Forgotten Hits
THE MUSIC OF TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART
The Music of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart
We ran our TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART Series for the very first time back in November of 2004. The goal at the time was tell the COMPLETE BOYCE AND HART story … beyond the hits written for THE MONKEES … beyond the hits they scored working together as a singing and songwriting duo ... because, although these were certainly important chapters in the story, they were NOT the WHOLE story.
It quickly became a VERY popular piece … SO much so, in fact, that by popular demand, we have rerun the piece more times than any other series we've ever done in FORGOTTEN HITS. As such, we've decided to permanently place it on our web page so new readers can continue to discover it ... and older readers can enjoy it again and again. (The most popular chapter in this series was the one dealing with the history of the song VALLERI!!! That one piece alone was picked up by a number of websites dedicated to MONKEES and BOYCE AND HART fans around the world, fueling even MORE requests for me to rerun the entire series.)
In 2008 we were thrilled to run the series again along with the personal commentary from MR. BOBBY HART himself!!! (For me, this was kinda like watching The Director's Cut DVD while listening the commentary track voiced by the guy who was actually there!!!)
I mean, think about it ... BOBBY HART was RIGHT THERE while all this great stuff was happening … in fact, HE was one of the people HELPING to MAKE it happen!!! We are VERY grateful to BOBBY for taking the time to participate in our piece.
I believe that this new one-on-one, play-by play version will only help to make this an even MORE interesting and unique piece. BOYCE AND HART still have an AWFUL lot of fans out there … their music is still played on the radio every single day and kids of EVERY generation since have memorized every word of these songs and sing along each time they hear them come on the radio. It's safe to say that the music created by the songwriting team of TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART TRULY transcends time.
When BOBBY and I first talked last year, he was working on a book deal ... my hope was that by the time this piece actually ran, we would be able to let our readers know how THEY might obtain a copy of BOBBY's new memoirs, “MY JOURNEY TO STARDOM AND BACK AND 101 FAMOUS PEOPLE I MET ALONG THE WAY.” He's also been working on a new musical called "UPRISING: THE MUSICAL", which I had hoped to be able to give you information about as well.
Based on a conversation I had with BOBBY HART just this past week, BOTH of these projects are still looking for a home ... he has been talking to publishers about his rock and roll memoirs as well as financiers regarding finding a permanent venue for his musical to call home. (Las Vegas perhaps???)
We were also able to top the whole thing off with an EXCLUSIVE FORGOTTEN HITS Interview with BOBBY HART, which is now also posted on The FORGOTTEN HITS Web Page. (It is suggested that you read the complete series FIRST as quite a few of the questions reference points made in the series.)
We hope that you, too, will enjoy this VERY special BOYCE AND HART Series.
He placed his first chart hit record with 1950's rock and roll pioneer FATS DOMINO back in 1959 and BE MY GUEST went all the way to #8 on the National Charts. (BOYCE found that continued songwriting and chart success was not so easily coming ... he wouldn't hit The Top Ten again until he teamed up with singer CURTIS LEE to write PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES a couple of years later.)
BOBBY HART: A high school buddy introduced me to his college mate, Curtis Lee, and asked if I could help him break into the business. When I introduced him to my manager at a recording studio, we both met Tommy Boyce and we all became good friends. Tommy and I began writing together in 1960. Tommy, my first wife, Becky and I were involved in a freeway collision driving home from a Long Beach show where Curtis was discovered by Stan Schulman, signed to Dunes Records and summoned to New York. Once there, it didn’t take Curt long to convince Stan that he needed Tommy to write with. I tell the full story in my book.
***
In 1961, while still recovering from the injuries he suffered in a head-on collision in Los Angeles, TOMMY BOYCE was given the opportunity to go to New York and try to write a song for an up-and-coming young singer named CURTIS LEE.
BOYCE was met at the airport by LEE, as well as recording artist RAY PETERSON (who we recently featured in FORGOTTEN HITS with his original version of the ELVIS tune THE WONDER OF YOU.) Both artists were looking for a hit (and were about to be produced by the legendary PHIL SPECTOR!)
After a few weeks without so much as a single inspiration, BOYCE's publisher gave him an ultimatum ... write a hit for CURTIS LEE NOW or accept a plane ticket back home to Los Angeles. Now under just a LITTLE bit of pressure, TOMMY BOYCE and CURTIS LEE moved in together as roommates in the publisher's living room so that, in the event an inspiration struck, they would both be there to capitalize on it. In his book HOW TO WRITE A HIT SONG AND SELL IT, BOYCE says he lived and breathed songwriting, turning in song after song after song, only to be turned down each time with a comment like "It's good ... but write me a hit for CURTIS." This went on for two more months!!!
While CURTIS LEE and RAY PETERSON went out on tour, TOMMY stayed behind trying to come up with that elusive hit. As LEE was leaving, BOYCE told CURTIS to just "think of a title while you're down there in Florida ... come back with that, and I'll write you a hit song." (This would be a trait TOMMY would carry on for the rest of his songwriting career, regardless of which other partners he may have been working with ... coming up with a good title first to help inspire the "groove" of where the song would go from there.)
When they returned, LEE told TOMMY of a girl he had met down in Florida who had the prettiest eyes he had ever seen. CURTIS even had a title for his idea: he called it "ANGEL EYES."
One of the most popular songs on the radio at the time was EBONY EYES by THE EVERLY BROTHERS. TOMMY started to play the chord progression of that tune, hoping for some spark of inspiration. When that didn't work, he began to play the chords to that week's Number One Song, BLUE MOON by THE MARCELS. BOYCE says that the accelerated tempo of THE MARCELS' song got them to singing their first lyrics: "Angel Eyes, I really love you so. Angel Eyes, I'll never let you go." They felt that they were on to something. By evening, the lyrics were nearly complete.
Feeling pretty good about what they had done, BOYCE decided to take a walk and, while passing a record store, heard the old CLEFTONES' hit LITTLE GIRL OF MINE coming out of the loudspeakers. As soon as he heard the beginning: "Little, little, little, little, lit ... yeah, little, little, little, little, lit," he knew that he had the intro for their new song. Quickly, the opening lyrics became "PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES, PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES" (and, ultimately, so did the title of the song!)
Amazingly, when they first performed the song for their publisher, he wasn't impressed. "I thought I told you to write me a hit!" he said again. But BOYCE and LEE were convinced that they HAD written a hit and decided to play it for their publisher's girlfriend, who immediately loved the song. She convinced her boyfriend that they had a smash on their hands and he finally gave the green light for CURTIS to record the tune. And a smash it was ... PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES shot up the charts to #6, becoming CURTIS LEE's only Top 40 Hit!!!
BOBBY HART: Meanwhile, in Hollywood I was missing my friend and writing partner. While my two buddies were making it big in Tin Pan Alley, I was stuck working at my day gig at Record Labels, Inc. where I printed the labels for their hits.
Early on, BOBBY HART was ALSO trying to make it as a solo recording artist. (HART was born ROBERT LUKE HARSHMAN in Phoenix, Arizona on February 18, 1939.) Back in the late '50's (after falling in love with the music of ELVIS PRESLEY and GENE VINCENT), BOBBY moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of a career as a Disc Jockey. To help pay for his classes, he got a job in a print shop, printing record labels. On the way to work, he would pass a small record demo studio where, for ten dollars, you could "come in and hear what your voice sounds like." Pretty soon, he was stopping by every Saturday (often spending more money than he was earning), recording little demos of himself singing along with his own piano accompaniment.
As a Saturday "regular," HART began to be noticed by some of the music industry figures who also came by this studio. Encouraged by some of those "in the know" to see a producer / manager, BOBBY was introduced to JESSE HODGES, who told him at their very first meeting, "You sound pretty good, kid, but what we need is artists who have their own material." This was all the encouragement and inspiration that BOBBY needed to jump start his songwriting career. Before long, he cut a couple of rock-a-billy sides under his real name, ROBERT LUKE HARSHMAN. A single was released (STOP TALKING, START LOVING / LOVE WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO ME) and BOBBY immediately quit his job in order to promote the record. A quick run through the west coast radio stations left him unemployed and broke ... the record was NOT a hit ... and pretty soon HART was back working in the print shop.
In 1959, he met the man with whom he would enjoy his greatest songwriting success. TOMMY BOYCE had already scored a Top Ten Record when FATS DOMINO recorded his composition BE MY GUEST and, at first I'm sure BOBBY looked up to TOMMY as a success he, himself, might aspire to. In 1960, HART released another single called GIRL IN THE WINDOW (on which TOMMY BOYCE actually played guitar)! It, too, flopped, but this was the first time he used the name BOBBY HART. His then-manager LEE SILVER told him "By the way, your name was too long to go on the label, so I've shortened it to Bobby Hart."
Shortly thereafter, HART scored his first major recording placement. Teen heart-throb TOMMY SANDS cut his composition DR. HEARTACHE and, although it, too, bombed, HART now had some credibility as a songwriter.
BOBBY HART: As a result of GIRL IN THE WINDOW making the charts of the two top forty stations in Los Angeles, I began doing weekend shows for KFWB and KRLA. I met another singer at one of these hops and the two of us decided to put a band together and try to actually make some money doing what we were already doing every weekend. When the BARRY RICHARDS & BOBBY HART twist band was a hit, I quit my day gig and played the L.A. area club scene. On a recommendation from Nino Tempo, I was signed as a writer/artist to DON COSTA and in 1963 I was finally able to join Tommy in New York, which, at the time, (thanks to the likes of THE BRILL BUILDING) was the American songwriting capital.
