Who Else Auditioned For The Monkees?

[hypehat]

Well? So far, I heard that Harry Nilsson and David Crosby did, and somehow I have it in my mind that Van Dyke Parks did too. Was wondering if there was a list of musicians who auditioned for The Monkees and then had their own musical careers?

[SMiLE Brian]

Steven Stills did as well.

[the captain]

According to IMDB, both Danny Hutton and Paul Williams did (in addition to those mentioned earlier).

[hypehat]

Imagine an alternate universe where The Monkees were Nilsson, Paul Williams, Stephen Stills and Van Dyke Parks...

Crosby doesn't bear thinking about 

Thanks for the quick replies! Should have known to check IMDB

[SMiLE Brian]

Crosby was made for a TV-sitcom such as the Monkees!

[the captain]

And Danny Hutton would have gone through the same life he did, eventually being featured in documentaries, pushing up his thick-framed glasses every five seconds, and talking about partying with those guys. (Oh yeah, and singing on some pretty big hits over the years in that group of his.)

[Mike's Beard]

Steven Stills did as well.

Stills was doing great until he smiled and they saw his crooked teeth. He did either recommend Tork to the the panel or gave Tork a heads up to go audtition for them.

[guitarfool2002]

Great topic. If my history is correct they had a steady line of applicants which drew from actors who already had agents to dozens of fledgling musicians around LA who were seeking the dream of getting paid well to be in a rock band. So consider all the names mentioned above and add many who were playing the hootenanny and coffee house circuits around LA and the Strip to that list.

Which also makes the "sour grapes" reactions supposedly coming from the more so-called serious musicians around LA seem like a bunch of hogwash, since not only did they know various members of the band from the club circuit and hang out if not jam with them before The Monkees project, but they also may have "come down" for the auditions after word had spread about casting the project.

Stills had said his interest was more in writing songs for the project, which I guess we have to assume is true, but what is known is that Peter Tork may have gotten the tip from Stills about the casting call, since they knew each other from the New York circuit, which also included in that circle of friends the likes of Mama Cass and John Sebastian, among many others who ended up in LA around 65-66.

The scene in general was much more close-knit than I think many are led to believe, and again there may have been jealousy toward the Monkees among some musicians, but Nesmith, Tork, and Dolenz already had friends in and around the Strip scene and I think the negativity towards them was blown out of proportion by the media and that myth continues to this day.

If they haven't been taken down by now, there are several clips on YouTube showing early Monkees read-throughs - *not* the more common individual audition interviews (shot on the set of the show "Farmer's Daughter") - where we can see various actors and musicians who didn't get the parts acting out scenes. And one of them has Dolenz playing guitar, which is how he went into the auditions. They're fascinating because you can see how important the chemistry was to getting the right group of guys together, and how they turned out to be the perfect choices for the show.

[guitarfool2002]

Likewise, there is a fascinating clip which I posted a link to in the thread just after Davy Jones died which I thought exposed something else about the casting process.

The clip is of pre-Monkees Davy Jones on the show "Farmer's Daughter" singing a song called "Gonna Buy Me A Dog", which as we know was featured on the first Monkees album and several times on the TV show. He's shown playing of all things a Danelectro doubleneck guitar earlier in the episode! The full episode has now been posted, BTW.

So I was thinking after seeing that clip that Davy Jones may have already been locked into the role as the cute British heartthrob, which I think was crucial to the Monkees show and the connection to the Beatles...and parts of the machinery behind the Monkees were already rolling and in place prior to Jones auditioning. As far as Mike and Peter, and to a lesser degree Dolenz since he was already a TV actor, I think they were the ones who were cast based on their auditions and personalities.

Davy Jones may have been the sure bet already in place before the auditions, who knows, and perhaps they built the others around him as the heartthrob. Just a thought.

