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photo credit: Art Zelin

Michael Nesmith and wife Phyllis at the premiere of the Monkees' movie Head on November 6, 1968, in New York City. Michael is wearing his Nudie Suit which he commisioned Nudie Cohn to make in 1967.

"I bought my Nudie’s in 1967, because of Buck Owens and Porter Wagoner, specifically, and Hank Williams generally. I liked the way they looked on stage –it showed a playfulness and absurdist art that I liked." - Interview with Damien Love for Uncut Magazine, 2007.

#michael nesmith #phyllis nesmith #nudie suit #60s #1968

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photo credit: Nurit Wilde 

Michael Nesmith pictured with engineer Hank Cicalo during sessions for The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, which were held the weekend of the 18th and 19th of November, 1967. The sessions employed some of the top players in L.A. at the time, among them Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco, James Burton, Doug Dillard, Don Randi, Frank Capp, Earl Palmer, and future musical collaborator Red Rhodes. This date marks Rhodes and Nesmith’s first time recording in the studio together. 

The recordings consisted of big band arrangements of songs that Michael had written for the Monkees, a collaboration with arranger Shorty Rogers. Originally, the output of the sessions were not slated for commercial release, but eventually were released by Dot Records in July 1968 as The Wichita Train Whistle Sings. The album was not commercially successful, peaking at number 144 on the Billboard Pop Albums Chart.

“...I recorded it with my own money. It cost fifty or sixty thousand dollars, a stupid sum of money. The album was not only to put together a different picture of the tunes I’d written for the Monkees and give them vent in my own way, rather than have them so highly manipulated, but also to have a record that would document the coalescence of the finest session men in L.A. at the time.” - Interview with John Tobler and Pete Frame, Zigzag Magazine, 1974.

“Everybody wanted to be on the session... Finally I asked Michael why he had called for such a costly session. He explained that Uncle Sam was about to remove 50 grand from his pocket and, instead of paying the taxes, he decided to spend it on a racuous write-off. The Nesmith dates came off without a hitch. It was the greatest party I’ve ever been invited to. Two days of Chasen’s food, and more music than you can expect in a lifetime." - Hal Blaine, Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew, 1990.

“Wichita Train Whistle isn’t a roaring success, someone pointed out to me the other day. My exact words were something to the effect of “too bad.” People think I can’t take setbacks for some reason. Well, that’s not the case...I like recording music that I know is not commercial. It’s my thing. It’s catharic for me and often times it’s what I get out of it that counts in the long run.” - Tiger Beat, November 1968. 

#michael nesmith #wichita train whistle sings #nurit wilde #1967 #60s

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source: Listen to the Band boxset liner notes, Rhino Records, 1991.

Michael Nesmith pictured playing pedal steel guitar during the Headquarters sessions, early 1967.

Michael can be heard playing steel guitar on “I’ll Spend my Life with You”, “Band 6″, “Shades of Gray”, and “Mr. Webster” on the finished Headquarters album. He's also found playing it on various outtakes, jam sessions, and bonus tracks from Headquarters Sessions and Headquarters Deluxe Edition. 

#michael nesmith #fender 2000 #headquarters #1967 #60s

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photo credit: David Frost

Michael Nesmith at RCA Studios in Nashville with the session musicians who recorded with him there, 1968.

With plans to record his side of a planned double album with the Monkees which never came to fruition, Michael travelled to Nashville for a series of recording sessions at RCA Studios A and B in Nashville between May 28th and June 2nd, 1968. Nine tracks were recorded there, all can be found in this playlist.

The sessions utilized some of the city’s most talented and sought-after session musicians, some of whom played on such notable albums as Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde and the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Many of the musicians present would go on to form the country rock group Area Code 615. Their names are listed in the image descriptions.

“To my mind, when musicologists try to find the date and players and songs to pin the start of the country-rock genre, I think of those sessions and those times and those players. They invented country-rock, if anybody did.” - Michael Nesmith, Infinite Tuesday, 2018

"I was uncovering the first space of this music, and it was exciting. It was like a child, or not even that. Like a brother or a long-lost family member. Maybe a lost wife or husband. It was extraordinary because of its familiarity, how intimate it was to me.” -Michael Nesmith, liner notes Different Drum: The Lost RCA VIctor Recordings, 2022.

#michael nesmith #60s #nashville #area code 615

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Photo Credit: And The Hits Just Keep On Coming CD Booklet

Happy birthday to longtime musical collaborators and friends Red Rhodes (December 30, 1930) & Michael Nesmith (December 30, 1942)! Rhodes and Nesmith worked on over 10 albums together over the course of their 25 year partnership.

Both are pictured here at Countryside Records in 1973.

"What [Red] was bringing to the music was indescribable except unless you heard it on the records. So it was completely fulfilling for me and I just devoted myself to him. I said, ‘Well, I’m going to work with this guy for the rest of my natural life.’ Which is apparently what I did because he died before me." - Michael Nesmith. Billboard Magazine, May 31, 2018.