3
Although up to this point they had both been writing separately, they found themselves helping to finish up each other's tunes. Back at the time, it was VERY common to have songwriters place their tunes with the recording artists ... very few recording acts were writing their own material back then ... and, thanks to places like THE BRILL BUILDING (who had a HUGE stable of established songwriters employed there) one could earn a decent living as a full-time songwriter. Once HART joined BOYCE in New York City, TOMMY and BOBBY quickly fell in with THE BRILL BUILDING crowd, and soon were hanging out with the likes of fellow songwriters MIKE LEIBER AND JERRY STOLLER, CAROLE KING AND GERRY GOFFIN, ELLIE GREENWICH AND JEFF BARRY, ANDY KIM, DOC POMUS AND MORT SHUMAN, BARRY MANN AND CYNTHIA WEIL, NEIL SEDAKA AND HOWARD GREENFIELD, NEIL DIAMOND and many others. (This, quite simply, is how it was done back then ... at THE BRILL BUILDING, you could be walking down the hall or riding on an elevator and be approached by someone looking for a song they needed RIGHT NOW for CONNIE FRANCIS or CHUBBY CHECKER or any other number of artists ... opportunities were literally around every corner.) Ironically, MOST of these songwriters would go on to place songs with THE MONKEES along with BOYCE AND HART, who had their greatest chart success supplying their words and music to The Pre-Fab Four. (A common connection between all these artists was DON KIRSHNER, one of the biggest "behind the scenes" names in rock and roll history ... it is a shame that MOST folks out there only know of him through his late night television series DON KIRSHER's ROCK CONCERT ... he was a MAJOR force in the music industry in the early '60's...a virtual hit-making machine!)
BOBBY HART: The story of Don Kirshner would make a great series, from the phenomenal success of his ALDON MUSIC to selling out to SCREEN GEMS and his ultimate firing over his handling of the Monkees.
(Boy, it SURE would!!!)
HART eventually moved to New York as well, since that seemed to be the songwriting capitol of America at the time. It was here that BOYCE AND HART finally wrote their first their first chart hit together. Twister CHUBBY CHECKER recorded their composition LAZY ELSIE MOLLY, and it became a Top 40 Record in 1964, peaking at #39 in Cash Box Magazine. Teamed with songwriter / producer WES FARRELL, they enjoyed their first Top Ten Hit together later that year when JAY AND THE AMERICANS recorded the smash COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER, a #3 National Hit that Fall. Shortly after this success, BOYCE was offered a contract to become a staff writer for Screen Gems and took off again for the west coast. HART stayed behind in New York City where he was signed to TEDDY RANDAZZO's and DON COSTA's publishing company. When RANDAZZO went to perform in Las Vegas, he offered BOBBY a job singing background in his stage act. One night, TEDDY and DON told him that they were looking for a song for LITTLE ANTHONY AND THE IMPERIALS to record ... something with a similar sound and feel to their recent Top Five smash GOIN' OUT MY HEAD, written by TEDDY RANDAZZO and BOBBY WILDING. Between sets, HART, RANDAZZO and WILDING went upstairs to a conference room and wrote HURT SO BAD, which quickly followed it into The National Top Ten! It looked like ... together or apart ... BOYCE AND HART were on their way as successful songwriters!
DIDJAKNOW?: The CHUBBY CHECKER hit LAZY ELSIE MOLLY was based on a children's nursery rhyme. When BOYCE AND HART first decided to tackle a song together, they looked through a volume of MOTHER GOOSE for inspiration and came across the tale of LAZY ELSIE MARLEY, a girl who loved to stay in bed late and sleep. Setting the poem to music (and changing the girl's name to MOLLY) they embellished the story, added a couple more verses and a chorus, a typical CHUBBY CHECKER rhythm and soon had a Top 40 Hit!
The program would star PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS as the musical hosts. Each day, they would preside over other hit recording artists of the day. The program was to be called WHERE THE ACTION IS (in fact, one of our FORGOTTEN HITS List Member's father was a producer on this show!!!) and an up-tempo song was needed for the title tune.
BOYCE AND HART would make several appearances on this series, as well as its follow-up, HAPPENING, which was also hosted by MARK LINDSAY and PAUL REVERE. In the meantime, they would write a tune for THE RAIDERS' MIDNIGHT RIDE album. That track was the pop / rock classic (I'M NOT YOUR) STEPPIN' STONE.
PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS never released STEPPIN' STONE as a single and, as an album track, it was virtually ignored. However, six months later when THE MONKEES cut it as the B-Side to their monster chart-topping single I'M A BELIEVER, it became a HUGE hit, earning nearly as much airplay as the A-Side. We've got BOTH versions for you here today.
DIDJAKNOW-1?: TOMMY BOYCE's inspiration for the IKETTES' hit PEACHES AND CREAM was THE NEWBEATS' song BREAD AND BUTTER, a HUGE hit on the charts at the time. Going for the same feel (even the title is similar), he and STEVE VENET composed the song and pitched it as the perfect follow-up single to BREAD AND BUTTER to THE NEWBEATS. Their management turned the tune down, saying it sounded TOO much like BREAD AND BUTTER to consider for release! (lol) BOYCE then placed the song with THE IKETTES ... and it became their last Top 40 Hit!
DIDJAKNOW-3?: Years later, when both MARK LINDSAY and various configurations of THE MONKEES were out on the oldies / teen idols circuit tour, LINDSAY reportedly tore into MICKY DOLENZ, saying that he ripped off his vocal style and arrangement EXACTLY when he sang THE MONKEES' version of STEPPIN' STONE. DOLENZ maintained that he simply followed the demo he was given by BOYCE AND HART ... but, that if LINDSAY was so sure the RAIDERS' version was “identical”, then why wasn't IT the hit version?!?!? They feuded for years after this exchange of comments. Ironically, on one of THE MONKEES' many comeback LPs (THEN AND NOW), MICKY cut a version of the PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS' classic hit, KICKS at the direction of ARISTA RECORDS President, CLIVE DAVIS. DAVIS also picked another BOBBY HART song, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE, ANYWHERE (written with eighties partner, Chicago native, DICK EASTMAN ... OMG, HE's on our FH List, too!!! lol) as one of the three new songs to be included on the platinum Then and Now album.
DIDJAKNOW-4?: STEPPIN' STONE actually topped the charts here in Chicago for one week back in 1966! Although it clearly was the B-Side to I'M A BELIEVER, our local surveys showed BOTH sides of the single at the same chart position, always listing the A-Side first. On the WLS Silver Dollar Survey dated December 30, 1966, they showed the #1 Single as STEPPIN' STONE / I'M A BELIEVER ... every week thereafter (and on every other major chart that I'm aware of) I'M A BELIEVER was always shown as the A-Side ... but officially (for one week anyway) in Chicago, STEPPIN' STONE was the #1 Record in the city!
DIDJAKNOW?-6: RON DANTE of THE ARCHIES and STEPHEN STILLS of THE BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD BOTH auditioned for THE MONKEES, DANTE losing HIS role to DAVY JONES and STILLS losing his to his then room-mate, PETER TORK. Contrary to rumors that have circulated for decades, CHARLES MANSON did NOT audition for THE MONKEES!!!
***
Coming up next in FORGOTTEN HITS: THE MONKEES Connection ... Three Chapters of TOMMY BOYCE / BOBBY HART hits as performed by THE MONKEES!!!
BUT FIRST ... ANOTHER FORGOTTEN HITS EXCLUSIVE BONUS!!!
With FREDDY "BOOM BOOM" CANNON now on our FORGOTTEN HITS Mailing List, I couldn't help but ask him about his record, ACTION, the theme to the brand new DICK CLARK Teen Television Series, WHERE THE ACTION IS!
FORGOTTEN HITS: This was a HUGE hit for you, coming at a time when things HAD to be on the quiet side after THE BRITISH INVASION. How were you first approached about recording this tune? I mean, PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS were the ones performing the song on the television show ... how was it that you ended up scoring the hit single? And how did this hit revive your career? Suddenly you were HOT again! Was this a bit like deja vu or just more of a huge relief???
FREDDY "BOOM BOOM" CANNON: YES, IT WAS A GREAT HIT FOR ME AND IT DID VERY WELL IN 1965. DICK CLARK HAD PAUL REVERE CUT THE SONG FIRST BECAUSE THEY WERE THE HOSTS OF THE TV SHOW. BUT DICK DID NOT LIKE THEIR VERSION AND THOUGHT THAT FREDDY CANNON WOULD BE THE RIGHT SINGER FOR THIS SONG, SO HE SENT IT OVER TO WARNER BROS RECORDS. THAT'S WHEN DICK GLASSER GOT THE DEMO FROM DICK CLARK'S OFFICE. THEY TOLD HIM TO PLAY IT FOR ME AND THEY ONLY HAD TEN DAYS BEFORE THE SHOW AIRED, SO IT HAD TO BE DONE REAL FAST! DICK GLASSER CALLED ME TO HIS OFFICE AT WARNER BROS AND HE PLAYED ME THE DEMO OF TOMMY BOYCE AND STEVE VENET ... THAT'S WHO WROTE THE "ACTION"' SONG ... BOBBY HART HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT SONG ... ANYWAY, WHEN HE PLAYED IT FOR ME, THE SECOND TIME HE PLAYED HE SAID, "FREDDY CAN YOU DO THIS SONG?" I TOLD HIM TO BOOK STUDIO TIME FOR THE NEXT DAY HE DID. AND HE CALLED ALL THE MUSICIANS AND SET IT UP. HERE'S WHO PLAYED ON THAT SONG:
GLEN CAMPBELL, CAROL KAYE, JAMES BURTON AND LEON RUSSELL. THEY CUT THE TRACK IN TWO TAKES AT THE STUDIO. I SANG IT IN THREE TAKES ... THAT'S HOW FAST THIS SONG WAS READY FOR DICK CLARK'S SHOW! IN JUST THREE DAYS IT WAS MIXED AND SENT TO HIM! TO THIS DAY WHEN I SING THIS SONG ON SHOWS THE PEOPLE GET UP AND DANCE. I AM VERY LUCKY TO HAVE GREAT SONGS LIKE THIS TO SING LIVE. THANKS TO ALL THE FANS AND RADIO D.JS AND PROGRAM DIRECTORS FOR PLAYING AND BELIEVING IN THE RECORD.
BOBBY HART: In the book, I tell about being hired by Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson to write and produce music for the show, and how after the show was sold, Kirshner (Music Supervison of all Screen Gems shows, as per his contract when he sold them his publishing company and stayed on to run it) rejected Boyce & Hart and hired more established producers, only to reject them, one by one, as their masters came in, finally reinstating Tommy and I as producers for the first LP. As the popularity of the show grew, two things happened: Kirshner was able to attract more top writers and producers; and the Monkees power allowed them to seize control of their own records and have Kirshner booted out.