[guitarfool2002]

Full episode, "Farmer's Daughter" with Davy, 1965:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahryNM98obc

[Mike's Beard]

Likewise, there is a fascinating clip which I posted a link to in the thread just after Davy Jones died which I thought exposed something else about the casting process.

The clip is of pre-Monkees Davy Jones on the show "Farmer's Daughter" singing a song called "Gonna Buy Me A Dog", which as we know was featured on the first Monkees album and several times on the TV show. He's shown playing of all things a Danelectro doubleneck guitar earlier in the episode! The full episode has now been posted, BTW.

So I was thinking after seeing that clip that Davy Jones may have already been locked into the role as the cute British heartthrob, which I think was crucial to the Monkees show and the connection to the Beatles...and parts of the machinery behind the Monkees were already rolling and in place prior to Jones auditioning. As far as Mike and Peter, and to a lesser degree Dolenz since he was already a TV actor, I think they were the ones who were cast based on their auditions and personalities.

Davy Jones may have been the sure bet already in place before the auditions, who knows, and perhaps they built the others around him as the heartthrob. Just a thought.

You are right, Jones was already cast before the auditions went ahead, if I remember correctly his management had ties to the production team. No doubt you have also heard the story of how Mike went to the casting call with a bag of his laundry to do afterwards under one arm and was wearing the woolly green hat that the producers loved and had him wear on the show.

[rn57]

The process of Monkees auditioning has been detailed in a lot of books - Eric Lefcowitz's Monkee Business and Andrew Sandoval's Monkees Day-By-Day would be the most authoritative.

As said above, Davy Jones, from the start, was going to be one of the Monkees, because he was under contract to Screen Gems, the company making the show, and they were looking for a sitcom vehicle for him when Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson pitched them the concept of a TV version of A Hard Day's Night.  However, to nail down the part, Davy still had to audition, thus that wonderfully charming footage that's on Youtube, along with footage from the auditions the other three did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63nhSFFFfJ4  (the sound comes in after a half minute)

The famous ad looking for "Ben Frank's types" for the show ran on Sept. 8, 1965 in Variety.  I think prior to that, Micky Dolenz had heard about the show from his agent.  So he came in and strummed guitars with a couple of people - I can't remember if they were trying out for the show too or were there helping him out.  One of those guys is none other than Michael Burns, famed for playing the LSD-abusing "Blueboy" on the latter-day Dragnet series.  (He's now a retired college professor of history raising thoroughbred horses in Kentucky.)

Michael Nesmith was the only guy who ended up in the Monkees who had learned about the planned show from seeing the Variety, and the only one who was really a Ben Frank's regular.

Stephen Stills did audition and didn't get the role, partly because of his teeth - so he recommended Peter Tork who had often been mistaken for him when they were both doing the folk circuit in NYC.  He also told Tork about the show.  Tork, at the time, was washing dishes in a club.  In the audition film, he tells Schneider and Rafelson what kind of money he's earning. Their reaction is more or less priceless.

There really were about 400 people that auditioned for the show, as a result of seeing the Variety ad or otherwise.  It has been claimed that Charles Manson tried out for it but he was still in prison on Terminal Island when the auditions were happening. Besides those already mentioned, Rodney Bingenheimer tried out - of course he didn't become a Monkee, but he did become Davy's double in that Prince And The Pauper episode.

[rn57]

Well? So far, I heard that Harry Nilsson and David Crosby did, and somehow I have it in my mind that Van Dyke Parks did too. Was wondering if there was a list of musicians who auditioned for The Monkees and then had their own musical careers?

Van Dyke did audition for the Monkees - which has always puzzled me because at that time he already had a reputation in LA music circles as a serious-minded avant-garde figure.  Not long after this, he has said in interviews, the Byrds asked him to join after he played keyboards on their Fifth Dimension album, and he turned them down because, as he put it, "I didn't want to sing and play in front of screaming girls" - so it would seem odd for him to seek work doing just that, a little earlier.  But then again, Van Dyke was so impoverished in the fall of 1965 that he was using a gas-station restroom to wash, or something like that, so even the pretty paltry weekly salary involved in the show would have been a lifeline to him.

