Requiem for a Monkee

A MAN OF many talents and broadband, multimedia vision, Michael Nesmith is a uniquely difficult artist to categorize. “Nez,” who died of heart failure at age 78 on December 10 at his home in Carmel, California, experienced major mid-to-late Sixties fame as a member of the Monkees — the made-for-TV rock group that morphed into a real band over the course of its initial four-year career. He spent much of the rest of his life trying to come out from under the Monkees’ shadow, and come to terms with the quartet’s unlikely legacy. His indelible association with the Monkees tended to obscure his solo career as a country-flavored songwriter, guitarist, singer and record producer, not to mention his enormous contribution to the birth of pop music video and the MTV era.

Of the four young men chosen in 1965 by television producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider to become Monkees, Nesmith was the most musically seasoned. The tall, drawling Texan had been kicking around L.A. since ’62, playing the clubs and hosting