BOYCE locked himself in a room and tried to come up with something that would fit this little bridge. The problem was, the pacing of the words was SO quick that no matter which lyrics he tried to insert, they didn't fit. Finally frustrated, he simply sang "do-do-do" to cover every note required. Feeling at first that he had failed his partner (who had put all the work into the song thus far), he then convinced himself that these non-words worked better than any lyrics could. When he went out to play the song for HART, BOBBY was ecstatic .... "That's EXACTLY what I was looking for!" LOL ... you just never know where a good song lyric is gonna come from ... but TOMMY's little "do-do-do" bridge became one of the biggest hooks of the song. (To hear TOMMY BOYCE's complete 9 1/2 second contribution to LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE, give a listen to CLARKSVILLE-A SNIPPET, attached to today's mail. You'll also find the complete song attached.) As a special bonus, I've also included the THEME FROM "THE MONKEES".... sung in ITALIAN!!! (Told you BOYCE AND HART were prolific songwriters!!!)
A-Ha!!! ANOTHER long-standing myth debunked ... right here in FORGOTTEN HITS!!! (Actually, TOMMY's version of the story IS a whole lot more fun ... although the MICKY story is interesting, too ... I wonder what those original lyrics were!!!)
BTW: BOBBY HART says that he was also very conscious of the fact that some of THE BEATLES' biggest hits kicked off with a GREAT, clearly identifiable guitar riff ... I FEEL FINE ... DAY TRIPPER ... and their most recent hit at the time, PAPERBACK WRITER ... so he was determined to come up with a memorable guitar riff to kick off THE MONKEES' first hit, too. He most certainly accomplished that with the GREAT guitar opening to LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE!
The Facts and Fables Behind The #1 Monkees’ Hit, Valleri
THE MONKEES were always being supplied new musical material from a virtual who's who of songwriters: NEIL DIAMOND, GERRY GOFFIN and CAROLE KING, NILSSON, NEIL SEDAKA and DAVID GATES (later of BREAD) all had their songs recorded by the band in the first couple of years. In addition, MICKY DOLENZ, DAVY JONES, PETER TORK and, most frequently, MIKE NESMITH were submitting their OWN compositions for consideration. Therefore, as time wore on, when BOYCE AND HART were called upon to supply a song, they pretty much needed to have one "at the ready."
According to BOYCE's account (as published in his book), back in the day when DON KIRSHNER oversaw those musical selections, he called BOYCE AND HART one morning and told TOMMY (who just happened to answer the phone ... BOBBY was still sound asleep) that he had a dream last night that the title of THE MONKEES' next #1 Record should be a girl's name. Spontaneously, TOMMY BOYCE replied, "Donnie, you won't believe this!!! But, last night while you were having that dream, BOBBY and I wrote an unbelievably great song for THE MONKEES ... and, are you ready for this? ... it has a girl's name in the title!"
KIRSHNER was flabbergasted! "Tell me the title, quick! I want to hear it! What's her name?"
Of course, TOMMY couldn't comply ... the song hadn't been written yet! "Donnie, her name is so beautiful and so exciting that I couldn't possibly tell it to you over the phone. But I'll tell you what ... you're going to love it when you hear it tomorrow." Despite KIRSHNER's insistence that TOMMY come over now and play him the song ... or, better yet, that KIRSHNER drop by THEIR place to hear the tune (that hadn't yet been written!), TOMMY finally stalled him with the excuse that BOBBY was still sleeping. (Of course, HART didn't know ANY of this as he really WAS still asleep ... and had absolutely no idea what TOMMY had just committed themselves to!)
KIRSHNER was adamant ... "How about noon TODAY at my place?!?!" BOYCE says it was more of a command than a question. "Okay," he said, giving in, "but do me a favor. Please have everyone there who's connected with the television show." KIRSHNER agreed to assemble producers BERT SCHNEIDER and BOB RAPHELSON, vice president LESTER SILL, and chairman-of-the-board JACKIE COOPER. (Nothing like putting a little more pressure on the situation!!!)
At 10:00 BOYCE decided to wake BOBBY and tell him the news ... after all, having just committed to writing the next #1 song in America was a pretty big deal!!! Realizing the pressure they were under, both songwriters quickly began making a list of girls' names but none particularly struck their fancy. TOMMY had the beginnings of a melody but they just weren't able to put it together with any of the names on the list. They decided to take a drive, hoping for inspiration (or divine intervention). At 11:00, while driving along Mulholland Drive, TOMMY finally asked BOBBY to "reach deep into your past for a recollection of one girl in your life, or even in your dreams, that you had never told anybody about." HART gave it some thought and then replied that there WAS a girl in High School that he liked a lot but she never returned the favor. He would think about her every once in a while over the years and once had even written a song about her. "I was never too hot on the song," he said, "but what I liked about it was the name, which was hers."
"Come on, BOBBY," TOMMY exclaimed, "tell me her name and my melody will flow right out to meet her." And, of course, BOBBY then replied, "And her name was VALLERI" ... which INSTANTLY fit the melody that TOMMY had been working on! Now fifteen minutes away from their meeting at KIRSHNER's house, that left them all of twelve minutes to complete the song!!! They got as far as "There's a girl I know who makes me feel so good" which, along with the chorus, "and her name is Valleri ... I love you, Valleri" was all they had when they pulled into the driveway.
BOYCE was banking on the fact that KIRSHNER had wanted a song with a girl's name in the title SO badly ... and the fact that he had already told him about the GREAT song they had written "the night before" ... that the conditions were, in effect, pre-programmed for them to present THE MONKEES' next big smash hit single. (With all those executives sitting in the room waiting for the debut, the anticipation was exceptionally high ... TOMMY believed that ANY song they would have played based around a girl's name would have qualified as "exactly what they were looking for.") They sang the chorus line in two-part harmony and then the first two lines of the verse ... which was all they had. They then explained that the song still needed a little work but there was nothing to worry about ... they'd have it completed by tomorrow. TOMMY says that they then "did a reprise on the part we had written, singing it with the all gusto one reserves for GOD BLESS AMERICA." For the grand-finale, BOYCE hit a big final chord, tossed his guitar over his shoulder and went down on one knee in his "best ELVIS fashion." The room fell silent as they waited for KIRSHNER's reaction. Finally, KIRSHNER jumped to his feet and shouted "It's a smash ... Number One!!!" All the other execs in the room agreed. They had pulled it off!
According to TOMMY, they completed the first verse later that day and then booked studio time for the following afternoon. Then they went to a movie!!! THE MONKEES were told to report to the studio the following day at five o'clock and between two and five, the basic musical backing tracks were recorded. In twenty minutes, BOYCE AND HART wrote a second verse and between five and six o'clock THE MONKEES' vocals were added. The whole process took all of FOUR HOURS!!! It was quickly mixed and put into the television show the following week!!!
BOYCE then goes on to say that "Just as soon as the television show was aired, two disc-jockeys, one from Florida and the other from Chicago, decided on their own to make a tape of VALLERI and pipe it out from their radio stations. On each of those two stations, before it had even sold a single record, the song became Number One on the request list. RCA called Donnie Kirshner and told him that if he released it as a single, they would pre-ship two million records and guarantee that it would be the Number One Record. Good to their word, they released VALLERI the following week and within three weeks it was Number One in both Cash Box and Billboard. Two weeks later, it was Number One in almost every country in the world with sales of close to three million records."
Now that's a pretty amazing and fascinating little story ... but a little bit of research indicates that TOMMY may have "stretched the truth" just a little bit here and there.
What first tipped me off was the end bit regarding VALLERI's astounding chart life. Now PART of this story is true. After VALLERI aired on an episode of the television series, WCFL, right here in Chicago, started playing the heck out of it from a tape they had made from the broadcast. Every night it came in at #1 on the Top Five Most Requested Songs Of The Day ... and this went on for weeks and weeks and weeks. (From what I understand, some folks believe that WCFL then sent out copies of their "bootleg" version of VALLERI to other stations around the country to air ... however, I am more inclined to believe that they kept it to themselves as a "SUPER 'CFL Exclusive." However, a radio station in Florida DID get the same results when THEY played a taped copy on the air ... the request lines lit up like a Christmas tree and Florida fans couldn't get enough of the song.) Growing up here at the time, I clearly remember ALL of these events as I, too, thought VALLERI was a great song and listened to WCFL's Top Requests Countdown every night! I remember my frustration at not being able to BUY the song in any of the local record shops because it was only available on tape at the radio station.
However, THIS is where BOYCE's story falls apart. VALLERI first aired on the CAPTAIN CROCODILE episode of the television series on February 20, 1967, five months AFTER the series premiered on NBC. It was not released as a single until March of 1968 ... a full THIRTEEN MONTHS later!!! (An RCA / COLGEMS recording log that I found shows that THE MONKEES first laid down this track on August 6, 1966 ... HARDLY the week before it aired! In fact, this was before a single episode of the TV series had ever been shown ... so, if ANY of that conversation between KIRSHNER and BOYCE AND HART ever really happened, they wouldn't have referred to VALLERI as THE MONKEES' "NEXT Number One Hit ... it would have been their very FIRST Number One Hit!!! They had not yet released a single recording!!!)
When VALLERI WAS finally released as a single a year later, it was a completely re-recorded version, which DID go to #1 in Cash Box but stopped at #3 in Billboard. THE MONKEES recorded a completely new version of this song in December of 1967 (sessions were held on the 26th and the 28th), which ultimately became the hit single release. (Being a HUGE MONKEES fan at the time, I remember personally being VERY surprised to see this single finally being released after all that time.) Songwriting partner BOBBY HART explains that after wrestling control away from KIRSHNER regarding the selection of the material THE MONKEES would record ... and then winning the rights to play their own instruments on those records ... by the end of 1967 they also had it written into their contracts that ALL future recordings would show "Produced by THE MONKEES" on the label. (By this time, each member of the band was generally recording their new tracks individually anyway, so when a new album was completed, they simply went with the group production credit.)
