DICK CLARK HAD PAUL
REVERE CUT THE SONG FIRST BECAUSE THEY WERE THE HOSTS OF THE TV SHOW. BUT DICK
DID NOT LIKE THEIR VERSION AND THOUGHT THAT FREDDY CANNON WOULD BE THE RIGHT
SINGER FOR THIS SONG, SO HE SENT IT OVER TO WARNER BROS RECORDS. THAT'S WHEN
DICK GLASSER GOT THE DEMO FROM DICK CLARK'S OFFICE. THEY TOLD HIM TO PLAY IT
FOR ME AND THEY ONLY HAD TEN DAYS BEFORE THE SHOW AIRED, SO IT HAD TO BE DONE
REAL FAST! DICK GLASSER CALLED ME TO HIS OFFICE AT WARNER BROS AND HE PLAYED ME
THE DEMO OF TOMMY BOYCE AND STEVE VENET ... THAT'S WHO WROTE THE
"ACTION"' SONG ... BOBBY HART HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT SONG ...
ANYWAY, WHEN HE PLAYED IT FOR ME, THE SECOND TIME HE PLAYED HE SAID,
"FREDDY CAN YOU DO THIS SONG?" I TOLD HIM TO BOOK STUDIO TIME FOR THE
NEXT DAY HE DID. AND HE CALLED ALL THE MUSICIANS AND SET IT UP. HERE'S WHO
PLAYED ON THAT SONG:
GLEN CAMPBELL, CAROL KAYE, JAMES BURTON AND LEON RUSSELL. THEY CUT THE TRACK IN
TWO TAKES AT THE STUDIO. I SANG IT IN THREE TAKES ... THAT'S HOW FAST THIS SONG
WAS READY FOR DICK CLARK'S SHOW! IN JUST THREE DAYS IT WAS MIXED AND SENT TO
HIM! TO THIS DAY WHEN I SING THIS SONG ON SHOWS THE PEOPLE GET UP AND DANCE. I
AM VERY LUCKY TO HAVE GREAT SONGS LIKE THIS TO SING LIVE. THANKS TO ALL THE
FANS AND RADIO D.JS AND PROGRAM DIRECTORS FOR PLAYING AND BELIEVING IN THE
RECORD.
CHAPTER 5
You can't do a feature on TOMMY BOYCE
and BOBBY HART and NOT cover the time they spent writing songs for THE MONKEES.
In fact, riding on the coat-tails of THE MONKEES' success recording their
material, BOYCE AND HART decided to take a crack at the fame and fortune
machine themselves! (Story goes that one night, after watching the crowd's
reaction as THE MONKEES took the stage from behind the curtain, BOYCE AND HART
looked at each other and said, "We've got to get some of that for
ourselves!" Their own string of pop hits followed.)
Signed on as musical producers for THE
MONKEES' television series (BOYCE AND HART actually sang all the songs in the
pilot that was sold to the network prior to THE MONKEES cutting their own
vocals to these tracks), BOYCE AND HART had a distinct advantage in getting
their songs placed with the group. During the first season alone, BOYCE AND
HART were responsible for writing THE MONKEES' classics THEME FROM "THE
MONKEES", I WANNA BE FREE, GONNA BUY ME A DOG, their first #1 Hit LAST
TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE, STEPPIN' STONE, SHE, VALLERI and WORDS. In all, BOYCE AND
HART would see 22 of their compositions recorded by the group! (Some of the
others included MONKEES' fan favorites like TOMORROW'S GONNA BE ANOTHER DAY,
THIS JUST DOESN'T SEEM TO BE MY DAY, LET'S DANCE ON, I'LL SPEND MY LIFE WITH
YOU, I CAN'T GET HER OFF MY MIND, MR. WEBSTER, P.O. BOX 9847, TEAR DROP CITY
... a virtual LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE clone ... DON'T LISTEN TO LINDA,
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS and LOOKING FOR THE GOOD TIMES.)
BOBBY HART: In the book, I tell about being hired
by Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson to write and produce music for the show, and
how after the show was sold, Kirshner (Music Supervison of all Screen Gems
shows, as per his contract when he sold them his publishing company and stayed
on to run it) rejected Boyce & Hart and hired more established producers,
only to reject them, one by one, as their masters came in, finally reinstating
Tommy and I as producers for the first LP. As the popularity of the show grew,
two things happened: Kirshner was able to attract more top writers and
producers; and the Monkees power allowed them to seize control of their own
records and have Kirshner booted out.
***
The THEME FROM "THE MONKEES"
is considered to be a television theme classic and might have even been their
very first hit single had the group not released the even stronger #1 smash hit
LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE. In his book HOW TO WRITE A HIT SONG AND SELL IT,
TOMMY BOYCE tells the story of how BOBBY HART had CLARKSVILLE nearly completely
written but was stuck on a small musical phrase. All BOBBY needed TOMMY to do
was fill this 50-word gap stuck in the middle of the song .... everything else
was done .... he had simply gotten stuck on the lyrics for this one section.
BOYCE locked himself in a room and tried to come up with something that would
fit this little bridge. The problem was, the pacing of the words was SO quick
that no matter which lyrics he tried to insert, they didn't fit. Finally
frustrated, he simply sang "do-do-do" to cover every note required.
Feeling at first that he had failed his partner (who had put all the work into
the song thus far), he then convinced himself that these non-words worked
better than any lyrics could. When he went out to play the song for HART, BOBBY
was ecstatic .... "That's EXACTLY what I was looking for!" LOL ...
you just never know where a good song lyric is gonna come from ... but TOMMY's
little "do-do-do" bridge became one of the biggest hooks of the song.
(To hear TOMMY BOYCE's complete 9 1/2 second contribution to LAST TRAIN TO
CLARKSVILLE, give a listen to CLARKSVILLE-A SNIPPET, attached to today's mail.
You'll also find the complete song attached.) As a special bonus, I've also
included the THEME FROM "THE MONKEES".... sung in ITALIAN!!! (Told
you BOYCE AND HART were prolific songwriters!!!)
BOBBY HART: A nice story
for a book on song writing, but not at all the way it happened by my
recollection. I won’t bore you with the details, but Tommy definitely
contributed a lot more than the "do dos". That came about in the
studio when Micky balked at singing the fast paced sixteenth note lyrics and
suggested he just sing "do dos" over the melody.
A-Ha!!! ANOTHER long-standing myth debunked ... right here
in FORGOTTEN HITS!!! (Actually, TOMMY's version of the story IS a whole lot
more fun ... although the MICKY story is interesting, too ... I wonder what
those original lyrics were!!!)
***
DIDJAKNOW?: When THE MONKEES
television series was first pitched to the network, the concept was to create
for American television a weekly version of THE BEATLES' film A HARD DAY'S
NIGHT .... interweaving music and comedy ... even down to the weekly CAN'T BUY
ME LOVE / "romp scene" ... with a lovable, American version of the
group ... and they successfully did so. BOBBY HART admits that, when first
challenged to write a hit song for THE MONKEES (with this BEATLES-benchmark in
mind), he quickly thought of THE BEATLES' famous "Yeah-Yeah-Yeah"
phrase and turned it into "Oh No-No-No, Oh No-No-No" ... a KEY line
in the lyrics to LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE!!!
BTW: BOBBY HART says that he was also very
conscious of the fact that some of THE BEATLES' biggest hits kicked off with a
GREAT, clearly identifiable guitar riff ... I FEEL FINE ... DAY TRIPPER ... and
their most recent hit at the time, PAPERBACK WRITER ... so he was determined to
come up with a memorable guitar riff to kick off THE MONKEES' first hit, too.
He most certainly accomplished that with the GREAT guitar opening to LAST TRAIN
TO CLARKSVILLE!
CHAPTER 6
(Aka “And Your Next Number One Single
Will Have The Name Of A Girl In The Title”)
The Facts and Fables Behind The #1 Monkees’ Hit, Valleri
Today we're going to examine the FACTS and FABLES concerning another one of
THE MONKEES' biggest hits. (This chapter is one of our most widely circulation FORGOTTEN HITS pieces EVER!!! If you've NOT heard the story before ... sit back, relax ... and enjoy!)
In his book HOW TO WRITE A HIT SONG AND SELL IT, TOMMY BOYCE tells a funny, interesting story revolving around one of THE MONKEES' last big hits.
THE MONKEES were always being supplied new musical material from a
virtual who's who of songwriters: NEIL DIAMOND, GERRY GOFFIN and CAROLE KING,
NILSSON, NEIL SEDAKA and DAVID GATES (later of BREAD) all had their songs
recorded by the band in the first couple of years. In addition, MICKY DOLENZ,
DAVY JONES, PETER TORK and, most frequently, MIKE NESMITH were submitting their
OWN compositions for consideration. Therefore, as time wore on, when BOYCE AND
HART were called upon to supply a song, they pretty much needed to have one
"at the ready."
HERE'S THE FABLE:
According to BOYCE's account (as published in his book), back in the day
when DON KIRSHNER oversaw those musical selections, he called BOYCE AND HART
one morning and told TOMMY (who just happened to answer the phone ... BOBBY was
still sound asleep) that he had a dream last night that the title of THE
MONKEES' next #1 Record should be a girl's name. Spontaneously, TOMMY BOYCE
replied, "Donnie, you won't believe this!!! But, last night while you were
having that dream, BOBBY and I wrote an unbelievably great song for THE MONKEES
... and, are you ready for this? ... it has a girl's name in the title!"
KIRSHNER was flabbergasted! "Tell me the title, quick! I want to hear it!
What's her name?"
Of course, TOMMY couldn't comply ... the song hadn't been written yet!
