35 Years Ago Today...

[AaronHandy3]

The Monkees’ third album, The Monkees’ Headquarters (Colgems #COM/COS-103), was released. This was the end result of a knockdown, dragout, yet successful battle for The Monkees’ right to play their own music.

The Monkees were none too thrilled with their second album, More Of The Monkees. They had no say in the assembly and release of the album and were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Don Kirshner's role as musical director, picking the songs and not allowing Monkee involvement except for the vocals (with the exception of Michael Nesmith's tracks which he wrote and produced). This resulted in The Monkees being granted 50% then eventually 100% control of their music, including the instrumental backing. (Kirshner would later be dumped from The Monkees project for his unauthorized Canadian release of the "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You"/"She Hangs Out" single [Colgems #66-1003, withdrawn!], against this rule.) Douglas Farthing(ton) Hatlelid (formerly of The Modern Folk Quartet and bass player with The Turtles, later called “Chip Douglas” after the Don Grady character on My Three Sons) was recruited by Nesmith as producer.

Under Hatlelid’s able watchful eye, The Monkees played virtually every note of music during the proceedings, aside from “the occasional extra bass or horn player played under our direction, so that this is all ours.” One track, in fact, was all theirs: Nesmith’s “You Just May Be The One” (a remake of a track recorded in July 1966 for the first album sessions which appeared in a couple of first season shows: “The Chaperone” and “Monkees A La Mode”) with Nes on lead vocals and guitar, David Jones on tambourine, Peter Tork on bass and Micky Dolenz on drums. Another track, “For Pete’s Sake,” one of the last songs The Monkees worked on for the album which became Peter Tork's first writing credit (he wrote it with his late roomie, Joey Richards), was used as the closing theme to the television show's second season. And the album’s closing track, “Randy Scouse Git,” was the composing debut for Micky Dolenz, who wrote this song about a trip to England he had recently taken.

The release of The Monkees’ Headquarters coincided with the retelecast of “Monkee Versus Machine”, Episode No. 3 of The Monkees TV series (from 9-26-66), which occurred @ 7:30 P.M. Eastern on NBC, with a new song added: “You Told Me” (the opening track from The Monkees’ Headquarters). The album rose to the #1 spot on the charts (The Monkees’ third consecutive LP to do so), where it stayed for about one whole week before being displaced by an even bigger and more impressive group concoction: The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The first 3 million or so copies of The Monkees’ Headquarters were released with a picture on the back cover featuring engineer Dick Bogert and producer Chip Douglas, mistaking Bogert for Hank Cicalo. The LP was reissued with a different photo altogether, featuring both Douglas and Cicalo, as well as all four Monkees (three of them--Dolenz, Nesmith and Tork--bearded!), and featured an RE suffix after the record # on the back cover. Neither version of this LP has proven to be rarer than the other.

Within the coming months, The Monkees would tender another Chip Douglas-produced group effort: the stimulatingly psychedelic Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd..

(Some info duped from The Monkees Music Vault, The Monkees’ Sessionography, and Mr. Zero’s Monkees Page.)