As such, the 1966 track (which was produced by BOYCE AND HART) had to be scrapped because the Musicians Union contracts had already been filed with BOYCE AND HART's names on them as producers. This meant that when THE MONKEES decided to release VALLERI as a single, a whole new track needed to be created. BOYCE AND HART (who, by this time, had been dismissed as producers) were approached about coming back and, according to HART, "making it sound as close to the original as possible." Contrary to TOMMY's account, BOBBY says "VALLERI was specifically written for them. Over a year after we cut the song, LESTER SILL came back to us and said, 'They want you to recut VALLERI. You can't have producers credit, but we want you to go back in and do it again, making it sound as close to the original as possible.' So that's what we did."
During the re-recording process, yet ANOTHER mix was created ... and this is the one that seems to have found its way to oldies radio ... in fact, the "cold ending" version is now more likely to be heard than the original hit single version! Today, we give you all THREE versions in FORGOTTEN HITS ... the very rare TV-version mix (VALLERI-1), the hit single version (VALLERI-2, which is the re-recording from 1968 that fades out at the end) and the other now-more-popular "cold ending" version (VALLERI-3). Hopefully, along the way we've also shared a fascinating look at the song's origins! (Unfortunately, this seems to be yet another case of 30-year hindsight propaganda making for a better story than the truth ... with so many erroneous "facts" stated in BOYCE's account of the song's success, one cannot help but wonder what other "mistruths" might exist in his account of the events of the day ... writing the song in an hour and a half, selling it to a room full of executives with two lines of verse and two lines of chorus and then recording the whole thing with THE MONKEES in one hour ... now knowing that at LEAST three complete takes exist!) However, the "embellished" account sure does make for a fascinating story!!!
BOBBY HART: (Laughing) Well, that's a pretty good story, isn't it? As you've already figured out, there are a couple of glaring embellishments ... but, believe it or not, most of Tommy’s story is true. You caught him in a big one!!! Here are two or three more:
#1: I never heard anything about Donnie having a dream. Kirshner was very methodical and was always making notes, lists and “dreaming” up formulas for giving the kids what they want. Having a girl’s name in a song title was just one of his formulas for teen success.
#2: Of course, Donnie would NEVER have tried to assemble Screen Gems executives for this first song audition, certainly not Jackie Cooper.
#3: My version is actually more astounding (still plugging the book) in that, from the time we jumped in the car and started writing the song while heading over Mulholland Drive to Kirshner’s rented house in Trousdale Estates, to when Tommy jumped up on Donnie’s coffee table with his guitar and we started playing it for him, not more that twenty minutes had elapsed! Tommy, in the back seat, had come up with a guitar riff and we had the title. That’s it. We sang “Va...al...aeal...er...ee, I love her, Va...al...aeal...er..ee” And then we quickly added, “There’s a little verse that goes in here” and continued, “Va..al...aeal...er...ee”. We sold it. Donnie loved it. The two little two-line verses that we came up with later took less that an additional twenty minutes. Louie Sheldon’s great Flaminco work, as one of your readers pointed out the first time this series ran, added greatly to the song’s appeal. Although he tried to duplicate his guitar work the second time we produced the song, I don’t think he was ever quite able to match the magic of his first spontaneous solos.
In fact, for that brief period of time from late 1966 through the Summer of 1967, THE MONKEES were actually outselling AND more popular than THE BEATLES ... who, as we ALL know, were more popular than JESUS CHRIST. (Of course, then The Fab Four released a little album called SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND and left The Pre-Fab Four in the dust ... hey, c'mon ... despite their ENORMOUS and INCREDIBLE worldwide popularity, was there ever REALLY any doubt as to who the more talented band was?!?!?)
In any event, MUCH of that success can be credited to the songwriting team of TOMMY BOYCE and BOBBY HART, who supplied THE MONKEES with over twenty tracks during their hey-day. (Or would that more correctly be their hey-hey day, as in "Hey, Hey We're THE MONKEES"?!?!?) BOYCE AND HART were most definitely "in the zone" ... they would never again enjoy such guaranteed success with their material ... but from 1966-1968 they were perfectly in-tune with what the rest of the world wanted to hear.
Wrapping up this part of the feature, we figured that today we'd remind you about a couple of tunes that ABSOLUTELY would have been Top Five Hits here in The States had they been released as singles ... and one FORGOTTEN HIT that was.
I WANNA BE FREE was a DAVY ballad that got TONS of airplay on both the radio and the TV Show. It was the main featured song in the original television pilot and BOYCE AND HART's original vocals had to be removed from the track once all four of THE MONKEES had been cast. (Ironically, in that pilot ... which ended up airing later in the season ... both an uptempo and a ballad version were featured ... and, although this has become one of DAVY JONES's signature tunes, MICKY DOLENZ ALSO took a crack at the vocal on the TV Show!) It's from their first LP and should be a familiar track to all.
BOBBY HART: Even though radio was playing it in heavy rotation as if it were a single, Colgems / RCA purposely held back I WANNA BE FREE, so that the kids would have to buy the album if they wanted to own the song.
SHE could have been a #1 Single ... and was played as often as if it were! (We've featured this tune before in FORGOTTEN HITS but it ties in perfectly with this new BOYCE AND HART series.)
In fact, here in Chicago, it routinely won the #1 spot on WCFL's daily Top Five Requests Countdown ... for WEEKS at a time! It kicked off THE MONKEES' second album and, had it been released on the heels of their #1 smash I'M A BELIEVER, it most certainly would have followed it to the top of the charts.
Finally, here's one that, despite its hit status, you just never seem to hear on the radio anymore. When it was first released as a single back in the Summer of '67, WORDS was the A-Side ... the ultimately far more popular PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY was actually the B-Side. Now, you hear PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY all the time on the radio ... but you very rarely hear WORDS.
WORDS also features a seldom-heard PETER TORK lead vocal (traded off with MICKY) and was a hauntingly produced track that was also included several times on the TV show. Although it charted on its own in both Billboard and Cash Box Magazine (#11 and #5 respectively), it played second-fiddle to PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY's #3 showing on both charts ... but one can't forget that, in its own right, it was, in fact, a Top Five National Single. Despite this fact, however, you just don't get to hear this one very often. (Here in Chicago, WORDS peaked at #2 while PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY stopped at #4 ... although, at various times during its chart-run, BOTH sides were shown as the "A-Side" position.)
DIDJAKNOW-1: Prior to THE MONKEES recording WORDS, it was done by THE LEAVES ... the same garage band who had the hit single HEY JOE in 1966! THE LEAVES' version never even charted.
DIDJAKNOW-2: The TOMMY BOYCE / BOBBY HART version of WORDS was incorrectly credited on the ELVIS PRESLEY Live Album FROM MEMPHIS TO VEGAS / FROM VEGAS TO MEMPHIS. Songwriting credit on the original LP release was given to BOYCE AND HART when, in fact, it was THE BEE GEES' tune WORDS that ELVIS had performed live in concert!!! (Later pressings were corrected to reflect this!)
BOBBY HART: How on earth did you know this?!?! Tommy and I were in Tower Records on the Sunset Strip when we spotted the latest Elvis LP and were elated to see our song and names listed in the credits. Of course, a half hour later when we plopped it on the turntable, our hearts sunk.
KENT KOTAL: I bought the LP, too ... and just couldn't IMAGINE ELVIS singing the BOYCE AND HART / MONKEES song!!! But my copy showed YOU guys as the songwriters on the now classic BEE GEES' song! (Believe it or not, thinking it was THE MONKEES' tune was one of the reasons I bought the LP in the first place!)
EDITOR'S NOTE: After this piece first ran, I found a quote from BOBBY that he had given to another publication. By 1967, WORDS had already been recorded and released by THE MONKEES (the only HIT version of the song), THE LEAVES and THE BOSTON TEA PARTY. Then, in 1970, BOYCE AND HART received a call from RCA RECORDS ...
BOBBY HART: In 1970 we got a call from RCA saying that Elvis Presley had cut it. We each ordered 500 copies of Elvis' "From Memphis To Vegas" LP. We played it and, of course, it turned out to be the Bee Gees song! We were very popular in those days. RCA thought we wrote almost everything!
DIDJAKNOW-3: Both TOMMY BOYCE and BOBBY HART have since stated that their inspiration for the popular MONKEES’ tune I WANNA BE FREE was a song by country singer ROGER MILLER called ONE DYIN’ AND A-BURYIN’ … a song about SUICIDE believe it or not!!! In the song, a #30 pop hit in 1965, MILLER sings the line “I wanna be free” and BOYCE AND HART built THEIR song around that whole line. In hindsight, it’s almost creepy that TOMMY BOYCE would later go on to take his own life.
DIDJAKNOW-4:
A few years back (when this BOYCE AND HART Series first ran in FORGOTTEN HITS), FH List Member (and DIAMOND RECORDS collector) TOM DIEHL sent us a copy of VALLERI as recorded by a group called THE PINEAPPLE HEARD. Apparently, sometime between the time that THE MONKEES' episode featuring VALLERI first aired ... and the thirteen month gap that COLGEMS RECORDS waited to release this song as a single ... another group called THE PINEAPPLE HEARD recorded a version of the song. Had DIAMOND RECORDS’ Marketing Department been on the ball, they just may have stolen the thunder away from THE MONKEES’ version. (In hindsight, probably not … if THE PINEAPPLE HEARD single truly DID start to make some noise, COLGEMS would have most likely released THE MONKEES’ single even earlier … which means that we would all now have the TV version instead of the re-recorded 1968 version in our record collections!!!) Although THE PINEAPPLE HEARD version was never a hit, it was suspected for quite some time that BOYCE AND HART may have been involved with this other recording … but, prior to now, we were never able to confirm any connection. Since this time around we had the advantage of working with BOBBY HART, we asked him!!!
BOBBY HART: We had nothing to do with this version.
So there you have it!