"Donnie, her name is so beautiful and so exciting that I couldn't possibly
tell it to you over the phone. But I'll tell you what ... you're going to love
it when you hear it tomorrow." Despite KIRSHNER's insistence that TOMMY
come over now and play him the song ... or, better yet, that KIRSHNER drop by
THEIR place to hear the tune (that hadn't yet been written!), TOMMY finally
stalled him with the excuse that BOBBY was still sleeping. (Of course, HART
didn't know ANY of this as he really WAS still asleep ... and had absolutely no
idea what TOMMY had just committed themselves to!)
KIRSHNER was adamant ... "How about noon TODAY at my place?!?!" BOYCE
says it was more of a command than a question. "Okay," he said,
giving in, "but do me a favor. Please have everyone there who's connected
with the television show." KIRSHNER agreed to assemble producers BERT
SCHNEIDER and BOB RAPHELSON, vice president LESTER SILL, and
chairman-of-the-board JACKIE COOPER. (Nothing like putting a little more
pressure on the situation!!!)
At 10:00 BOYCE decided to wake BOBBY and tell him the news ... after all,
having just committed to writing the next #1 song in America was a pretty big
deal!!! Realizing the pressure they were under, both songwriters quickly began
making a list of girls' names but none particularly struck their fancy. TOMMY
had the beginnings of a melody but they just weren't able to put it together
with any of the names on the list. They decided to take a drive, hoping for
inspiration (or divine intervention). At 11:00, while driving along Mulholland
Drive, TOMMY finally asked BOBBY to "reach deep into your past for a
recollection of one girl in your life, or even in your dreams, that you had
never told anybody about." HART gave it some thought and then replied that
there WAS a girl in High School that he liked a lot but she never returned the
favor. He would think about her every once in a while over the years and once
had even written a song about her. "I was never too hot on the song,"
he said, "but what I liked about it was the name, which was hers."
"Come on, BOBBY," TOMMY exclaimed, "tell me her name and my
melody will flow right out to meet her." And, of course, BOBBY then
replied, "And her name was VALLERI" ... which INSTANTLY fit the
melody that TOMMY had been working on! Now fifteen minutes away from their
meeting at KIRSHNER's house, that left them all of twelve minutes to complete
the song!!! They got as far as "There's a girl I know who makes me feel so
good" which, along with the chorus, "and her name is Valleri ... I
love you, Valleri" was all they had when they pulled into the driveway.
BOYCE was banking on the fact that KIRSHNER had wanted a song with a girl's
name in the title SO badly ... and the fact that he had already told him about
the GREAT song they had written "the night before" ... that the
conditions were, in effect, pre-programmed for them to present THE MONKEES'
next big smash hit single. (With all those executives sitting in the room
waiting for the debut, the anticipation was exceptionally high ... TOMMY
believed that ANY song they would have played based around a girl's name would
have qualified as "exactly what they were looking for.") They sang
the chorus line in two-part harmony and then the first two lines of the verse
... which was all they had. They then explained that the song still needed a
little work but there was nothing to worry about ... they'd have it completed
by tomorrow. TOMMY says that they then "did a reprise on the part we had
written, singing it with the all gusto one reserves for GOD BLESS
AMERICA." For the grand-finale, BOYCE hit a big final chord, tossed his
guitar over his shoulder and went down on one knee in his "best ELVIS
fashion." The room fell silent as they waited for KIRSHNER's reaction.
Finally, KIRSHNER jumped to his feet and shouted "It's a smash ... Number
One!!!" All the other execs in the room agreed. They had pulled it off!
According to TOMMY, they completed the first verse later that day and then
booked studio time for the following afternoon. Then they went to a movie!!!
THE MONKEES were told to report to the studio the following day at five o'clock
and between two and five, the basic musical backing tracks were recorded. In
twenty minutes, BOYCE AND HART wrote a second verse and between five and six
o'clock THE MONKEES' vocals were added. The whole process took all of FOUR
HOURS!!! It was quickly mixed and put into the television show the following
week!!!
BOYCE then goes on to say that "Just as soon as the television show was
aired, two disc-jockeys, one from Florida and the other from Chicago, decided
on their own to make a tape of VALLERI and pipe it out from their radio
stations. On each of those two stations, before it had even sold a single
record, the song became Number One on the request list. RCA called Donnie
Kirshner and told him that if he released it as a single, they would pre-ship
two million records and guarantee that it would be the Number One Record. Good
to their word, they released VALLERI the following week and within three weeks
it was Number One in both Cash Box and Billboard. Two weeks later, it was
Number One in almost every country in the world with sales of close to three
million records."
THE FACTS:
Now that's a pretty amazing and fascinating little story ... but a little
bit of research indicates that TOMMY may have "stretched the truth"
just a little bit here and there.
What first tipped me off was the end bit regarding VALLERI's astounding chart
life. Now PART of this story is true. After VALLERI aired on an episode of the
television series, WCFL, right here in Chicago, started playing the heck out of
it from a tape they had made from the broadcast. Every night it came in at #1
on the Top Five Most Requested Songs Of The Day ... and this went on for weeks
and weeks and weeks. (From what I understand, some folks believe that WCFL then
sent out copies of their "bootleg" version of VALLERI to other
stations around the country to air ... however, I am more inclined to believe
that they kept it to themselves as a "SUPER 'CFL Exclusive." However,
a radio station in Florida DID get the same results when THEY played a taped
copy on the air ... the request lines lit up like a Christmas tree and Florida
fans couldn't get enough of the song.) Growing up here at the time, I clearly
remember ALL of these events as I, too, thought VALLERI was a great song and
listened to WCFL's Top Requests Countdown every night! I remember my
frustration at not being able to BUY the song in any of the local record shops
because it was only available on tape at the radio station.
However, THIS is where BOYCE's story falls apart. VALLERI first aired on the
CAPTAIN CROCODILE episode of the television series on February 20, 1967, five
months AFTER the series premiered on NBC. It was not released as a single until
March of 1968 ... a full THIRTEEN MONTHS later!!! (An RCA / COLGEMS recording
log that I found shows that THE MONKEES first laid down this track on August 6,
1966 ... HARDLY the week before it aired! In fact, this was before a single
episode of the TV series had ever been shown ... so, if ANY of that
conversation between KIRSHNER and BOYCE AND HART ever really happened, they
wouldn't have referred to VALLERI as THE MONKEES' "NEXT Number One Hit ...
it would have been their very FIRST Number One Hit!!! They had not yet released
a single recording!!!)
When VALLERI WAS finally released as a single a year later, it was a completely
re-recorded version, which DID go to #1 in Cash Box but stopped at #3 in
Billboard. THE MONKEES recorded a completely new version of this song in
December of 1967 (sessions were held on the 26th and the 28th), which
ultimately became the hit single release. (Being a HUGE MONKEES fan at the time,
I remember personally being VERY surprised to see this single finally being
released after all that time.) Songwriting partner BOBBY HART explains that
after wrestling control away from KIRSHNER regarding the selection of the
material THE MONKEES would record ... and then winning the rights to play their
own instruments on those records ... by the end of 1967 they also had it
written into their contracts that ALL future recordings would show
"Produced by THE MONKEES" on the label. (By this time, each member of
the band was generally recording their new tracks individually anyway, so when
a new album was completed, they simply went with the group production credit.)
As such, the 1966 track (which was produced by BOYCE AND HART) had to be
scrapped because the Musicians Union contracts had already been filed with
BOYCE AND HART's names on them as producers. This meant that when THE MONKEES
decided to release VALLERI as a single, a whole new track needed to be created.
BOYCE AND HART (who, by this time, had been dismissed as producers) were
approached about coming back and, according to HART, "making it sound as
close to the original as possible." Contrary to TOMMY's account, BOBBY
says "VALLERI was specifically written for them. Over a year after we cut
the song, LESTER SILL came back to us and said, 'They want you to recut
VALLERI. You can't have producers credit, but we want you to go back in and do
it again, making it sound as close to the original as possible.' So that's what
we did."
During the re-recording process, yet ANOTHER mix was created ... and this is
the one that seems to have found its way to oldies radio ... in fact, the
"cold ending" version is now more likely to be heard than the
original hit single version! Today, we give you all THREE versions in FORGOTTEN
HITS ... the very rare TV-version mix (VALLERI-1), the hit single version
(VALLERI-2, which is the re-recording from 1968 that fades out at the end) and
the other now-more-popular "cold ending" version (VALLERI-3).
Hopefully, along the way we've also shared a fascinating look at the song's
origins! (Unfortunately, this seems to be yet another case of 30-year hindsight
propaganda making for a better story than the truth ... with so many erroneous
"facts" stated in BOYCE's account of the song's success, one cannot
help but wonder what other "mistruths" might exist in his account of
the events of the day ... writing the song in an hour and a half, selling it to
a room full of executives with two lines of verse and two lines of chorus and then
recording the whole thing with THE MONKEES in one hour ... now knowing that at
LEAST three complete takes exist!) However, the "embellished" account
sure does make for a fascinating story!!!
BOBBY HART: (Laughing) Well, that's a pretty good
story, isn't it? As you've already figured out, there are a couple of glaring
embellishments ... but, believe it or not, most of Tommy’s story is true. You
caught him in a big one!!! Here are two or three more:
#1: I never heard anything about Donnie having a dream. Kirshner was very
methodical and was always making notes, lists and “dreaming” up formulas for
giving the kids what they want. Having a girl’s name in a song title was just
one of his formulas for teen success.
#2: Of course, Donnie would NEVER have tried to assemble Screen Gems executives
for this first song audition, certainly not Jackie Cooper.
#3: My version is actually more astounding (still plugging the book) in that,
from the time we jumped in the car and started writing the song while heading over
Mulholland Drive to Kirshner’s rented house in Trousdale Estates, to when Tommy
jumped up on Donnie’s coffee table with his guitar and we started playing it
for him, not more that twenty minutes had elapsed! Tommy, in the back seat, had
come up with a guitar riff and we had the title. That’s it. We sang
“Va...al...aeal...er...ee, I love her, Va...al...aeal...er..ee” And then we
quickly added, “There’s a little verse that goes in here” and continued,
“Va..al...aeal...er...ee”. We sold it. Donnie loved it. The two little two-line
verses that we came up with later took less that an additional twenty minutes.
