CasiNotes:Beatles-inspired Monkees reunite and hit the road

For the first time in a decade, the Monkees - specifically, three-fourths thereof - are back on the road recreating the hits that, for a couple of years in the late-1960s, put them at the top of the pop music heap. While it's certainly a momentous occasion for those fans who remember the September 1966 debut of "The Monkees" on NBC-TV, the impetus behind this latest reunion is pretty mundane.

"Since the end of the show [in 1969], there never has been a Monkees office or [operation]," said lead singer/drummer Micky Dolenz in a recent phone call. "It's always the case where some manager or agent tracks us down individually and says, 'Do you wanna get back together and have a tour?' And that's how it happened."
The Monkees' story has long been part of pop culture lore. Inspired by the Beatles' 1964 flick, "A Hard Day's Night," Hollywood producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider decided to create from whole cloth a cheeky but squeaky-clean pop-rock quartet (à la the early Beatles) for a planned weekly musical sitcom.
From open casting calls, the producers culled Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davy Jones, then recruited music mogul Don Kirshner to arm the young men with hook-laden tunes written by the likes of Neil Diamond and the team of (Tommy) Boyce & (Bobby) Hart that were played in the studio by the cream of L.A. session musicians.
The strategy proved to be pure gold as the combination of the Monkees' first single, "Last Train to Clarksville," and the subsequent debut of the NBC TV series launched a show-business phenomenon that, for a couple of years, all but replaced the Liverpool Moptops in the hearts, minds and wallets of American youth.
But after two years of pretending to be musicians on TV, the band members demanded to write and play their own material. Rafelson, Schneider and Kirshner held firm, and that was that. Monkee-mania ended, and the four performers went their separate ways, reuniting (mostly without Nesmith) several times in the ensuing decades, most recently in 2001.