WERE THE MONKEES REALLY BIGGER
THAN THE BEATLES AT ONE TIME?!?!?:
For a brief moment in time, yes, they were! THE MONKEES' first album spent 13 weeks at #1 beginning in November of 1966. It was knocked out of the #1 spot by their SECOND album (MORE OF THE MONKEES) which spent 18 additional weeks at #1!!! That one-two punch accounted for 31 consecutive weeks of THE MONKEES topping Billboard's LP chart. In addition, THE MONKEES would place two more albums at the top of the chart during 1967: HEADQUARTERS (#1 for 1 week) and PISCES, AQUARIUS, CAPRICORN AND JONES, LTD. (#1 for 5 weeks). That's a total of 37 weeks at Number One out of a possible 60!!! (During that same timeframe, THE BEATLES topped the charts just once with what is considered to be their landmark album of all time, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, which spent 15 weeks on top of Billboard's LP Chart.) In addition, THE MONKEES rang up eight Top 40 Hits during that 60 week period (vs. THE BEATLES' five.) It can be argued that THE BEATLES lost some of their younger fans who were not yet ready to follow their leaders down the much more sophisticated path of RUBBER SOUL, REVOLVER and SGT. PEPPER ... let alone their newly embraced drug culture ... some of us still wanted the fun, happy, carefree mop-tops and suddenly THE MONKEES better fit that bill. (THE BEATLES were growing mustaches for God's sake!!!) But the truth is that no other BEATLES album ever spent more time at #1 than SGT. PEPPER's 15 week run ... in fact, even when compared to their biggest year ever (1964, when they, too, knocked themselves out of the #1 spot on the album chart ... THE BEATLES' SECOND ALBUM replacing MEET THE BEATLES at the top of the heap for a combined consecutive total of 16 weeks ... along with a mass saturation of product hitting the marketplace never before seen in the music industry), THE MONKEES certainly gave THE BEATLES a run for the money in terms of overall short-term popularity.
***
This wraps up THE MONKEES portion of the BOYCE AND HART story ... I hope you've enjoyed it! Stick Around ... LOTS More Great Music and Info to Come!!!
BOBBY HART had toured as part of the back-up, support act behind THE MONKEES on their first major U.S. tours. With THE CANDY STORE PROPHETS, he had seen first hand the crowd reaction night after night to this latest pop sensation. When THE MONKEES performed at The Cow Palace in San Francisco on January 22, 1967 (their final appearance of the tour), TOMMY BOYCE finally came to see the show. Apparently, BOYCE had never realized the impact that THE MONKEES had on their audience prior to that night. After the show, he came backstage practically breathless and told BOBBY HART "That should be you and I up there!!! We wrote these songs!!!"
On May 6, 1967, that dream became a reality. TOMMY BOYCE and BOBBY HART went into the A&M recording studios and cut their first single as a duo. Two months later, OUT AND ABOUT was a Top 40 Hit, peaking at #34 on the Cash Box chart.
Their biggest hit would follow ... I WONDER WHAT SHE'S DOING TONIGHT went all the way to #7 on the Cash Box Chart ... and was a #2 hit here in Chicago. You still hear it regularly on oldies stations around the country.
Their next chart hit bordered on some of the psychedelia that was so popular in the music being released in late 1967 / early 1968. GOODBYE BABY only went to #52 but I think it's one of their better produced tracks. According to BOBBY HART, THE BEACH BOYS agreed. Shortly after the aborted SMILE album, BEACH BOYS' mastermind BRIAN WILSON retreated to his room. "BRUCE JOHNSTON approached me at the point where BRIAN WILSON wasn't producing THE BEACH BOYS anymore and asked if TOMMY and I would be willing to produce their next session." It never happened ... but give a close listen to GOODBYE BABY and see if you don't hear just a little bit of what must have caught BRUCE JOHNSTON's ear. (Keep in mind that earlier in 1967 JOHNSTON was actively involved in the FORGOTTEN HITS favorite MY WORLD FELL DOWN by SAGITTARIUS ... which, in some ways, sounds like a distant musical cousin to the BOYCE AND HART tune. YOU guys liked MY WORLD FELL DOWN enough to vote it into YOUR TOP 20 FAVORITE PSYCHEDELIC SONGS OF ALL-TIME ... and you can FIND that list elsewhere on The FORGOTTEN HITS Website.)
BOYCE AND HART's last entry into The American Top 40 was a GREAT little tune called ALICE LONG. This one went to #16 in Cash Box but stopped at #27 in Billboard. (It was a #6 smash here in Chicago and it just happens to be one of MY favorite BOYCE AND HART records, too!)
But in 1965, they would write the TV Theme that would secure their bank accounts for all of the rest of the days of their lives. The 30-second musical clip that began every episode of THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES has been running five days a week for over 40 years now, the longest, continuing running drama on television.
***
BOYCE AND HART appeared first on the I DREAM OF JEANNIE episode JEANNIE, THE HIP HIPPIE, back in 1967. It seems that MAJOR TONY NELSON (LARRY HAGMAN) was recruited by DR. BELLOWS to find a musical group to perform at MRS. BELLOWS' charity bazaar. (Otherwise, both men would have to give up their vacations.) Always eager to help her master, JEANNIE (BARBARA EDEN) decides to put a band together herself ... after all, ANYBODY could play and sing in a rock and roll band! (That's her on the drums in the photo above!!!) BOYCE AND HART (along with a couple of other "mod" looking young hipsters) are "blinked" into an audition but, until JEANNIE magically blinks them some musical ability, the band can't play a note! Once they've been blessed with some genie-given musical talent, they launch into a perfect version of the new BOYCE AND HART single OUT AND ABOUT, a song we talked about yesterday in our special BOYCE AND HART / FORGOTTEN HITS series.) A short instrumental version of LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE, BOYCE AND HART's #1 MONKEES' hit, even plays in the background in one scene ... and, in fact, THE MONKEES' HEADQUARTERS album is prominently displayed on the wall of a record shop in another! By the way, famed record producer PHIL SPECTOR (who was also recently featured in a FORGOTTEN HITS Series a while back) also has a small role in this episode!!!
You can watch a scene here ... BOYCE AND HART singing OUT AND ABOUT (with PHIL SPECTOR listening in ... and JEANNIE on drums!!!)
Click here: YouTube - Out & About Boyce & Hart
***
It was their appearance on BEWITCHED, however, that garnered the most attention! On SERENA STOPS THE SHOW (1970), SAMANTHA's beautiful twin cousin SERENA (hey, wasn't that the whole concept behind THE PATTY DUKE SHOW ... and didn't JEANNIE have an "evil-twin", too?!?!?) wants to hire BOYCE AND HART (appearing as themselves) to perform at THE COSMOS COTILLION but the guys inform her that they're already booked through 1976!!! (Keep in mind that this was WAY before reality TV took hold!!!) SERENA then casts a spell that basically makes them suck!!! Once they're deemed "unpopular," (and no longer in demand ... at one point, their manager complains "They haven't sold a record in three days!") she persuades them not only to appear at the ball but also to perform her newly written song I'LL BLOW YOU A KISS IN THE WIND. We're featuring THIS favorite again today, too, as part of our special BOYCE AND HART feature! (Frannie and I just had the opportunity to watch BOTH of these classic TV episodes ... it's sometimes hard to believe that BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE were two of the most popular shows of the '60's!!!)
***
MOVIE MADNESS-1: According to BOBBY HART, QUENTIN TARANTINO wanted to use the BOYCE AND HART track I'LL BLOW YOU A KISS IN THE WIND (first performed on the BEWITCHED television series) in his cult-favorite motion picture PULP FICTION ... but a suitable master could not be found in time for inclusion in the film. There may be some truth to this statement ... when he hosted SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, TARANTINO said (in his opening monologue), "Serena singing 'I'll Blow You a Kiss in the Wind' is the greatest event in the history of television."
INCREDIBLE!!!: It is just AMAZING sometimes what you can find on the Internet!!! Here's a link that'll take you to THREE performances of I'LL BLOW YOU A KISS IN THE WIND ... one by SERENA as performed in the aforementioned episode of BEWITCHED ... one by BOYCE AND HART (from the same episode) and yet ANOTHER by director QUENTIN TARANTINO from his above-mentioned SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE monologue!!! TOO MUCH!!!!!
Click here: Lyrics - Bewitched @ Harpies Bizarre
Or, watch it here:
Click here: YouTube - BEWITCHED - I'LL BLOW YOU A KISS IN THE WIND
Click here: YouTube - Boyce & Hart - I'll Blow You A Kiss In The Wind
Click here: YouTube - Quentin Tarantino Sings on SNL
MOVIE MADNESS-2: According to TOMMY BOYCE, their biggest hit I WONDER WHAT SHE'S DOING TONIGHT was supposed to appear in the monster-hit movie FOREST GUMP but was cut from the soundtrack at the last minute. Too bad ... not only did this movie introduce a whole new generation to some of the greatest music of the '60's, but it also went on to sell about 25 Million Copies!!!
DIDJAKNOW?-1: Once they were established recording stars in their own right, TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART made LOTS of television appearances in FRONT of the camera ... prior to their own chart success, MOST of their musical contributions were behind the scenes. Not only did they write the theme song for WHERE THE ACTION IS, but they appeared on the program (and its follow-up series HAPPENING '68) EIGHT times!!! They also guested on THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE (on an episode hosted by their A&M record label-boss HERB ALPERT) and made several appearances on AMERICAN BANDSTAND (four times as a duo, once as part of DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART and ... way back in 1962 ... TOMMY BOYCE appeared as a SOLO artist performing I'LL REMEMBER CAROL, one of the very first songs that we featured in this special BOYCE AND HART tribute series!)
SCREEN TEST: We ALSO told you that at one point TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART believed that they were going to have key roles on THE MONKEES' television series as kind of the LENNON AND McCARTNEY of the group ... well, it also seems that their appearances on some of the other popular television shows of the day (I DREAM OF JEANNIE, BEWITCHED, THE FLYING NUN) were sort of "acting lessons / screen tests" to see if they could hold up starring in their OWN television music / comedy series. Unfortunately, no such program ever materialized.
BY THE WAY: We've mentioned throughout this series how THE MONKEES' television series was supposed to be America's answer to THE BEATLES ... we've even cited some examples of how THE BEATLES' music influenced some of BOYCE AND HART's compositions featured on the show. However, BOBBY HART says that THE THEME FROM "THE MONKEES" was actually inspired by the 1965 DAVE CLARK FIVE hit CATCH US IF YOU CAN! ("Here we come again" ... "Here we come, walkin' down the street").