Louie Sheldon’s great Flaminco work, as one of your readers pointed out the
first time this series ran, added greatly to the song’s appeal. Although he
tried to duplicate his guitar work the second time we produced the song, I
don’t think he was ever quite able to match the magic of his first spontaneous
solos.
CHAPTER 7
Had COLGEMS RECORDS chosen
to take the approach that CAPITOL RECORDS took when THE BEATLES first landed on
our shores with THEIR hot new artist, THE MONKEES easily could have had a dozen
more Top 40 Hits. Their LP tracks got SO much radio airplay, it was hard to go 20
minutes without hearing SOMETHING by THE MONKEES on the radio. (Yeah, yeah, I
know ... SOMETHING was by THE BEATLES, not THE MONKEES ... but you know what I
mean!) Coupled with the weekly exposure of these songs on their television
series, some of these album tracks were every bit as popular and familiar as
many of the other biggest hits of the day.
In fact, for that brief period of time from late 1966 through the Summer of
1967, THE MONKEES were actually outselling AND more popular than THE BEATLES
... who, as we ALL know, were more popular than JESUS CHRIST. (Of course, then
The Fab Four released a little album called SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB
BAND and left The Pre-Fab Four in the dust ... hey, c'mon ... despite their
ENORMOUS and INCREDIBLE worldwide popularity, was there ever REALLY any doubt
as to who the more talented band was?!?!?)
In any event, MUCH of that success can be credited to the songwriting team of
TOMMY BOYCE and BOBBY HART, who supplied THE MONKEES with over twenty tracks
during their hey-day. (Or would that more correctly be their hey-hey day, as in
"Hey, Hey We're THE MONKEES"?!?!?) BOYCE AND HART were most
definitely "in the zone" ... they would never again enjoy such
guaranteed success with their material ... but from 1966-1968 they were
perfectly in-tune with what the rest of the world wanted to hear.
Wrapping up this part of the feature, we figured that today we'd remind you
about a couple of tunes that ABSOLUTELY would have been Top Five Hits here
in The States had they been released as singles ... and one FORGOTTEN HIT that
was.
I WANNA BE FREE was a DAVY ballad that
got TONS of airplay on both the radio and the TV Show. It was the main featured
song in the original television pilot and BOYCE AND HART's original vocals had to
be removed from the track once all four of THE MONKEES had been cast.
(Ironically, in that pilot ... which ended up airing later in the season ...
both an uptempo and a ballad version were featured ... and, although this has
become one of DAVY JONES's signature tunes, MICKY DOLENZ ALSO took a crack at
the vocal on the TV Show!) It's from their first LP and should be a familiar
track to all.
BOBBY HART: Even though radio was playing it in heavy
rotation as if it were a single, Colgems / RCA purposely held back I WANNA BE
FREE, so that the kids would have to buy the album if they wanted to own the
song.
SHE could have been a #1
Single ... and was played as often as if it were! (We've featured this tune
before in FORGOTTEN HITS but it ties in perfectly with this new BOYCE AND HART
series.)
In fact, here in Chicago, it routinely won the #1 spot on WCFL's daily Top Five
Requests Countdown ... for WEEKS at a time! It kicked off THE MONKEES' second
album and, had it been released on the heels of their #1 smash I'M A BELIEVER,
it most certainly would have followed it to the top of the charts.
Finally, here's one that, despite its hit status, you
just never seem to hear on the radio anymore. When it was first released as a
single back in the Summer of '67, WORDS was the
A-Side ... the ultimately far more popular PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY was actually
the B-Side. Now, you hear PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY all the time on the radio ...
but you very rarely hear WORDS.
WORDS also features a seldom-heard PETER TORK lead vocal (traded off with
MICKY) and was a hauntingly produced track that was also included several times
on the TV show. Although it charted on its own in both Billboard and Cash Box
Magazine (#11 and #5 respectively), it played second-fiddle to PLEASANT VALLEY
SUNDAY's #3 showing on both charts ... but one can't forget that, in its own
right, it was, in fact, a Top Five National Single. Despite this fact, however,
you just don't get to hear this one very often. (Here in Chicago, WORDS peaked
at #2 while PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY stopped at #4 ... although, at various times
during its chart-run, BOTH sides were shown as the "A-Side"
position.)
DIDJAKNOW-1: Prior to
THE MONKEES recording WORDS, it was done by THE LEAVES ... the same garage band
who had the hit single HEY JOE in 1966! THE LEAVES' version never even charted.
DIDJAKNOW-2: The
TOMMY BOYCE / BOBBY HART version of WORDS was incorrectly credited on the ELVIS
PRESLEY Live Album FROM MEMPHIS TO VEGAS / FROM VEGAS TO MEMPHIS. Songwriting credit
on the original LP release was given to BOYCE AND HART when, in fact, it was
THE BEE GEES' tune WORDS that ELVIS had performed live in concert!!! (Later
pressings were corrected to reflect this!)
BOBBY HART: How on earth did you know this?!?! Tommy and I
were in Tower Records on the Sunset Strip when we spotted the latest Elvis LP
and were elated to see our song and names listed in the credits. Of course, a
half hour later when we plopped it on the turntable, our hearts sunk.
KENT KOTAL: I bought the LP, too ... and just couldn't
IMAGINE ELVIS singing the BOYCE AND HART / MONKEES song!!! But my copy showed
YOU guys as the songwriters on the now classic BEE GEES' song! (Believe it or
not, thinking it was THE MONKEES' tune was one of the reasons I bought the LP
in the first place!)
EDITOR'S NOTE: After this piece first ran, I found a quote from BOBBY that he had given to another publication. By 1967, WORDS had already been recorded and released by THE MONKEES (the only HIT version of the song), THE LEAVES and THE BOSTON TEA PARTY. Then, in 1970, BOYCE AND HART received a call from RCA RECORDS ...
BOBBY HART: In 1970 we got a call from RCA saying that
Elvis Presley had cut it. We each ordered 500 copies of Elvis' "From
Memphis To Vegas" LP. We played it and, of course, it turned out to be the
Bee Gees song! We were very popular in those days. RCA thought we wrote almost
everything!
DIDJAKNOW-3: Both
TOMMY BOYCE and BOBBY HART have since stated that their inspiration for the
popular MONKEES’ tune I WANNA BE FREE was a song by country singer ROGER MILLER
called ONE DYIN’ AND A-BURYIN’ … a song about SUICIDE believe it or not!!! In
the song, a #30 pop hit in 1965, MILLER sings the line “I wanna be free” and
BOYCE AND HART built THEIR song around that whole line. In hindsight, it’s
almost creepy that TOMMY BOYCE would later go on to take his own life.
DIDJAKNOW-4:
A few years back (when this BOYCE AND HART Series first ran in FORGOTTEN HITS), FH List Member (and DIAMOND RECORDS collector) TOM DIEHL sent us a copy of VALLERI as recorded by a group called THE PINEAPPLE HEARD. Apparently, sometime between the time that THE MONKEES' episode featuring VALLERI first aired ... and the thirteen month gap that COLGEMS RECORDS waited to release this song as a single ... another group called THE PINEAPPLE HEARD recorded a version of the song. Had DIAMOND RECORDS’ Marketing Department been on the ball, they just may have stolen the thunder away from THE MONKEES’ version. (In hindsight, probably not … if THE PINEAPPLE HEARD single truly DID start to make some noise, COLGEMS would have most likely released THE MONKEES’ single even earlier … which means that we would all now have the TV version instead of the re-recorded 1968 version in our record collections!!!) Although THE PINEAPPLE HEARD version was never a hit, it was suspected for quite some time that BOYCE AND HART may have been involved with this other recording … but, prior to now, we were never able to confirm any connection. Since this time around we had the advantage of working with BOBBY HART, we asked him!!!
BOBBY HART: We had nothing to do with this version.
So there you have it!
WERE
THE MONKEES REALLY BIGGER
THAN THE BEATLES AT ONE TIME?!?!?:
For a brief moment in time, yes, they were! THE MONKEES' first album spent 13 weeks at #1 beginning in November of 1966. It was knocked out of the #1 spot by their SECOND album (MORE OF THE MONKEES) which spent 18 additional weeks at #1!!! That one-two punch accounted for 31 consecutive weeks of THE MONKEES topping Billboard's LP chart. In addition, THE MONKEES would place two more albums at the top of the chart during 1967: HEADQUARTERS (#1 for 1 week) and PISCES, AQUARIUS, CAPRICORN AND JONES, LTD. (#1 for 5 weeks). That's a total of 37 weeks at Number One out of a possible 60!!! (During that same timeframe, THE BEATLES topped the charts just once with what is considered to be their landmark album of all time, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, which spent 15 weeks on top of Billboard's LP Chart.) In addition, THE MONKEES rang up eight Top 40 Hits during that 60 week period (vs. THE BEATLES' five.) It can be argued that THE BEATLES lost some of their younger fans who were not yet ready to follow their leaders down the much more sophisticated path of RUBBER SOUL, REVOLVER and SGT. PEPPER ... let alone their newly embraced drug culture ... some of us still wanted the fun, happy, carefree mop-tops and suddenly THE MONKEES better fit that bill. (THE BEATLES were growing mustaches for God's sake!!!) But the truth is that no other BEATLES album ever spent more time at #1 than SGT. PEPPER's 15 week run ... in fact, even when compared to their biggest year ever (1964, when they, too, knocked themselves out of the #1 spot on the album chart ... THE BEATLES' SECOND ALBUM replacing MEET THE BEATLES at the top of the heap for a combined consecutive total of 16 weeks ... along with a mass saturation of product hitting the marketplace never before seen in the music industry), THE MONKEES certainly gave THE BEATLES a run for the money in terms of overall short-term popularity.