[guitarfool2002]

All that's true of course, but there are still a few points which need to be looked at to either bust the mythology or at least deflate the legend a bit. Mike Nesmith, for one:

I know the story/legend well, but at the same time it wasn't as if he had just 'come in off the streets' to audition. You can see and hear clips of him miming his solo music on television pre-Monkees, and ask yourself just how many 20 year old singer-songwriters had enough clout behind them to get a booking on a TV show? So I think, like Davy, the audition was one thing but at the same time it's not as if Mike was an unknown entity who just happened to drift into the LA scene. As someone who had already performed on television, who was working the local club circuit, and who had some 45rpm singles to his credit, he may have had at least that much up on the competition.

Again, I've been thinking the image of him as a wandering folkie drifting in off the streets and scoring the role just seems to me more of the mythology (helped by Mike himself) than what may have happened.

Again, as yourself how many musicians in their early 20's drifting around LA had released singles and appeared on television performing those singles? Not many. That was and still is "the dream", whether it actually leads anywhere or not.

And Peter Tork likewise may have been washing dishes to make ends meet and all that, but I also have an ad from an LA paper advertising a gig he played supporting a blues artist, again pre-Monkees. So he was known as a musician, as was Nesmith, by the very same crowd who may have criticized them later as no-talents who had not paid their dues. Unlike Mike, however, when the Monkees began and Mike pegged him to play guitar on his early productions, Tork was not a member of the Musicians Union yet played the Mike-led sessions, and I'm still wondering what if any effect that had on the process.

Dolenz was a known entity who had already been featured on a successful show and on the cover of TV Guide, or whatever.

Again, I'm just saying this because there is still the ridiculous mythology and media-driven misinformation campaign that the Monkees were somehow unknown, unproven, untalented kids who fell into a boatload of success having not paid their dues like the "true" musicians in Hollywood or New York. On the flip side, there is still mythology that they came from nowhere in the music business to pretend to be musicians and be formed into a #1 selling band...when in reality each of them can be documented as doing the same club and appearance circuit before the Monkees ad even appeared, same as thousands of other kids who flocked to LA with the dream to become successful musicians.

Bottom line, each of them except Peter had already appeared on TV and/or released records prior to the Monkees. And Peter was playing the folk/blues circuit in NY and LA.

[KittyKat]

I'm sure there were other experienced, professional type musician and actors, or those with experience at both, who auditioned for the series. The only mythology was that it was a casting call open to amateurs (or one where amateurs would have a chance). Still, there was a lot of competition involved for those spots and the guys were lucky to win them. Apart from Davy Jones, who did seem to have an inside track and was a pick as a teen idol type for the show. It's similar to the way many top competitors on "American Idol" tend to have professional credits and are not strictly amateurs. But it helps build publicity for the show. I'm sure that ad in the trade papers advertising for "Ben Franks types" was as much to get industry hype for the  show as it was to get actors and musicians to audition for the show. 

I've also read that the entire membership of the Lovin' Spoonful was interested in doing the show, but the producers wouldn't audition them because they were a little too well-known and it wouldn't make sense for them to play an unknown band.

[Lonely Summer]

I'm sure there were other experienced, professional type musician and actors, or those with experience at both, who auditioned for the series. The only mythology was that it was a casting call open to amateurs (or one where amateurs would have a chance). Still, there was a lot of competition involved for those spots and the guys were lucky to win them. Apart from Davy Jones, who did seem to have an inside track and was a pick as a teen idol type for the show. It's similar to the way many top competitors on "American Idol" tend to have professional credits and are not strictly amateurs. But it helps build publicity for the show. I'm sure that ad in the trade papers advertising for "Ben Franks types" was as much to get industry hype for the  show as it was to get actors and musicians to audition for the show. 