DIDJAKNOW?-2: The theme to the daytime soap opera drama THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES may be BOYCE AND HART's crowning achievement as songwriters ... as we said earlier, it's aired five days a week for well over forty years!!! When they were first approached to write the theme, they were asked to come up with something that sounded like SUNRISE, SUNSET from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. After submitting several different pieces for the theme (all of which were quickly rejected), they came up with the theme you still hear today. However, according to BOBBY HART, even though he and TOMMY wrote the theme together, when the copyright was belatedly registerd by the publisher in 1976, the name CHARLES ALBERTINE was added to the songwriting credits. (ALBERTINE had written several other pieces of television music and nobody seems to know for sure just how this turn of events happened ... however, at the same time, BOYCE AND HART's names were also added to several pieces of music that ALBERTINE had written that they had absolutely NOTHING at all to do with!!!) BOBBY says that ALBERTINE has been cut in for 12 1/2% of the royalties since 1976 and, when TOMMY was still alive he never really wanted to rock the boat. "ALBERTINE's widow is probably living on that money and we should just be thankful that we're getting what we're getting." After TOMMY died in 1994, BOBBY decided to honor his partner's wishes and the publishing arrangement has never been challenged nor altered.
WHAT'S THE NAME OF THAT SONG?!?!?: Hey check out these picture sleeves ... what was the CORRECT name of this song??? I mean, they SING "I'm Gonna Blow You A Kiss In The Wind" but the OFFICIAL title of the song is supposed to be I'LL BLOW YOU A KISS IN THE WIND." Looks like even the record company was a little confused ... they actually printed two DIFFERENT picture sleeves for this record!!!
By 1968, MARTIN was already a successful fixture in our homes with his musical comedy variety series ... his movies with former sidekick JERRY LEWIS were legendary ... he had successfully attacked the pop charts with hits like EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY, THE DOOR IS STILL OPEN TO MY HEART, former FORGOTTEN HIT feature HOUSTON and golden oldies like THAT'S AMORE and MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS ... he would soon re-invent the celebrity roast ... and had also made successful movies like RIO BRAVO (the classic western starring JOHN WAYNE and RICKY NELSON), the original version of OCEAN'S 11 with his RAT PACK cohorts and played the romantic lead in MARILYN MONROE's last film (never released) SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE. In 1970, he would soar again as the pilot in the film AIRPORT.
But from 1966 - 1969, MARTIN portrayed secret agent MATT HELM in a series of four films that later inspired a television series starring JAMES FRANCIOSA. (The character was based on the novels of DONALD HAMILTON.) In all, four films were made: THE SILENCERS, MURDERERS' ROW, THE AMBUSHERS and THE WRECKING CREW, each doing substantially less business than its predecessor!
BOYCE AND HART were contracted to perform the title track for THE AMBUSHERS. (This was one of their rare recordings that they DIDN'T write themselves.) There were evidently SUCH high expectations for this track that it was stuck on the B-Side of I WONDER WHAT SHE'S DOING TONIGHT where it could wallow in obscurity for all its remaining days!!!
(In fact, it's SO obscure, that it never even appeared on a BOYCE AND HART album and, as such, is considered to be one of their rarest tracks ... despite the fact that I WONDER WHAT SHE'S DOING TONIGHT was a huge single success!)
BOYCE AND HART also performed the title track from the film WHERE ANGELS GO, TROUBLE FOLLOWS, (starring ROSALIND RUSSELL, STELLA STEVENS and SUSAN SAINT JAMES.) In fact, THIS time both TOMMY BOYCE and BOBBY HART appear briefly in the movie, singing the title track in the opening sequence.
LEONARD MALTIN describes this film as "For FLYING NUN fans only." (Ironically, BOYCE AND HART also appeared on the television series THE FLYING NUN, starring SALLY FIELD. The episode was titled WHEN GENERATIONS GAP and they performed two songs!!!) WHERE ANGELS GO, TROUBLE FOLLOWS was the sequel to the 1966 film THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS, which also starred ROSALIND RUSSELL along with HAYLEY MILLS and GYPSY ROSE LEE.
AN OSCAR NOD: Speaking of non-charting movie theme hits, in 1983, BOBBY HART was nominated for an Academy Award for his composition OVER YOU from the Oscar-winning film TENDER MERCIES. (He wrote the song with AUSTIN ROBERTS who had a hit with HART's SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH ME back in 1972.) Although it didn't win the award, (it lost to the Theme from FLASHDANCE), it's a beautiful song that deserved a better showing. (The "hit" single version by LANE BRODY never even made the pop charts ... but was a #15 Hit on Billboard's Country Chart. It's a beautiful song that should have crossed over to the Adult Contemporary Chart, too, but didn't ... and that's a shame ... other than in a forum like FORGOTTEN HITS, it's just another one of those great songs that'll go unknown and unheard, never to be discovered unless you happen to watch the film.)
Now, back in the swingin' '60's, it was not at all uncommon to see PEACE and LUV written all over the place ... but BOYCE AND HART had a different agenda in mind when they wrote this tune.
As a means of protesting the fact that our government felt that 18 year olds were old enough to be drafted and sent off to war in Viet Nam ... but NOT old enough to vote ... our musical hipsters came up with a tune called L.U.V. ... (LET US VOTE).
With America engulfed in yet another seemingly endless, unresolvable war, this seemed like a timely tune to feature today. Although I’m sure that BOYCE and HART had the best of intentions when they first released L.U.V., it never officially charted. (It "bubbled under" at #111 in March of 1969 ... a little too late to make ANY impact or difference in the votes cast the previous November!) L.U.V. DID receive some scattered airplay here … but it pretty much disappeared from the shelves overnight! (In fact, I remember seeing the single ... with a picture sleeve ... in the cut-out bins for quite some time thereafter!!!)
BOBBY HART: In my book, I tell the whole story of how Tommy and I were introduced to the Let Us Vote movement by Joey Bishop and came to be their national spokespersons, stumping across the nation, personally lobbying Congress, promoting the cause at our shows and in endless interviews, and finally prevailing when in 1971, the states promptly ratified the Twenty-sixth amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
In late 1975 / early 1976, thanks to a surge of interest initiated by a large number of MONKEES fans in the Far East (where their popularity has never really waned), a ten-year anniversary tour of THE MONKEES began to be discussed.
Because THE MONKEES' name couldn't be used due to copyright restrictions, the tour was quickly billed as "THE GREAT GOLDEN HITS OF THE MONKEES SHOW - STARRING THE GUYS WHO SANG 'EM AND THE GUYS WHO WROTE 'EM."
***
All THE MONKEES' hits were present and accounted for, as were a couple of BOYCE AND HART tunes. In fact, the boys even did a medley of BOYCE AND HART compositions originally done by other artists, most of which we've covered here in our B&H Special Series!
They were quickly signed to CAPITOL RECORDS and soon made the rounds to all the talk shows, radio stations and musical programs like AMERICAN BANDSTAND and, perhaps MOST ironically, DON KIRSHNER'S ROCK CONCERT!!! Their first single, I REMEMBER THE FEELING, absolutely SHOULD have been a hit ... it had ALL of the characteristics of a MONKEES / BOYCE AND HART song, down to the "C'mon, Bobby, let's go" TOMMY BOYCE trademark “ad-lib” during the bridge. DAVY and MICKY traded off the lead vocals in one of their best duets ... but it wasn't to be. By 1976, nobody cared about a MONKEES single ... especially a pseudo-MONKEES single! (Ironically, ten years later for THE MONKEES' 20th Anniversary Tour ... with the support of MTV rerunning their television episodes ... THE MONKEES would score a Top 20 Hit with THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW, featuring MICKY DOLENZ and PETER TORK!) I REMEMBER THE FEELING bombed, never hitting the charts at all. Too bad ... they also released a very good album that was virtually ignored. A live, Japanese-only LP followed, but failed to capture the group at their best.
BOBBY HART: Al Coury, the executive who signed Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart to Capitol Records, left the label to head RSO Records, two weeks before the release of “I Remember The Feeling”, so there was no one watching the store when our record came out.
'60's FLASHBACK: I've told the story before of hearing DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART do a live radio interview with legendary Chicagoland disc jockey ROY LEONARD back in 1976. During the course of the interview, the boys stressed how they'd grown up and wanted to be taken more seriously as artists. I couldn't help but think that a positive step in that direction might have been to drop the MICK-Y – DAV-Y – TOM-MY and BOB-BY from their stage persona!!!
DIDJAKNOW?-1: Prior to hitting the road as DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART, TOMMY and BOBBY were performing in Las Vegas as ZSA ZSA GABOR's opening act!!! (I cannot help but wonder how much persuading was necessary to get them to drop THAT gig!!!)
BOBBY HART: The Boyce & Hart Show starring Zsa Zsa Gabor in the main showroom of the Flamingo was the last time Boyce & Hart worked together (January 1970) before reuniting briefly for DJBH in 1975.
***
Part of their stage act (recorded as a live album in Japan the following year) was to perform a medley of hits written by TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART for OTHER artists ... in fact, it included many of the songs that we've featured previously in our B&H tribute. Unfortunately, the live version committed to tape is one of their WORST performances ... we saw the band perform this tune MUCH better at the concerts we attended ... but it's all we have to remember this show by. THE BOYCE AND HART HITS MEDLEY features their versions of COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER, PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES, HURT SO BAD, PEACHES AND CREAM, SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH ME and KEEP ON SINGING.
The DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART Album also featured their studio version of the DION hit A TEENAGER IN LOVE, a GREAT take on an old '60's classic. The LP also included a pretty new ballad called I LOVE YOU (AND I'M GLAD THAT I SAID IT) featuring BOBBY HART on lead vocals and some other new compositions by BOYCE AND HART (RIGHT NOW, YOU DIDN'T FEEL THAT WAY LAST NIGHT and SWEET HEART ATTACK), DOLENZ AND JONES (YOU AND I, later re-recorded by THE MONKEES on their full-band reunion LP JUSTUS, and SAVIN' MY LOVE FOR YOU) and even a DOLENZ AND BOYCE composition called IT ALWAYS HURTS THE MOST IN THE MORNING.