***
This wraps up THE MONKEES portion of the BOYCE AND HART story ... I hope you've enjoyed it! Stick Around ... LOTS More Great Music and Info to Come!!!
CHAPTER 8
According to those close to TOMMY
BOYCE AND BOBBY HART at the time, they can pinpoint the exact date when TOMMY
and BOBBY decided to give it a shot as recording artists on their own. And that
date would be Sunday, January 22, 1967.
BOBBY HART had toured as part of the back-up, support act behind THE MONKEES on
their first major U.S. tours. With THE CANDY STORE PROPHETS, he had seen first
hand the crowd reaction night after night to this latest pop sensation. When
THE MONKEES performed at The Cow Palace in San Francisco on January 22, 1967
(their final appearance of the tour), TOMMY BOYCE finally came to see the show.
Apparently, BOYCE had never realized the impact that THE MONKEES had on their
audience prior to that night. After the show, he came backstage practically
breathless and told BOBBY HART "That should be you and I up there!!! We
wrote these songs!!!"
On May 6, 1967, that dream became a reality. TOMMY BOYCE and BOBBY HART went
into the A&M recording studios and cut their first single as a duo. Two
months later, OUT AND ABOUT was a Top 40 Hit, peaking at #34 on the Cash Box
chart.
Their biggest hit would follow ... I WONDER WHAT SHE'S DOING TONIGHT went all
the way to #7 on the Cash Box Chart ... and was a #2 hit here in Chicago. You
still hear it regularly on oldies stations around the country.
Their next chart hit bordered on some of the psychedelia that was so popular in
the music being released in late 1967 / early 1968. GOODBYE BABY only went to
#52 but I think it's one of their better produced tracks. According to BOBBY
HART, THE BEACH BOYS agreed. Shortly after the aborted SMILE album, BEACH BOYS'
mastermind BRIAN WILSON retreated to his room. "BRUCE JOHNSTON approached
me at the point where BRIAN WILSON wasn't producing THE BEACH BOYS anymore and
asked if TOMMY and I would be willing to produce their next session." It
never happened ... but give a close listen to GOODBYE BABY and see if you don't
hear just a little bit of what must have caught BRUCE JOHNSTON's ear. (Keep in
mind that earlier in 1967 JOHNSTON was actively involved in the FORGOTTEN HITS
favorite MY WORLD FELL DOWN by SAGITTARIUS ... which, in some ways, sounds like
a distant musical cousin to the BOYCE AND HART tune. YOU guys liked MY WORLD
FELL DOWN enough to vote it into YOUR TOP 20
FAVORITE PSYCHEDELIC SONGS OF ALL-TIME ... and you can FIND that list
elsewhere on The FORGOTTEN HITS Website.)
BOYCE AND HART's last entry into The American Top 40 was a GREAT little tune
called ALICE LONG. This one went to #16 in Cash Box but stopped at #27 in
Billboard. (It was a #6 smash here in Chicago and it just happens to be one of
MY favorite BOYCE AND HART records, too!)
CHAPTER 9
We've already covered the fact that TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART had written one of the most popular TV-Themes in television history, THE THEME FROM "THE MONKEES" ... and they had their greatest songwriting success by placing some of their other material with the group. Earlier, TOMMY BOYCE placed his composition (written with STEVE VENET: ACTION, a Top 20 Hit for FREDDY CANNON) as the theme song for the DICK CLARK-produced after-school teen music program WHERE THE ACTION IS. We featured THAT tune in our series, too. In fact, BOYCE AND HART would make several appearances on this program, along with the follow-up series HAPPENING '68 (both hosted by RAIDERS MARK LINDSAY and PAUL REVERE.)
But in 1965, they would write the TV Theme that would secure their bank
accounts for all of the rest of the days of their lives. The 30-second musical
clip that began every episode of THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES has been running five
days a week for over 40 years now, the longest, continuing running drama on
television.
***
Despite all their other television involvement, however, it seems to be their appearances on the '60's classic sitcoms BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE that MOST piqued the interest of our readers when this series first ran.
BOYCE AND HART appeared first on the I DREAM OF JEANNIE episode JEANNIE,
THE HIP HIPPIE, back in 1967. It seems that MAJOR TONY NELSON (LARRY HAGMAN)
was recruited by DR. BELLOWS to find a musical group to perform at MRS.
BELLOWS' charity bazaar. (Otherwise, both men would have to give up their
vacations.) Always eager to help her master, JEANNIE (BARBARA EDEN) decides to
put a band together herself ... after all, ANYBODY could play and sing in a
rock and roll band! (That's her on the drums in the photo above!!!) BOYCE AND
HART (along with a couple of other "mod" looking young hipsters) are
"blinked" into an audition but, until JEANNIE magically blinks them
some musical ability, the band can't play a note! Once they've been blessed
with some genie-given musical talent, they launch into a perfect version of the
new BOYCE AND HART single OUT AND ABOUT, a song we talked about yesterday
in our special BOYCE AND HART / FORGOTTEN HITS series.) A short instrumental
version of LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE, BOYCE AND HART's #1 MONKEES' hit, even
plays in the background in one scene ... and, in fact, THE MONKEES'
HEADQUARTERS album is prominently displayed on the wall of a record shop in
another! By the way, famed record producer PHIL SPECTOR (who was also recently
featured in a FORGOTTEN HITS Series a while back) also has a
small role in this episode!!!
You can watch a scene here ... BOYCE AND HART singing OUT AND ABOUT (with PHIL
SPECTOR listening in ... and JEANNIE on drums!!!)
Click here: YouTube - Out & About Boyce & Hart
***
It was their appearance on BEWITCHED, however, that garnered the most attention! On SERENA STOPS THE SHOW (1970), SAMANTHA's beautiful twin cousin SERENA (hey, wasn't that the whole concept behind THE PATTY DUKE SHOW ... and didn't JEANNIE have an "evil-twin", too?!?!?) wants to hire BOYCE AND HART (appearing as themselves) to perform at THE COSMOS COTILLION but the guys inform her that they're already booked through 1976!!! (Keep in mind that this was WAY before reality TV took hold!!!) SERENA then casts a spell that basically makes them suck!!! Once they're deemed "unpopular," (and no longer in demand ... at one point, their manager complains "They haven't sold a record in three days!") she persuades them not only to appear at the ball but also to perform her newly written song I'LL BLOW YOU A KISS IN THE WIND. We're featuring THIS favorite again today, too, as part of our special BOYCE AND HART feature! (Frannie and I just had the opportunity to watch BOTH of these classic TV episodes ... it's sometimes hard to believe that BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE were two of the most popular shows of the '60's!!!)
***
MOVIE MADNESS-1: According to BOBBY HART, QUENTIN
TARANTINO wanted to use the BOYCE AND HART track I'LL BLOW YOU A KISS IN THE
WIND (first performed on the BEWITCHED television series) in his cult-favorite
motion picture PULP FICTION ... but a suitable master could not be found in
time for inclusion in the film. There may be some truth to this statement ...
when he hosted SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, TARANTINO said (in his opening monologue),
"Serena singing 'I'll Blow You a Kiss in the Wind' is the greatest event
in the history of television."
INCREDIBLE!!!: It is just AMAZING
sometimes what you can find on the Internet!!! Here's a link that'll take you
to THREE performances of I'LL BLOW YOU A KISS IN THE WIND ... one by SERENA as
performed in the aforementioned episode of BEWITCHED ... one by BOYCE AND HART
(from the same episode) and yet ANOTHER by director QUENTIN TARANTINO from his
above-mentioned SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE monologue!!! TOO MUCH!!!!!
Click here: Lyrics - Bewitched @ Harpies Bizarre
Or, watch it here:
Click here: YouTube - BEWITCHED - I'LL BLOW YOU A KISS
IN THE WIND
Click here: YouTube - Boyce & Hart - I'll Blow You
A Kiss In The Wind
Click here: YouTube - Quentin Tarantino Sings on SNL
MOVIE MADNESS-2: According to TOMMY BOYCE, their biggest hit I WONDER WHAT
SHE'S DOING TONIGHT was supposed to appear in the monster-hit movie FOREST GUMP
but was cut from the soundtrack at the last minute. Too bad ... not only did
this movie introduce a whole new generation to some of the greatest music of
the '60's, but it also went on to sell about 25 Million Copies!!!
DIDJAKNOW?-1: Once they were established recording stars in their own
right, TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART made LOTS of television appearances in FRONT
of the camera ... prior to their own chart success, MOST of their musical
contributions were behind the scenes. Not only did they write the theme song
for WHERE THE ACTION IS, but they appeared on the program (and its follow-up
series HAPPENING '68) EIGHT times!!! They also guested on THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE
(on an episode hosted by their A&M record label-boss HERB ALPERT) and made
several appearances on AMERICAN BANDSTAND (four times as a duo, once as part of
DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART and ... way back in 1962 ... TOMMY BOYCE appeared
as a SOLO artist performing I'LL REMEMBER CAROL, one of the very first songs
that we featured in this special BOYCE AND HART tribute series!)
SCREEN TEST: We ALSO told you that at one point TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY
HART believed that they were going to have key roles on THE MONKEES' television
series as kind of the LENNON AND McCARTNEY of the group ... well, it also seems
that their appearances on some of the other popular television shows of the day
(I DREAM OF JEANNIE, BEWITCHED, THE FLYING NUN) were sort of "acting
lessons / screen tests" to see if they could hold up starring in their OWN
television music / comedy series. Unfortunately, no such program ever
materialized.