I've also read that the entire membership of the Lovin' Spoonful was interested in doing the show, but the producers wouldn't audition them because they were a little too well-known and it wouldn't make sense for them to play an unknown band.

I've read that story, too, and the Spoonful certainly were colorful as personalities, but ultimately Rafelson and Schneider made the right choices.

[hypehat]

What's weird is that all of these people, possibly with exception of Stills and Crosby (and then they were obviously CSN), became friends/drug buddies for many years after the event along with the eventual cast.

I guess the closest to making it out of the nearly rans was VDP, as he had acted before? But then we don't know much about his audition. Just think what would have happened if The Monkees had released Song Cycle....

[Mike's Beard]

  It has been claimed that Charles Manson tried out for it but he was still in prison on Terminal Island when the auditions were happening.

If only the rumor were somehow true and Charlie did get cast in the show - the storyline possibilities could have been endless.

The Monkees moblie breaks down in a small town and while they are waiting for it to be repaired Davy meets the Mayor's daughter and falls in love. However the Major won't let them date so Charlie convinces to others to break into the Mayor's house at night and kill them all then decorate the walls in their blood.

[KittyKat]

I've never read any books about the Monkees, just articles here and there. Having watched the show in reruns more than once, however, I formed the impression that they had certain types in mind for each character before the show was even cast, and that the characters were loosely based on the Marx Brothers. Micky was Groucho, Mike was Chico, Davy was Zeppo, and Peter was Harpo. Peter even had an episode where he sold his soul to the devil to play the harp, and I'm pretty sure Micky busted out a Groucho impersonation once or twice.

[guitarfool2002]

I've never read any books about the Monkees, just articles here and there. Having watched the show in reruns more than once, however, I formed the impression that they had certain types in mind for each character before the show was even cast, and that the characters were loosely based on the Marx Brothers. Micky was Groucho, Mike was Chico, Davy was Zeppo, and Peter was Harpo. Peter even had an episode where he sold his soul to the devil to play the harp, and I'm pretty sure Micky busted out a Groucho impersonation once or twice.

Not that the Marx Brothers observation may not be true in retrospect, but the original pitch for the show to get picked up for production was to create an "American 'Hard Days Night'". Naturally it went much further than that basic premise, but they were trying to cast Americans (and one pinup-worthy British guy for added appeal) who somewhat resembled the various personalities that fans saw in the Beatles. If television typecasting becomes reality in a way, note that in '67 Mike visited and hung out with John and was a guest for the Day In The Life orchestra session, Micky visited Paul and they hung out, partied and got high, and Peter later hung out with George. Then there is the photo of Ringo hosting an acetate listening party at Abbey Road for Davy and Lulu. So the personalities the Monkees were cast to resemble actually gravitated to hanging with the real people in real life. Kind of ironic.

The Marx Brothers comparison was attributed to a John Lennon interview, I believe in '67 when asked about the Monkees show (though I could be wrong on the timing).

[Mike's Beard]

I've never read any books about the Monkees, just articles here and there. Having watched the show in reruns more than once, however, I formed the impression that they had certain types in mind for each character before the show was even cast, and that the characters were loosely based on the Marx Brothers. Micky was Groucho, Mike was Chico, Davy was Zeppo, and Peter was Harpo. Peter even had an episode where he sold his soul to the devil to play the harp, and I'm pretty sure Micky busted out a Groucho impersonation once or twice.

More like every other episode!

[Peter Reum]

Don Knotts

[guitarfool2002]

Don Knotts

...as the boys' landlord always showing up at their pad to hound them about paying the rent and keeping the noise down. Basically the same role he later played on Three's Company as Mr. Furley. He was ahead of his time.

[SMiLE Brian]

 

[bluesno1fann]

Charles Manson, allegedly. According to some people he auditioned, but in fact he was still in prison when the auditions took place