The band also recorded a song called SAIL ON SAILOR (NOT THE BEACH BOYS' tune ... who would have the nerve to write a song called SAIL ON SAILOR after THE BEACH BOYS claimed that title?!?!? Hey, why not ... MARKY MARK cut a tune called GOOD VIBRATIONS!!!)
If you have a chance to pick up this album, I highly reccommend it ... it's a shame that the promotion fell through right after its release ... there's really no way of knowing just what kind of comeback this LP may have initiated!
DIDJAKNOW-2?: The musical director and guitar player for all of the DJBH tours was sometime RAIDER / WHERE THE ACTION IS-regular KEITH ALLISON. In fact, as part of the BOYCE & HART hit machine, he often performed the ACTION theme live in concert! (And all this time you thought the only thing he could do was look like PAUL McCARTNEY!!!)
DIDJAKNOW-3?: THE MONKEES / BOYCE AND HART connection doesn't REALLY stop with the DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART project ... YEARS later, when ARISTA RECORDS put out an album of THE MONKEES' GREATEST HITS (THEN AND NOW) and MICKY DOLENZ and PETER TORK got together to record three new tracks for the LP, one of those tracks was the BOBBY HART composition ANYTIME, ANYPLACE, ANYWHERE. (We already told you earlier in this series about their recording of the PAUL REVERE AND THE RAIDERS' tune KICKS ... the third track was their big, comeback single called THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW, which put THE MONKEES back on the pop charts for the first time in nearly 20 years!)
POWERS loved the idea of a "how-to" book on songwriting and agreed to publish the book ... as long as it really worked! To test it, he asked TOMMY if he could show HIM how to write a hit song!
Incredibly, the songwriting team of TOMMY BOYCE and MELVIN POWERS began to crank out the tunes ... and soon, they were placing the results of their efforts with country artists!
CONNIE CATO (who had hit the Country Top 20 previously with her version of the old TIMI YURO hit HURT) would soon hit Billboard's Country Chart with the BOYCE and POWERS composition WHO WANTS A SLIGHTLY USED WOMAN, which went to #53. SUNDAY SHARPE would hit #47 with their tune MR. SONGWRITER and another BOYCE / POWERS tune called WILLIE BURGUNDY (first recorded by '50's pop star TERESA BREWER) would go on to inspire a group to call themselves THE WILLIE BURGUNDY FIVE, who then recorded yet ANOTHER BOYCE / POWERS song called WILLIE's GIRL. The new songwriting team next placed another new song called SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS with a group called THE BOYS IN THE BUNKHOUSE ... and, most amazingly, ALL of these hits came within a year of their original publishing discussion and all from a guy (MELVIN POWERS) who had never written ... or even thought about writing ... a song prior to hooking up with TOMMY BOYCE!!!
So while TOMMY BOYCE couldn't seem to score a hit under his own name (or the names of DAVID TUCKER, CHRISTOPHER CLOUD or TOMMY FORTUNE either for that matter ... all various guises he used in the early '70's in his attempts to re-launch his solo recording career without any ties to his MONKEES connection), he soon was hitting the country charts with some regularity by way of his book publisher (and new songwriting partner) MELVIN POWERS!
OVER THE OCEAN AND UNDER THE MOON OF LOVE:
In 1976, the British Pop Group SHOWADDYWADDY went all the way to #1 with a tune called UNDER THE MOON OF LOVE ... a track written years earlier by a young TOMMY BOYCE. (Despite never scoring a hit here in The United States, SHOWADDYWADDY had 15 Top 20 Hits in the UK ... and I'd never even HEARD of them before doing the research for this BOYCE AND HART article a few years back!!!)
After DOLENZ, JONES, BOYCE AND HART split up, TOMMY moved to England for a while and started working under the name of TOMMY FORTUNE. While playing in a small coffee house one night, barely making a living, somebody in the audience recognized him and said, "What are you doing here? Don't you know that you've got a Top Ten Record right now?!?!?" BOYCE immediately went to the RONDOR MUSIC PUBLISHING COMPANY and scored a songwriting deal ... but decided to keep the alias TOMMY FORTUNE. Ironically, SHOWADDYWADDY would hit The British Top Five a couple of years later with a remake of BOYCE's tune PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES.
Once, late in 1969, BOYCE approached BOBBY and said "We can still work together, but you'll just be like a sideman ... I'll make all the decisions ... you'll be an employee" to which HART replied, (in his BEST HOME IMPROVEMENT voice, I’m sure!!!) "I don't think so, Tom." Shortly thereafter, HART teamed with DANNY JANSSEN, who had already scored hits with BOBBY SHERMAN and THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY. In the early '70's, they wrote songs together (along with a guy named AUSTIN ROBERTS …now a member of our FORGOTTEN HITS mailing list) for the animated children's television series JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS and SCOOBY DOO. Then, in 1972, they scored a Top Ten Hit with ROBERTS called SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH ME. (We've previously featured this tune in FORGOTTEN HITS and recently featured the VERY FORGOTTEN HIT "THE MORNING OF OUR LIVES" by ARKADE, a West Coast band of which AUSTIN was briefly a member ... SOMETHING’S WRONG WITH ME … one of my ‘70’s favorites … is back again today as part of this special BOYCE AND HART feature ... and we're happy to announce an upcoming FORGOTTEN HITS with AUSTIN ROBERTS, too!!!)
A follow-up single, KEEP ON SINGING, was working its way up the charts when it caught the ear of HELEN REDDY, who quickly cut her own version of the tune. HELEN's version went all the way to #10, while the AUSTIN ROBERTS take stopped at #39. BOBBY HART had proven that he could still write Top Ten Hit material, scoring TWO Top Ten Hits in 18 months!
THE HIT LIST: In the early '70's, BOBBY HART composed music for the long-running cartoon series SCOOBY DOO and JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS. (Ironically, after being fired by THE MONKEES, DON KIRSHNER's next big bubblegum venture was THE ARCHIES ... who took a song that THE MONKEES reportedly had rejected ... SUGAR, SUGAR ... to the top of the pop charts. It went on to become the biggest selling single of 1969. There was some discussion at the time that KIRSHNER played it safe by still being in control of picking the hits ... while NOT having to worry about any of his cartoon character clients fighting back!!!) We recently interviewed RON DANTE, the voice of THE ARCHIES, who told us that he doubted that SUGAR, SUGAR was ever “officially” offered to THE MONKEES. DANTE also shocked us when he told us that HE had originally auditioned for one of the leads on THE MONKEES … but lost the role to DAVY JONES!!!
DIDJAKNOW?: As late as 1987, BOBBY HART was still writing Top 20 songs ... ROBBIE NEVIL took his tune DOMINOES all the way to #13 that year. (We've got THAT one here today, too, thanks again to THEONEBUFF!) In fact, in the 1980's BOBBY HART's songs were also recorded by NEW EDITION and LATOYA JACKSON.
However, BOBBY HART says there was more to the story.
In our original research for this series, we found one website that explained the circumstances of TOMMY's death (and state of mind) this way:
Tommy and his wife were living in apartment 202, and on the morning of the 23rd, he dressed himself in shoes, socks, jeans, and a Days of Our Lives T-shirt, and a smoking jacket. At 8:30am, his stereo woke his wife Caroline, and she asked him to turn it down. He did, and she went back to sleep. She woke up a little over two hours later and found him dead on the couch. He had put a gun up to the right side of his head and pulled the trigger. She never heard the gun go off, nor did any of the neighbors. Caroline flipped (understandably) and ran next door to call the police.
The weird part was that Tommy left TWO suicide notes indicating his desire to "go and be with" his dead mother and Del Shannon and Elvis Presley.
We lost a very talented songwriter the day that TOMMY BOYCE died. Fortunately, his music will live on for many more lifetimes.
BOBBY HART: An aneurysm in Tommy’s brain burst on Christmas eve in 1993. After hours of surgery, he struggled for months to recover. His wife, Caroline, gave up her thriving Montesory School to nurse him back to health, but Tommy could never regain his full energy. His doctors had told him it was only a matter of time before he would have another episode and that next time he might not be so lucky. His wish to never be a burden on his family and his dissatisfaction with his decelerated quality of life, I believe, weighed on his mind and prompted his decision to take matters into his own hands.
Another track from that debut album that some may right off as pop dribble is GONNA BUY ME A DOG .... I, on the other hand, happen to think that it's a GREAT little piece of fun-filled recording featuring a WHOLE lot of ad-libbing by MONKEES' vocalists MICKY DOLENZ and DAVY JONES. (It was because of this kind of cutting up in the studio, wasting valuable and expensive recording time, that virtually all of THE MONKEES' vocals were recorded separately ... it seemed that whenever you got two or more of them together at the same time, they were apt to wig out like this!!!) While I'll be the first to admit that it's not one of their greatest songs, GONNA BUY ME A DOG is certainly one of the cutest songs that BOYCE AND HART ever wrote ... and a WHOLE lotta fun!!! (Seriously ... with all the improvised nonsense going on during this record, shouldn't DOLENZ and JONES have been given co-writing credit for this one?!?!?)
DIDJAKNOW?: In THE MONKEES' television episode built around the song GONNA BUY ME A DOG, the song was presented as a MICHAEL NESMITH composition that some shady publisher stole from him, conning MIKE into paying all sorts of up-front fees to get his song presented to a famous actress ... until the fabulous MONKEEMEN convinced the publisher to buy the song back to use in a movie.
ONE MORE BOYCE & HART BONUS TRACK THAT WE HAPPENED TO COME ACROSS: A couple of years back when we did our MONTH OF SUNDAYS feature, somebody on the list sent in the track SUNDAY, THE DAY BEFORE MONDAY as a track we had overlooked. As it turns out, this track was actually released as a SOLO TOMMY BOYCE single on A&M Records back in 1966, prior to any of the "official" BOYCE AND HART releases. It is believed, however, that despite only BOYCE's name appearing on the label, BOBBY HART also appears (uncredited) on the record but, since BOYCE had some prior chart success as a solo artist, A&M decided to release the record as his own "solo" single. The song WAS written by both TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART ... so we asked BOBBY HART about it.