BY THE WAY: We've mentioned throughout this series how THE MONKEES'
television series was supposed to be America's answer to THE BEATLES ... we've
even cited some examples of how THE BEATLES' music influenced some of BOYCE AND
HART's compositions featured on the show. However, BOBBY HART says that THE
THEME FROM "THE MONKEES" was actually inspired by the 1965 DAVE CLARK
FIVE hit CATCH US IF YOU CAN! ("Here we come again" ... "Here we
come, walkin' down the street").
DIDJAKNOW?-2: The theme to the daytime soap opera drama THE DAYS OF OUR
LIVES may be BOYCE AND HART's crowning achievement as songwriters ... as we
said earlier, it's aired five days a week for well over forty years!!! When
they were first approached to write the theme, they were asked to come up with
something that sounded like SUNRISE, SUNSET from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. After
submitting several different pieces for the theme (all of which were quickly
rejected), they came up with the theme you still hear today. However, according
to BOBBY HART, even though he and TOMMY wrote the theme together, when the
copyright was belatedly registerd by the publisher in 1976, the name CHARLES
ALBERTINE was added to the songwriting credits. (ALBERTINE had written several
other pieces of television music and nobody seems to know for sure just how
this turn of events happened ... however, at the same time, BOYCE AND HART's
names were also added to several pieces of music that ALBERTINE had written
that they had absolutely NOTHING at all to do with!!!) BOBBY says that
ALBERTINE has been cut in for 12 1/2% of the royalties since 1976 and, when
TOMMY was still alive he never really wanted to rock the boat.
"ALBERTINE's widow is probably living on that money and we should just be
thankful that we're getting what we're getting." After TOMMY died in 1994,
BOBBY decided to honor his partner's wishes and the publishing arrangement has
never been challenged nor altered.
WHAT'S THE NAME OF THAT SONG?!?!?: Hey check out these picture sleeves ... what was the CORRECT name of this song??? I mean, they SING "I'm Gonna Blow You A Kiss In The Wind" but the OFFICIAL title of the song is supposed to be I'LL BLOW YOU A KISS IN THE WIND." Looks like even the record company was a little confused ... they actually printed two DIFFERENT picture sleeves for this record!!!
CHAPTER 10
Yesterday, we covered some of the TV Themes that BOYCE AND HART were involved in. But soon, they were writing (and singing) MOVIE themes, too!!!
According
to LEONARD MALTIN's MOVIE GUIDE, THE AMBUSHERS (the third installment of DEAN
MARTIN's MATT HELM Secret Agent series) was a total BOMB!!! He says, "The
third entry in this series may be the weakest, but few film scholars will want
to take time making certain."
By 1968, MARTIN was already a successful fixture in our homes with his musical
comedy variety series ... his movies with former sidekick JERRY LEWIS were
legendary ... he had successfully attacked the pop charts with hits like
EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY, THE DOOR IS STILL OPEN TO MY HEART, former FORGOTTEN
HIT feature HOUSTON and golden oldies like THAT'S AMORE and MEMORIES ARE MADE
OF THIS ... he would soon re-invent the celebrity roast ... and had also made
successful movies like RIO BRAVO (the classic western starring JOHN WAYNE and
RICKY NELSON), the original version of OCEAN'S 11 with his RAT PACK cohorts and
played the romantic lead in MARILYN MONROE's last film (never released)
SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE. In 1970, he would soar again as the pilot in the film
AIRPORT.
But from 1966 - 1969, MARTIN portrayed secret agent MATT HELM in a series of
four films that later inspired a television series starring JAMES FRANCIOSA.
(The character was based on the novels of DONALD HAMILTON.) In all, four films
were made: THE SILENCERS, MURDERERS' ROW, THE AMBUSHERS and THE WRECKING CREW,
each doing substantially less business than its predecessor!
BOYCE AND HART were contracted to perform the title track for THE AMBUSHERS. (This was one of their rare recordings that they DIDN'T write themselves.) There were evidently SUCH high expectations for this track that it was stuck on the B-Side of I WONDER WHAT SHE'S DOING TONIGHT where it could wallow in obscurity for all its remaining days!!!
(In fact, it's SO obscure, that it never even appeared on a BOYCE AND HART album and, as such, is considered to be one of their rarest tracks ... despite the fact that I WONDER WHAT SHE'S DOING TONIGHT was a huge single success!)
BOBBY HART: In those days (and it’s probably still the same) recording artists were paid large fees to record movie theme songs. In return, we were required contractually, to release the song on record, hence the B-side inclusion.
***
BOYCE AND HART also performed the title track from the film WHERE ANGELS
GO, TROUBLE FOLLOWS, (starring ROSALIND RUSSELL, STELLA STEVENS and SUSAN SAINT
JAMES.) In fact, THIS time both TOMMY BOYCE and BOBBY HART appear briefly in
the movie, singing the title track in the opening sequence.
LEONARD MALTIN describes this film as "For FLYING NUN fans only."
(Ironically, BOYCE AND HART also appeared on the television series THE FLYING
NUN, starring SALLY FIELD. The episode was titled WHEN GENERATIONS GAP and they
performed two songs!!!) WHERE ANGELS GO, TROUBLE FOLLOWS was the sequel to the
1966 film THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS, which also starred ROSALIND RUSSELL along
with HAYLEY MILLS and GYPSY ROSE LEE.
AN OSCAR NOD: Speaking of non-charting movie theme hits, in 1983, BOBBY HART was nominated for an Academy Award for his composition OVER YOU from the Oscar-winning film TENDER MERCIES. (He wrote the song with AUSTIN ROBERTS who had a hit with HART's SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH ME back in 1972.) Although it didn't win the award, (it lost to the Theme from FLASHDANCE), it's a beautiful song that deserved a better showing. (The "hit" single version by LANE BRODY never even made the pop charts ... but was a #15 Hit on Billboard's Country Chart. It's a beautiful song that should have crossed over to the Adult Contemporary Chart, too, but didn't ... and that's a shame ... other than in a forum like FORGOTTEN HITS, it's just another one of those great songs that'll go unknown and unheard, never to be discovered unless you happen to watch the film.)
CHAPTER 11
In 1968, TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART
released a single called L.U.V.
Now, back in the swingin' '60's, it was not at all uncommon to see PEACE and
LUV written all over the place ... but BOYCE AND HART had a different agenda in
mind when they wrote this tune.
As a means of protesting the fact that our government felt that 18 year olds
were old enough to be drafted and sent off to war in Viet Nam ... but NOT old
enough to vote ... our musical hipsters came up with a tune called L.U.V. ...
(LET US VOTE).
With America engulfed in yet another seemingly endless, unresolvable war,
this seemed like a timely tune to feature today. Although I’m sure that BOYCE
and HART had the best of intentions when they first released L.U.V., it never
officially charted. (It "bubbled under" at #111 in March of 1969 ...
a little too late to make ANY impact or difference in the votes cast the
previous November!) L.U.V. DID receive some scattered airplay here … but it
pretty much disappeared from the shelves overnight! (In fact, I remember seeing
the single ... with a picture sleeve ... in the cut-out bins for quite some
time thereafter!!!)
BOBBY HART: In my book, I tell the whole story of how Tommy and I were introduced to the Let Us Vote movement by Joey Bishop and came to be their national spokespersons, stumping across the nation, personally lobbying Congress, promoting the cause at our shows and in endless interviews, and finally prevailing when in 1971, the states promptly ratified the Twenty-sixth amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
***
Here are a couple of
photos (submitted by CLARK BESCH) of the L.U.V. Movement as it pertained to
Chicago, circa 1968/69. That's WCFL's JIM STAGG (with a couple of kids who sure
don't look old enough to vote to me!!!)
CHAPTER 12
OK ... so we lied!!! We can't REALLY wrap up THE MONKEES / BOYCE AND HART connection without addressing their 1976 collaboration dubbed DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART.
In late 1975 / early 1976, thanks to a surge of interest initiated by a large number of MONKEES fans in the Far East (where their popularity has never really waned), a ten-year anniversary tour of THE MONKEES began to be discussed.
It was MOST important to recruit DAVY
JONES and MICKY DOLENZ ... they were, after all, the voices of THE MONKEES,
having sung lead on all the hit records. MICHAEL NESMITH, as usual, wasn't
interested in having anything to do with his past. Depending on which version
of the story you choose to believe, PETER TORK either couldn't be found or
simply was never asked to participate. Once DOLENZ and JONES were onboard,
TOMMY BOYCE and BOBBY HART were approached. They had, after all, written most
of those hits.
Because THE MONKEES' name couldn't be used due to copyright restrictions, the
tour was quickly billed as "THE GREAT GOLDEN HITS OF THE MONKEES SHOW -
STARRING THE GUYS WHO SANG 'EM AND THE GUYS WHO WROTE 'EM."
***
DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART kicked
off their tour at Six Flags Over Mid-America in St. Louis, a concert I was
fortunate enough to have attended, back on The 4th of July Weekend, 1975. They
set an attendance record that night (23,000 fans showed up despite virtually NO
notice or advance publicity) and the boys were inspired to continue their
"amusement park tour" around the country. (I saw them again in
December in Downtown Chicago at a TOYS FOR TOTS Benefit Concert where a new toy
donation was your ticket into the concert.)
All THE MONKEES' hits were present and accounted for, as were a couple of BOYCE
AND HART tunes. In fact, the boys even did a medley of BOYCE AND HART
compositions originally done by other artists, most of which we've covered here
in our B&H Special Series!
