1965 (1/2)

During his stay in New York, David Jones had met an employee of Columbia Pictures-Screen Gems named Ward Sylvester who would play a large role in the future development of the Monkees. Sylvester sensed star potential in Jones and offered to bring him out to Hollywood to pursue a career in both acting and music. Davy agreed to a long-term contract and by Christmas 1964, he was in Columbia's New York studios recording for Colpix Records (Columbia-Screen Gems' recording company).

The resulting single ("Dream Girl"/"Take Me to Paradise"; Colpix CP 787) was catchy enough but mired in a largely dated teen-pop sound reminiscent of Bobby Rydell or Paul Peterson. However this was no accident. Ward Sylvester saw in David a teen heartthrob in the making, and it is interesting that Jones with few exceptions never truly deviated from the path Sylvester initially set for him. Plainly speaking, the die had already been cast.

Also on the path to a recording career was Michael Nesmith. Now under the wing of manager Jackie Sherman of Omnibus Productions (the Frankie Laine associate mentioned in the previous entry), Mike and his trio were given studio time to cut a demo reel. Nesmith and London were then ushered off on a loosely-booked tour of Texas schools, leaving a now-pregnant Phyllis in their wake. They returned to Hollywood with no money to show for their efforts, their tails effectively between their legs. Mike and Phyllis's son Christian was born on January 31, 1965.

Mike and John would continue to bounce between clubs in Los Angeles and Las Vegas while Sherman arranged for proper recording sessions with Omnibus staff producer Chance Halladay (Nesmith: "About the only thing I remember was him coming into the studio when we were making the record and yelling at me to relax! It had the effect you might imagine.")

Recorded with drummer Bill Sleeper under the moniker of Mike, John & Bill, the sessions resulted in a fine debut single ("How Can You Kiss Me"/ "Just a Little Love"; Omnibus 239) and two unreleased outtakes ("All the King's Horses" and "Searchin' (Diane's Song)". Taken as a whole, these songs are early L.A. folk rock at its best-- very much in line with the sound that contemporary groups like the Byrds and the Beau Brummels were only just formulating.

As part of his three-way deal with Columbia-Screen Gems-Colpix, David Jones was being groomed for stardom, and Ward Sylvester had promised to develop a TV show around him. Additionally, Jones was already under contract for another Dickens musical Pickwick, though this time he would not leave for Broadway. Instead an elaborate Billboard magazine ad campaign was constructed around him ("who is David Jones?"), and he set about recording his second Colpix single at United Recorders in Hollywood.

By June of 1965 America was in the midst of "Hermania", as cute Peter Noone and his band Herman's Hermits were all the rage with the teenybopper set. Playing off their shared Mancunian accent, Colpix A&R director Hank Levine set about refashioning Jones into a Peter Noone doppelganger. While this must have seemed a can't-miss proposition at the time, the resulting music could best be described as twee-bordering-on-infantile.

Of the three songs salvaged from the session, only the b-side "This Bouquet" possessed any merit due to a beautifully melodic bell line underpinning its chorus. "What Are We Going to Do?", selected as the bread-and-butter side of the 45 (Colpix CP 784), was an obnoxious bit of "aww shucks" gibberish, while the future LP side "Baby It's Me" was if anything even worse. Sadly Levine would not quite be done helming David Jones' music career, even after the single stalled at a lowly #93 on Billboard despite a huge promotional push by all involved.

Concurrently, dissatisfaction with Jackie Sherman and Omnibus ("Awful. The lady there stole money from me, tiny amounts, which speaks volumes.") indirectly led Mike Nesmith to a real industry insider, Loma Records boss Bob Krasnow. Krasnow would later to go on to Kama Sutra Records, where he would found their Buddah subsidiary and strike it rich in the bubblegum pop department. For now he was still a savvy dealmaker. And deal he did, netting Nesmith an opportunity to record for Colpix. The deal hinged on two apparent stipulations: Krasnow and his partner Sam Ashe would produce the records, and Mike had to change his surname from Nesmith to Blessing ("You gotta have a different name because Nesmith stinks!")

The initial result of Nesmith's Colpix deal was a cover of Tom Paxton's "The Willing Transcript" (Colpix CP 787), a song Krasnow had been auditioning singers to record when he first discovered Mike. Retitled "The New Recruit" by Krasnow and Ashe (who together opportunistically claimed the song's authorship as well), the single was arranged by jazz great Shorty Rogers and backed up with an unrelated fuzz/blues instrumental called "A Journey with Michael Blessing" that the singer himself ironically had nothing to do with. It was during the session for the a-side that Rogers reports, "(Nesmith) hung up the phone and said, 'I just got the news. I'm going to be with the Monkees.'"

(Okay, we still haven't deviated from the historical path yet, but bear with us! We have to get the early history established here first.)

NOTE: Again, Andrew Sandoval's Monkees book was an invaluable resource for writing this entry. Additional information was also sourced from Randy L. Massingill's Total Control: The Mike Nesmith Story.