"But Red was constantly bringing these swoops and swirls in that made me wanna spin and dance - and him too, although he couldn't get up. That contributed a lot to the synchronization. The way these things went together with me standing beside Red and Red sitting beside me. We were very much dance partners. When we work off and followed the music around - he was playing his stuff and I was playing mine - he was so much more advanced than I was. All I was doing was accompanying him." - Michael Nesmith, liner notes to Cosmic Partners vinyl, 2019.

"I had watched Red play many evenings [at the Palomino] before and would watch him many more. There was something about the construction, tone, and touch of the way he played that surpassed all the other pedal steel players I knew of........Few people can play the instrument well, and Red Rhodes was an undisputed master of it. Red was a string section and a brass section and a Mars section all in one. The lines and fills he played inside the regular country tunes were like smoke and magic, wafting in and out of the soundscape like surreptitious sprites." - Michael Nesmith, Infinite Tuesday, 2018.

"Well I don't know if you're familiar with Red or not, Red Rhodes, the pedal steel guitar player, I would hope that you are because Red's like my cosmic partner. Between he and I we plot on keeping Saturn in orbit." - Michael Nesmith, Live at McCabes, August 18, 1973.

#michael nesmith #red rhodes #1973 #70s #countryside #fender 2000

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Photo credit: Tom Sheehan

Michael Nesmith and Red Rhodes performing together at the Amazing Zigzag Concert, held at the Roadhouse in London on April 28, 1974.

The concert was organized by Tony Stratton-Smith to commemorate the 5th anniversary of Zigzag Magazine. Michael had previously been interviewed by John Tobler and Pete Frame in the January 1974 issue of ZigZag Magazine, which you can read here.

Four other acts played at the show with Michael and Red playing the final set of the night. 

“The venerable old building was packed by world-wide ZigZag devotees, reveling and roaring with delighted disbelief as the event turned into one of the gigs of the decade, with an uproariously warm atmosphere which would have made millions if they could have bottled it.” - Kris Needs, Record Collector issue 382, December 2010

You can listen to Michael and Red’s set here, from the 5-CD boxset which was edited and mixed by Tony Poole and released on October 11, 2010.

#michael nesmith #red rhodes #1974 #70s #amazing zigzag concert #live #gibson j200

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Photo credit: Monkees Monthly (August 1968), Flip Magazine (December 1968)

Michael Nesmith at the Sho-Bud factory in Nashville, Tennesee, May 31st, 1968.

“While in Nashville, Michael stopped by the Sho-Bud pedal steel guitar factory, where he ordered the most expensive model they produced and had his name inlay in mother of pearl on the neck of the instrument.” - Randi Massingill, Total Control.

"Red Rhodes I knew from long time, he taught me to play steel when I was with the Monkees." - Michael Nesmith, Zigzag Magazine, January 1974.

"Michael was just taking a few pedal steel lessons," recalled Peter. "I would not like to have seen us as a country music band, but I love the idea of Michael playing pedal steel. In some ways he's a very powerful guy." - Peter Tork, Headquarters: Super Deluxe Edition liner notes.

#michael nesmith #nashville #60s #1968

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Photo credit: Nurit Wilde

Michael Nesmith and the First National Band playing at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, Los Angeles, June 2-7, 1970.

The Troubadour was one of the folk clubs in LA where Michael played prior to being cast on the Monkees, when he was performing both as a solo artist under the name Michael Blessing and with various folk groups, including a group with Bill Chadwick and fellow FNB member John London. In 1965 he worked at the club as the “Hootmaster” of the Monday night Hootenannies, introducing the acts who were performing as well as playing his own set.

sources: The Monkees, the day-by-day story of the 60s TV pop sensation - Andrew Sandoval, Rock Prosopography 101 on Blogspot 

#michael nesmith #red rhodes #john ware #john london #fnb #troubadour #nudie suit #1970 #70s #gibson les paul custom #nurit wilde

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Nez cuddling his puppy Abigail behind the scenes of PopClips, April 1978. #PupClips

#michael nesmith #1978 #70s #popclips

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Photo credit: Henry Diltz

The First National Band during recording sessions for Magnetic South, February 1970.

source: John Ware via the First National Band Facebook page

#michael nesmith #fnb #red rhodes #john london #john ware #1970 #70s #magnetic south #henry diltz

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Source: memorabilia UK

#michael nesmith #fnb #red rhodes #john london #john ware #1970 #70s

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Credit: Bill Walsh, 1971

#michael nesmith #1971 #70s

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Michael Nesmith performing at the Old Waldorf, San Francisco 1979

Photos by Steve Escobar

#michael nesmith #1979 #70s #gibson les paul custom

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Michael Nesmith recording at Countryside Records, circa 1974.

#michael nesmith #1974 #70s #countryside #gibson j200

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Red Rhodes at the Amazing Zigzag Concert, April 28, 1974.

#red rhodes #1974 #zigzag #70s

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Michael Nesmith at the Amazing Zigzag Concert, April 28, 1974.

#1974 #zigzag #70s #michael nesmith #gibson j200