They were quickly signed to CAPITOL RECORDS and soon made the rounds to all the
talk shows, radio stations and musical programs like AMERICAN BANDSTAND and,
perhaps MOST ironically, DON KIRSHNER'S ROCK CONCERT!!! Their first single, I
REMEMBER THE FEELING, absolutely SHOULD have been a hit ... it had ALL of the
characteristics of a MONKEES / BOYCE AND HART song, down to the "C'mon,
Bobby, let's go" TOMMY BOYCE trademark “ad-lib” during the bridge. DAVY
and MICKY traded off the lead vocals in one of their best duets ... but it
wasn't to be. By 1976, nobody cared about a MONKEES single ... especially a
pseudo-MONKEES single! (Ironically, ten years later for THE MONKEES' 20th
Anniversary Tour ... with the support of MTV rerunning their television
episodes ... THE MONKEES would score a Top 20 Hit with THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS
NOW, featuring MICKY DOLENZ and PETER TORK!) I REMEMBER THE FEELING bombed,
never hitting the charts at all. Too bad ... they also released a very good
album that was virtually ignored. A live, Japanese-only LP followed, but failed
to capture the group at their best.
BOBBY HART: Al Coury, the executive who signed
Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart to Capitol Records, left the label to head RSO
Records, two weeks before the release of “I Remember The Feeling”, so there was
no one watching the store when our record came out.
'60's FLASHBACK: I've
told the story before of hearing DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART do a live radio
interview with legendary Chicagoland disc jockey ROY LEONARD back in 1976.
During the course of the interview, the boys stressed how they'd grown up and
wanted to be taken more seriously as artists. I couldn't help but think that a
positive step in that direction might have been to drop the MICK-Y – DAV-Y –
TOM-MY and BOB-BY from their stage persona!!!
DIDJAKNOW?-1: Prior to
hitting the road as DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART, TOMMY and BOBBY were
performing in Las Vegas as ZSA ZSA GABOR's opening act!!! (I cannot help but
wonder how much persuading was necessary to get them to drop THAT gig!!!)
BOBBY HART: The Boyce & Hart Show starring Zsa Zsa
Gabor in the main showroom of the Flamingo was the last time Boyce & Hart
worked together (January 1970) before reuniting briefly for DJBH in 1975.
***
I really liked the DOLENZ, JONES,
BOYCE AND HART album when it was first released back in 1976. (After being
unavailable for YEARS, it was recently reissued on CD for the very first time!)
It was filled with fun, upbeat pop songs that perfectly suited the
personalities of the band. As I mentioned earlier, I was fortunate enough to
see their debut performance at Six Flags Over Mid-America in St. Louis on The
4th of July Weekend, 1975, and again at the TOYS FOR TOTS Benefit Concert held
in Chicago later that December.
Part of their stage act (recorded as a live album in Japan the following year)
was to perform a medley of hits written by TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART for OTHER
artists ... in fact, it included many of the songs that we've featured
previously in our B&H tribute. Unfortunately, the live version committed to
tape is one of their WORST performances ... we saw the band perform this tune
MUCH better at the concerts we attended ... but it's all we have to remember
this show by. THE BOYCE AND HART HITS MEDLEY features their versions
of COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER, PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES, HURT SO BAD, PEACHES AND
CREAM, SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH ME and KEEP ON SINGING.
The DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART Album also featured their studio version
of the DION hit A TEENAGER IN LOVE, a GREAT take on an old '60's classic. The
LP also included a pretty new ballad called I LOVE YOU (AND I'M GLAD THAT I
SAID IT) featuring BOBBY HART on lead vocals and some other new compositions by
BOYCE AND HART (RIGHT NOW, YOU DIDN'T FEEL THAT WAY LAST NIGHT and SWEET HEART
ATTACK), DOLENZ AND JONES (YOU AND I, later re-recorded by THE MONKEES on their
full-band reunion LP JUSTUS, and SAVIN' MY LOVE FOR YOU) and even a DOLENZ AND
BOYCE composition called IT ALWAYS HURTS THE MOST IN THE MORNING.
The band also recorded a song called SAIL ON SAILOR (NOT THE BEACH BOYS' tune
... who would have the nerve to write a song called SAIL ON SAILOR after THE
BEACH BOYS claimed that title?!?!? Hey, why not ... MARKY MARK cut a tune
called GOOD VIBRATIONS!!!)
If you have a chance to pick up this album, I highly reccommend it ... it's a
shame that the promotion fell through right after its release ... there's
really no way of knowing just what kind of comeback this LP may have initiated!
This wraps up the DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE
AND HART portion of our B&H history!!!
DIDJAKNOW-2?: The musical director
and guitar player for all of the DJBH tours was sometime RAIDER / WHERE THE
ACTION IS-regular KEITH ALLISON. In fact, as part of the BOYCE & HART hit
machine, he often performed the ACTION theme live in concert! (And all this
time you thought the only thing he could do was look like PAUL McCARTNEY!!!)
DIDJAKNOW-3?: THE MONKEES / BOYCE
AND HART connection doesn't REALLY stop with the DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART
project ... YEARS later, when ARISTA RECORDS put out an album of THE MONKEES'
GREATEST HITS (THEN AND NOW) and MICKY DOLENZ and PETER TORK got together to
record three new tracks for the LP, one of those tracks was the BOBBY HART
composition ANYTIME, ANYPLACE, ANYWHERE. (We already told you earlier in this
series about their recording of the PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS' tune KICKS ...
the third track was their big, comeback single called THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS
NOW, which put THE MONKEES back on the pop charts for the first time in nearly
20 years!)
CHAPTER 13
In 1974 TOMMY BOYCE approached
publisher MELVIN POWERS about a manuscript he had written detailing HOW TO
WRITE A HIT SONG ... AND SELL IT.
POWERS loved the idea of a "how-to" book on songwriting and agreed to
publish the book ... as long as it really worked! To test it, he asked TOMMY if
he could show HIM how to write a hit song!
Incredibly, the songwriting team of TOMMY BOYCE and MELVIN POWERS began to
crank out the tunes ... and soon, they were placing the results of their
efforts with country artists!
CONNIE CATO (who had hit the Country Top 20 previously with her version of the
old TIMI YURO hit HURT) would soon hit Billboard's Country Chart with the BOYCE
and POWERS composition WHO WANTS A SLIGHTLY USED WOMAN, which went to #53.
SUNDAY SHARPE would hit #47 with their tune MR. SONGWRITER and another BOYCE /
POWERS tune called WILLIE BURGUNDY (first recorded by '50's pop star TERESA
BREWER) would go on to inspire a group to call themselves THE WILLIE BURGUNDY
FIVE, who then recorded yet ANOTHER BOYCE / POWERS song called WILLIE's GIRL.
The new songwriting team next placed another new song called SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
with a group called THE BOYS IN THE BUNKHOUSE ... and, most amazingly, ALL of
these hits came within a year of their original publishing discussion and all
from a guy (MELVIN POWERS) who had never written ... or even thought about
writing ... a song prior to hooking up with TOMMY BOYCE!!!
So while TOMMY BOYCE couldn't seem to score a hit under his own name (or the
names of DAVID TUCKER, CHRISTOPHER CLOUD or TOMMY FORTUNE either for that
matter ... all various guises he used in the early '70's in his attempts to
re-launch his solo recording career without any ties to his MONKEES
connection), he soon was hitting the country charts with some regularity by way
of his book publisher (and new songwriting partner) MELVIN POWERS!
Melvin Powers, Teresa Brewer and Tommy Boyce
(Teresa cut a version of
the Boyce / Powers tune, WILLIE BURGUNDY)
OVER THE OCEAN AND UNDER THE MOON OF LOVE:
In 1976, the British Pop Group SHOWADDYWADDY went all the way to #1 with
a tune called UNDER THE MOON OF LOVE ... a track written years earlier by a
young TOMMY BOYCE. (Despite never scoring a hit here in The United States,
SHOWADDYWADDY had 15 Top 20 Hits in the UK ... and I'd never even HEARD of them
before doing the research for this BOYCE AND HART article a few years back!!!)
After DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART split up, TOMMY moved to England for a
while and started working under the name of TOMMY FORTUNE. While playing in a
small coffee house one night, barely making a living, somebody in the audience
recognized him and said, "What are you doing here? Don't you know that
you've got a Top Ten Record right now?!?!?" BOYCE immediately went to the
RONDOR MUSIC PUBLISHING COMPANY and scored a songwriting deal ... but decided
to keep the alias TOMMY FORTUNE. Ironically, SHOWADDYWADDY would hit The
British Top Five a couple of years later with a remake of BOYCE's tune PRETTY
LITTLE ANGEL EYES.
CHAPTER 14
According to BOBBY HART, after the
success of THE MONKEES had died down, the duo decided to split. At various
times, TOMMY BOYCE left the music business altogether. On other occasions, he
would come back, using an alias in the hopes of scoring a hit on its own merits
rather than be black-listed as one of the guys who wrote bubblegum pop songs
for THE MONKEES. At various times, he recorded as DAVID TUCKER, CHRISTOPHER
CLOUD and TOMMY FORTUNE ... all without success. And, from time to time, he
would embrace his past and work with BOBBY again.
Once, late in 1969, BOYCE approached BOBBY and said "We can still work
together, but you'll just be like a sideman ... I'll make all the decisions ...
you'll be an employee" to which HART replied, (in his BEST HOME
IMPROVEMENT voice, I’m sure!!!) "I don't think so, Tom." Shortly
thereafter, HART teamed with DANNY JANSSEN, who had already scored hits with
BOBBY SHERMAN and THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY. In the early '70's, they wrote songs
together (along with a guy named AUSTIN ROBERTS …now a member of our FORGOTTEN
HITS mailing list) for the animated children's television series JOSIE AND THE
PUSSYCATS and SCOOBY DOO. Then, in 1972, they scored a Top Ten Hit with ROBERTS
called SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH ME. (We've previously featured this tune in
FORGOTTEN HITS and recently featured the VERY FORGOTTEN HIT "THE MORNING
OF OUR LIVES" by ARKADE, a West Coast band of which AUSTIN was briefly a
member ... SOMETHING’S WRONG WITH ME … one of my ‘70’s favorites … is back
again today as part of this special BOYCE AND HART feature ... and we're happy
to announce an upcoming FORGOTTEN HITS with AUSTIN ROBERTS, too!!!)