BOBBY HART: Both Tommy and I had myriad solo record deals throughout our respective careers before teaming up for A & M. In the two or three years after we relocated to L. A. and joined Screen Gems, and before we signed with A & M, Tommy recorded for MGM, A & M and at least one other label.
First up, TEAR DROP CITY, a song once believed to have been considered as THE MONKEES' first single. (While it has been reported for quite some time that TEAR DROP CITY was at one time considered for release as THE MONKEES' first single, there has SINCE been some difference of opinion as to just when this track was actually written and recorded. Based on its similarity to THE MONKEES' first REAL single, LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE, I've even seen documented speculation that TEAR DROP CITY was written and recorded first and then REWORKED into LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE, only to be resurrected later on in an effort to get THE MONKEES back to their "old" sound. During the context of OUR recent interview, BOBBY HART remembered it THIS way):
BOBBY HART: Teardrop City was written sometime after and was not an option for the first single. I'm not sure where that story came from.
But studio records show the song was recorded in October of 1966 ... not in time to be THE MONKEES' first single perhaps ... their TV Series debuted the month before ... but certainly EARLIER than HART remembers it. In ANY event, LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE instead holds that honor, and it quickly shot straight up to #1 on all the pop charts.
If not a clone, then TEAR DROP CITY was certainly a "very close relative" with its nearly identical guitar-riff opening. (You may remember that earlier in this series BOBBY HART told us that it was VERY important to have a catchy, memorable guitar riff open this song, patterning the idea after the success of BEATLES' hits like PAPERBACK WRITER and DAY TRIPPER.) Well, apparently rather than have to write TWO great guitar riffs, it looks like he wrote one and then simply modified it for this tune!!!
After it was recorded in October of 1966, TEAR DROP CITY was put on the shelf. (Perhaps the "Powers That Be" felt that it sounded just a little bit TOO much like their monster hit first single!!!) THE MONKEES DID eventually release this tune ... but not until 1969 when TEAR DROP CITY peaked at #37 on the Cash Box Chart. (It was, for all intents and purposes, the same track they had recorded back in 1966 and, in fact, it features both TOMMY BOYCE AND BOBBY HART on background vocals!) Just prior to this release, THE MONKEES' previous single, THE PORPOISE SONG (from their film HEAD), became their first record NOT to hit The Top 40 and so the decision was made to release something that would return them to their original-sounding "hit" pop roots. Of course, by then it was already too late. The television series had already been cancelled, PETER TORK had left the band ... and it would be nearly 20 years before THE MONKEES became hot again, thanks in no small part to M-TV reviving their old television series. TEAR DROP CITY may not be a great track but but it should be noted if only for its historical purposes.
(NOTE: In the brand new liner notes for THE MONKEES' CD INSTANT REPLAY, TOMMY BOYCE is quoted as follows: "I always thought that should have been more popular than it was, but the group was split up by then. We wrote that one day in a park. We were walking down Lankershim Boulevard and we just sat down on a bench with the guitar and started playing the riff. At that particular time, I recall explicitly that Bobby was having trouble with his girlfriend, Francine ... a few tears here and there. We decided to write that about Bobby and Francine.")
"We were standing outside Ciro's on the strip one night," TOMMY BOYCE remembered, "just standing, looking around and Bob Rafelson walked by. He said, 'I've always wanted to write a song and I've got this idea about somebody answering an ad in the newspaper.' We said, 'Great, Bob, unbelievable! We'll write a song and give you half the credit.'" BOYCE says RAFELSON made $2500 on the publishing but Screen Gems wouldn't let him keep the money for some reason. (Perhaps a conflict of interests regarding his status with the TV series???) They took his name off the credits on THE MONKEES' version. BOYCE AND HART released their own version of the track as the B-Side to their 1968 Top 20 Smash, ALICE LONG ... in fact, TOMMY and BOBBY’s version was recently nominated as one of your FAVORITE, FORGOTTEN B-SIDES and earned 66 of your votes in that competition. (By the way, you can find the COMPLETE List of YOUR TOP 200 FAVORITE, FORGOTTEN B-SIDES elsewhere on The FORGOTTEN HITS Website!!!)
Our last song I'd like to talk about in this special B&H feature is MR. WEBSTER, recorded by THE MONKEES for their 1967 HEADQUARTERS album ... the first album on which they played all their own instruments. It is one of the darkest tunes THE MONKEES ever recorded. (Give a listen to these lyrics ... they're awesome ... this just may be some of BOYCE AND HART's BEST work as well as their LEAST known and appreciated!)
THE MONKEES first attempted to record this song for their second album (MORE OF THE MONKEES) but didn't like the original BOYCE AND HART arrangement. They resurrected the tune and then cut it with their own haunting arrangement featuring PETER TORK on piano, MIKE NESMITH on pedal steel guitar and DAVY JONES on tambourine. (Next to little TRACY of THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, DAVY JONES just may be the most famous tambourine player there ever was!!!) This is a GREAT, under-appreciated track ... and it concludes our very special BOYCE AND HART feature in FORGOTTEN HITS.
Mr. Webster Lyrics:
(by Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart)
Everyone in town knew Mr. Webster,
He worked at the bank for forty years,
And each week Mr. Frisby made his check out
For sixty-eight dollars clear.
And through the years he thwarted twenty-seven robberies,
And each time Frisby promised him a raise.
They gave a retirement party for Mr. Webster,
And everyone from the bank was there,
They had a cake and flowers ordered special,
And Frisby had a speech prepared.
And a little white box that held a watch with this inscription:
"To Mr. Webster, With Regards".
Said, "Sorry, STOP, Cannot attend,
I've flown away and taken all your money,
Wish you were here to help me spend."
And one by one all the people left the party,
And Mr. Frisby locked the door.
This is from 2004. FH Reader DJ Dave O'Gara who lives in Worcester can probably tell us how this show was received.
David Lewis
http://www.kkproductionsworcester.org/\shows\WOMAGArticle.pdf
Interesting article! I actually did one better than that ... rather than contact DAVE O'GARA ... (no offense DAVE!!! lol) ... I talked with KEVIN BALDWIN himself, the guy who put this whole musical thing together ... asked him to bring us up to date regarding his efforts and let us know where things currently stood ... and then asked him to check out our BOYCE AND HART Series on the new FORGOTTEN HITS Blog Page!!! Here's what I got back:
Hi, Kent.
Thanks for contacting me. I've been reading some of your entries with Bobby. He's a great guy. Here's my involvement with Caroline Boyce and Bobby Hart and you can decide if you can use any of this for a future blog.
I had contacted Caroline Boyce back in 2003 about possibly doing a show which would include some of Tommy and Bobby's songs and briefly tell about their career as a songwriting team. Of course, Caroline was hesitant about such a project, fearing any writer would try to exploit Tommy's suicide. I assured her this was not the case. My intention was to focus on their time as a team from the moment Tommy and Bobby met to their stint as DJB&H.
Caroline thought it was a great concept, so she hooked me up on a conference call with Bobby Hart. Together, the three of us formulated an overall concept. I wrote a preliminary draft of the script which I sent them. I tried to give the musical a contemporary edge, but the first draft had the two of them thinking the project should be more "family friendly". So, the three of us would confer several times on the phone over the course of the next year and hash out what would ultimately become the script for "Sunshine Pop - Tales of the Boyce & hart Music Machine". Bobby's input was great and Caroline also hooked me up on a conference call with former-Raiders Keith Allison who provided some great stories about Tommy's early days. We spoke for hours. It was great. We included over 25 B&H tunes in "Sunshine Pop", weaving between hits for Monkees, B&H and other artists, some non-hits and some solo music to view how different the B&H writing / performing styles were. Bobby had a strong R&B influence while Tommy had more of a pop sound. When combined, THIS is what produced the magic of their music. Since the book for this musical was finalized in 2004, Caroline has been researching the licensing of all the songs (which is a lengthy process) and also submitted the script to the William Morris Agency. So far, no word from them. Eventually, we will also require an arranger to help with the final musical construction of the book to make sure there's a central musical theme to the show and to maintain a flow going from song to scene, scene to song. In the interim, Bobby, Caroline and myself have been involved in other projects, especially Bobby who is still quite in demand for interviews. A PBS-style documentary / retrospective / tribute has also been kicked around. I am a playwright and have many projects going, including a second B&H musical entitled "Hot Rod Hot Dogs" which included about a dozen songs written by Tommy and Bobby's early solo days. Here's how this came about:
During my extensive research period trying to develop the book for "Sunshine Pop", I unearthed many early solo tunes by Tommy and Bobby. I started to put them onto a CD and as I was doing so, I could see the potential for a story arc. So, with the help of a musician, Jim Perry, who transcribed the music for the tunes, I constructed the full story for "Hot Rod Hot Dogs" based on the B&H tunes, with the full blessing of Caroline and Bobby. The show was again a fun, family friendly musical set in the fifties with hot rods, cheerleaders, greasers, bobbysoxers and more. For more info and music clips, which you can download and use, visit www.hotrodhotdogs.com
"Hot Rod Hot Dogs" was presented for one weekend in 2004 to packed audiences in the city of Worcester, MA. I sent DVDs of the show to Caroline and Bobby. Clips from the show are available on YouTube. In addition, I manage the official websites for Tommy and Bobby as individual artists as there is already a boyceandhart.com along with Caroline's MySpace page which I think are fabulous and fully support. I also started a yahoo group for B&H. I also support Caroline's efforts to get B&H inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriting Hall of Fame, where they absolutely belong. No question. Above all, I want to emphasize how wonderful these two people are. Bobby and Caroline are always accessible to B & H / Monkees fans and just as nice as one could expect them to be. Every year I get an Easter and Christmas card from Caroline and she always keeps me up to date on things going on in her life, which I appreciate.
Finally, thanks to YOU, Kent, for doing these features. I hope you can use this.
Take care,
Kevin T. Baldwin
www.tommyboyce.com
www.bobbyhart.net
www.sunshinepop.com
www.hotrodhotdogs.com
Sounds VERY cool, KEVIN! (Any chance WE can get a copy of the DVD, too?!?!?) Please keep us posted regarding any new developments so that we can pass the info along to our FORGOTTEN HITS Readers!!!
and then ...
BE SURE TO CHECK IT OUT !!!