A follow-up single, KEEP ON SINGING, was working its way up the charts when it
caught the ear of HELEN REDDY, who quickly cut her own version of the tune.
HELEN's version went all the way to #10, while the AUSTIN ROBERTS take stopped
at #39. BOBBY HART had proven that he could still write Top Ten Hit material,
scoring TWO Top Ten Hits in 18 months!
THE HIT LIST: In the early '70's, BOBBY HART
composed music for the long-running cartoon series SCOOBY DOO and JOSIE AND THE
PUSSYCATS. (Ironically, after being fired by THE MONKEES, DON KIRSHNER's next
big bubblegum venture was THE ARCHIES ... who took a song that THE MONKEES
reportedly had rejected ... SUGAR, SUGAR ... to the top of the pop charts. It
went on to become the biggest selling single of 1969. There was some discussion
at the time that KIRSHNER played it safe by still being in control of picking
the hits ... while NOT having to worry about any of his cartoon character
clients fighting back!!!) We recently interviewed RON DANTE, the voice of THE
ARCHIES, who told us that he doubted that SUGAR, SUGAR was ever “officially”
offered to THE MONKEES. DANTE also shocked us when he told us that HE had
originally auditioned for one of the leads on THE MONKEES … but lost the role
to DAVY JONES!!!
DIDJAKNOW?: As late as 1987,
BOBBY HART was still writing Top 20 songs ... ROBBIE NEVIL took his tune
DOMINOES all the way to #13 that year. (We've got THAT one here today, too,
thanks again to THEONEBUFF!) In fact, in the 1980's BOBBY HART's songs were
also recorded by NEW EDITION and LATOYA JACKSON.
CHAPTER 15
TOMMY BOYCE took his own life on November 23, 1994 ... he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. At the time, there was all sorts of speculation that he suffered from severe depression ... his musical career in the toilet, bad business dealings with managers ... pretty much the standard fare for showbiz suicides.
However, BOBBY HART says there was more to the story.
BOBBY HART: People think
that he took his life because he was depressed and it wasn't that so much as
the fact that he had had a brain aneurysm burst the year before and he was kind
of being nursed back to health but they told him that that was a genetic defect
that would definitely happen again and he probably wouldn't be as lucky the
next time or one time ... that he maybe could end up a vegetable. So he took it
in his own hands not to let that happen.
In our original research for this series, we found one
website that explained the circumstances of TOMMY's death (and state of mind)
this way:
According to the information I could gather, his downfall began with a brain aneurysm a few years earlier. He was known to like a drink (Tia Maria straight, or Jack and Coke) and after this illness, he had to change his diet and his drinking habits. That's probably what brought the depression on. He was also a good pal of rocker Del Shannon, who blew his own brains out in 1990, and of Elvis Presley as well. This paved the way for the events of November 23rd, 1994.
Tommy and his wife were living in apartment 202, and
on the morning of the 23rd, he dressed himself in shoes, socks, jeans, and a
Days of Our Lives T-shirt, and a smoking jacket. At 8:30am, his stereo woke his
wife Caroline, and she asked him to turn it down. He did, and she went back to
sleep. She woke up a little over two hours later and found him dead on the
couch. He had put a gun up to the right side of his head and pulled the
trigger. She never heard the gun go off, nor did any of the neighbors. Caroline
flipped (understandably) and ran next door to call the police.
The weird part was that Tommy left TWO suicide notes indicating his desire to
"go and be with" his dead mother and Del Shannon and Elvis Presley.
We lost a very talented songwriter the day that TOMMY
BOYCE died. Fortunately, his music will live on for many more lifetimes.
***
DEJA VU: Back in
late-1969 / early-1970, while BOYCE AND HART were performing in Las Vegas with
ZSA ZSA GABOR, their then-manager ripped them off, causing several supposedly
contracted deals to fall through (and a good amount of money to permanently
disappear.) A very disgusted, disillusioned TOMMY BOYCE quit the music business
all together after that ... but didn't contemplate suicide. In fact, he would
return to the music scene several times later (under any variety of aliases)
trying to rekindle his career. This lends even more credence to what BOBBY HART
believes to be the REAL reason behind BOYCE taking his own life.
BOBBY HART: An aneurysm in Tommy’s brain burst on Christmas
eve in 1993. After hours of surgery, he struggled for months to recover. His
wife, Caroline, gave up her thriving Montesory School to nurse him back to
health, but Tommy could never regain his full energy. His doctors had told him
it was only a matter of time before he would have another episode and that next
time he might not be so lucky. His wish to never be a burden on his family and
his dissatisfaction with his decelerated quality of life, I believe, weighed on
his mind and prompted his decision to take matters into his own hands.
CHAPTER 16
Earlier in this series, we told you
that BOBBY HART says the best song he ever wrote was HURT SO BAD, a Top 20 Hit
three times for three different artists. When he was asked “What's the WORST
song you’ve ever written”, HART replied "The worst songs you'll never
hear." He sites LET'S DANCE ON (from THE MONKEES' first album) as being
"pretty much of a throwaway", written as filler for the pilot
television episode. However, that "throwaway" appeared on an album
that sold MILLIONS of copies, so it was STILL heard by an awful lot of
people!
Another track from that debut album that some may right off as pop dribble is
GONNA BUY ME A DOG .... I, on the other hand, happen to think that it's a
GREAT little piece of fun-filled recording featuring a WHOLE lot of ad-libbing
by MONKEES' vocalists MICKY DOLENZ and DAVY JONES. (It was because of this kind
of cutting up in the studio, wasting valuable and expensive recording time,
that virtually all of THE MONKEES' vocals were recorded separately ... it
seemed that whenever you got two or more of them together at the same time,
they were apt to wig out like this!!!) While I'll be the first to admit that
it's not one of their greatest songs, GONNA BUY ME A DOG is certainly one of
the cutest songs that BOYCE AND HART ever wrote ... and a WHOLE lotta fun!!!
(Seriously ... with all the improvised nonsense going on during this record,
shouldn't DOLENZ and JONES have been given co-writing credit for this one?!?!?)
DIDJAKNOW?: In THE MONKEES'
television episode built around the song GONNA BUY ME A DOG, the song was
presented as a MICHAEL NESMITH composition that some shady publisher stole from
him, conning MIKE into paying all sorts of up-front fees to get his song
presented to a famous actress ... until the fabulous MONKEEMEN convinced the
publisher to buy the song back to use in a movie.
ONE MORE BOYCE & HART BONUS TRACK THAT WE
HAPPENED TO COME ACROSS: A couple of years back when we did our
MONTH OF SUNDAYS feature, somebody on the list sent in the track SUNDAY, THE
DAY BEFORE MONDAY as a track we had overlooked. As it turns out, this track was
actually released as a SOLO TOMMY BOYCE single on A&M Records back in 1966,
prior to any of the "official" BOYCE AND HART releases. It is
believed, however, that despite only BOYCE's name appearing on the label, BOBBY
HART also appears (uncredited) on the record but, since BOYCE had some prior
chart success as a solo artist, A&M decided to release the record as his
own "solo" single. The song WAS written by both TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY
HART ... so we asked BOBBY HART about it.
BOBBY HART: Both Tommy and I had myriad solo record
deals throughout our respective careers before teaming up for A & M. In the
two or three years after we relocated to L. A. and joined Screen Gems, and
before we signed with A & M, Tommy recorded for MGM, A & M and at least
one other label.
CHAPTER 17
I hope you have enjoyed this series
covering the songwriting careers of TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART. For our final
installment, I've selected three more MONKEES' tunes that deserve particular
attention.
First up, TEAR DROP CITY, a song once believed to have been considered as THE
MONKEES' first single. (While it has been reported for quite some time that
TEAR DROP CITY was at one time considered for release as THE MONKEES' first
single, there has SINCE been some difference of opinion as to just when this
track was actually written and recorded. Based on its similarity to THE
MONKEES' first REAL single, LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE, I've even seen
documented speculation that TEAR DROP CITY was written and recorded first and
then REWORKED into LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE, only to be resurrected later on
in an effort to get THE MONKEES back to their "old" sound. During the
context of OUR recent interview, BOBBY HART remembered it THIS way):
BOBBY HART: Teardrop City was written sometime
after and was not an option for the first single. I'm not sure where that story
came from.
But studio records show the song was recorded in October of 1966 ... not in
time to be THE MONKEES' first single perhaps ... their TV Series debuted the
month before ... but certainly EARLIER than HART remembers it. In ANY event,
LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE instead holds that honor, and it quickly shot
straight up to #1 on all the pop charts.
If not a clone, then TEAR DROP CITY was certainly a "very close
relative" with its nearly identical guitar-riff opening. (You may remember
that earlier in this series BOBBY HART told us that it was VERY important to
have a catchy, memorable guitar riff open this song, patterning the idea after
the success of BEATLES' hits like PAPERBACK WRITER and DAY TRIPPER.) Well,
apparently rather than have to write TWO great guitar riffs, it looks like he
wrote one and then simply modified it for this tune!!!
After it was recorded in October of 1966, TEAR DROP CITY was put on the shelf.
(Perhaps the "Powers That Be" felt that it sounded just a little bit
TOO much like their monster hit first single!!!) THE MONKEES DID eventually
release this tune ... but not until 1969 when TEAR DROP CITY peaked at #37 on
the Cash Box Chart. (It was, for all intents and purposes, the same track they
had recorded back in 1966 and, in fact, it features both TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY
HART on background vocals!) Just prior to this release, THE MONKEES' previous
single, THE PORPOISE SONG (from their film HEAD), became their first record NOT
to hit The Top 40 and so the decision was made to release something that would
return them to their original-sounding "hit" pop roots. Of course, by
then it was already too late. The television series had already been cancelled,
PETER TORK had left the band ... and it would be nearly 20 years before THE
MONKEES became hot again, thanks in no small part to M-TV reviving their old
television series. TEAR DROP CITY may not be a great track but but it
should be noted if only for its historical purposes.
(NOTE: In the brand new liner notes for THE MONKEES' CD INSTANT REPLAY, TOMMY BOYCE is quoted as follows: "I always thought that should have been more popular than it was, but the group was split up by then. We wrote that one day in a park. We were walking down Lankershim Boulevard and we just sat down on a bench with the guitar and started playing the riff. At that particular time, I recall explicitly that Bobby was having trouble with his girlfriend, Francine ... a few tears here and there. We decided to write that about Bobby and Francine.")
***
A song that BOYCE AND HART consider to
be one of their best is P.O. BOX 9847, which THE MONKEES recorded for their THE
BIRDS, THE BEES AND THE MONKEES album. In fact, THE MONKEES' television series
creator BOB RAFELSON was originally given co-writing credit on this one as it
was "written to order" from a suggestion RAFELSON made one night.
"We were standing outside Ciro's on the strip one night," TOMMY BOYCE
remembered, "just standing, looking around and Bob Rafelson walked by. He
said, 'I've always wanted to write a song and I've got this idea about somebody
answering an ad in the newspaper.' We said, 'Great, Bob, unbelievable! We'll
write a song and give you half the credit.'" BOYCE says RAFELSON made
$2500 on the publishing but Screen Gems wouldn't let him keep the money for
some reason. (Perhaps a conflict of interests regarding his status with the TV
series???) They took his name off the credits on THE MONKEES' version. BOYCE
AND HART released their own version of the track as the B-Side to their 1968
Top 20 Smash, ALICE LONG ... in fact, TOMMY and BOBBY’s version was recently
nominated as one of your FAVORITE, FORGOTTEN B-SIDES and earned 66 of your
votes in that competition. (By the way, you can find the COMPLETE
List of YOUR TOP 200 FAVORITE, FORGOTTEN B-SIDES elsewhere on The FORGOTTEN
HITS Website!!!)
Our last song I'd like to
talk about in this special B&H feature is MR. WEBSTER, recorded by THE
MONKEES for their 1967 HEADQUARTERS album ... the first album on which they
played all their own instruments. It is one of the darkest tunes THE MONKEES ever
recorded. (Give a listen to these lyrics ... they're awesome ... this just may
be some of BOYCE AND HART's BEST work as well as their LEAST known and
appreciated!)
THE MONKEES first attempted to record this song for their second album (MORE OF
THE MONKEES) but didn't like the original BOYCE AND HART arrangement. They
resurrected the tune and then cut it with their own haunting arrangement
featuring PETER TORK on piano, MIKE NESMITH on pedal steel guitar and DAVY
JONES on tambourine. (Next to little TRACY of THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, DAVY JONES
just may be the most famous tambourine player there ever was!!!) This is a
GREAT, under-appreciated track ... and it concludes our very special BOYCE AND
HART feature in FORGOTTEN HITS.
Mr. Webster Lyrics:
(by Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart)
as recorded by The Monkees
Everyone in town knew Mr. Webster,
He worked at the bank for forty years,
And each week Mr. Frisby made his check out
For sixty-eight dollars clear.
And through the years he thwarted twenty-seven robberies,
And each time Frisby promised him a raise.
They gave a retirement party for Mr. Webster,
And everyone from the bank was there,
They had a cake and flowers ordered special,
And Frisby had a speech prepared.
And a little white box that held a watch with this inscription:
"To Mr. Webster, With Regards".
Then came the telegram
from Mr. Webster,
Said, "Sorry, STOP, Cannot attend,
I've flown away and taken all your money,
Wish you were here to help me spend."
And one by one all the people left the party,
And Mr. Frisby locked the door.
During the course of the last time we ran our recent BOYCE
AND HART Series on The FORGOTTEN HITS Blog Page, we received an email from
FORGOTTEN HITS List Member DAVID LEWIS that sparked our interest:
This is from 2004. FH
Reader DJ Dave O'Gara who lives in Worcester can probably tell us how this show
was received.
David Lewis
http://www.kkproductionsworcester.org/\shows\WOMAGArticle.pdf
Interesting article! I
actually did one better than that ... rather than contact DAVE O'GARA ... (no
offense DAVE!!! lol) ... I talked with KEVIN BALDWIN himself, the guy who put
this whole musical thing together ... asked him to bring us up to date regarding
his efforts and let us know where things currently stood ... and then asked him
to check out our BOYCE AND HART Series on the new FORGOTTEN HITS Blog Page!!!
Here's what I got back:
Hi, Kent.
Thanks for contacting me. I've been reading some of your entries with Bobby.
He's a great guy. Here's my involvement with Caroline Boyce and Bobby Hart and
you can decide if you can use any of this for a future blog.
I had contacted Caroline Boyce back in 2003 about possibly doing a show which
would include some of Tommy and Bobby's songs and briefly tell about their
career as a songwriting team. Of course, Caroline was hesitant about such a
project, fearing any writer would try to exploit Tommy's suicide. I assured her
this was not the case. My intention was to focus on their time as a team from
the moment Tommy and Bobby met to their stint as DJB&H.
Caroline thought it was a great concept, so she hooked me up on a conference
call with Bobby Hart. Together, the three of us formulated an overall concept.
I wrote a preliminary draft of the script which I sent them. I tried to give
the musical a contemporary edge, but the first draft had the two of them
thinking the project should be more "family friendly". So, the three
of us would confer several times on the phone over the course of the next year
and hash out what would ultimately become the script for "Sunshine Pop -
Tales of the Boyce & hart Music Machine". Bobby's input was great and
Caroline also hooked me up on a conference call with former-Raiders Keith
Allison who provided some great stories about Tommy's early days. We spoke for
hours. It was great. We included over 25 B&H tunes in "Sunshine
Pop", weaving between hits for Monkees, B&H and other artists, some
non-hits and some solo music to view how different the B&H writing /
performing styles were. Bobby had a strong R&B influence while Tommy had
more of a pop sound. When combined, THIS is what produced the magic of their
music. Since the book for this musical was finalized in 2004, Caroline has been
researching the licensing of all the songs (which is a lengthy process) and
also submitted the script to the William Morris Agency. So far, no word from
them. Eventually, we will also require an arranger to help with the final
musical construction of the book to make sure there's a central musical theme
to the show and to maintain a flow going from song to scene, scene to song. In
the interim, Bobby, Caroline and myself have been involved in other projects,
especially Bobby who is still quite in demand for interviews. A PBS-style
documentary / retrospective / tribute has also been kicked around. I am a
playwright and have many projects going, including a second B&H musical
entitled "Hot Rod Hot Dogs" which included about a dozen songs
written by Tommy and Bobby's early solo days. Here's how this came about:
During my extensive research period trying to develop the book for
"Sunshine Pop", I unearthed many early solo tunes by Tommy and Bobby.
I started to put them onto a CD and as I was doing so, I could see the
potential for a story arc. So, with the help of a musician, Jim Perry, who
transcribed the music for the tunes, I constructed the full story for "Hot
Rod Hot Dogs" based on the B&H tunes, with the full blessing of
Caroline and Bobby. The show was again a fun, family friendly musical set in
the fifties with hot rods, cheerleaders, greasers, bobbysoxers and more. For
more info and music clips, which you can download and use, visit www.hotrodhotdogs.com
"Hot Rod Hot Dogs" was presented for one
weekend in 2004 to packed audiences in the city of Worcester, MA. I sent DVDs
of the show to Caroline and Bobby. Clips from the show are available on
YouTube. In addition, I manage the official websites for Tommy and Bobby as
individual artists as there is already a boyceandhart.com along with Caroline's
MySpace page which I think are fabulous and fully support. I also started a
yahoo group for B&H. I also support Caroline's efforts to get B&H inducted
into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriting Hall of Fame, where
they absolutely belong. No question. Above all, I want to emphasize how
wonderful these two people are. Bobby and Caroline are always accessible to B
& H / Monkees fans and just as nice as one could expect them to be. Every
year I get an Easter and Christmas card from Caroline and she always keeps me
up to date on things going on in her life, which I appreciate.
Finally, thanks to YOU, Kent, for doing these features. I hope you can use
this.
Take care,
Kevin T. Baldwin
www.tommyboyce.com
www.bobbyhart.net
www.sunshinepop.com
www.hotrodhotdogs.com
Sounds VERY cool, KEVIN!
(Any chance WE can get a copy of the DVD, too?!?!?) Please keep us posted
regarding any new developments so that we can pass the info along to our
FORGOTTEN HITS Readers!!!
ONE FINAL WORD: I just want to take a moment again to thank BOBBY HART for all his help and cooperation in putting together this series ... I truly and sincerely appreciate it. (A special shout out, too, to AUSTIN ROBERTS, who first put me in contact with BOBBY HART ... and to TOM DIEHL who first put me in contact with AUSTIN ROBERTS!!! As you can see, FORGOTTEN HITS truly is a "team effort" ... and I don't EVER lose sight of that ... it works because we ALL share a common love for this music.) To quote ANOTHER great songwriter, "We hope you have enjoyed the show."
© Copyright Kent Kotal / Forgotten Hits, 1998 - 2025 ...
All rights reserved
(Note: This article was first published in Forgotten Hits in 2004)
Be Sure To Check Out Our BRAND NEW Interview
With BOBBY HART!!!!!
Where BOBBY HART Answers Some of YOUR Questions!!!
Just Hit the "Older Posts" button at the bottom of this page to read our EXCLUSIVE Interview with Bobby Hart
