Monkees lose another member; Peter Tork dies
LOS ANGELES — Peter Tork, a singer-songwriter and instrumentalist whose musical skills were often overshadowed by his role as the goofy, lovable bass guitarist in the made-for-TV rock band The Monkees, has died at 77.
Tork’s son Ivan Iannoli said his father died Thursday at the family home in Connecticut of cancer.
Tork had studied music since childhood. He was accomplished on guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, banjo and other instruments, and Michael Nesmith, the Monkees’ lead guitarist, said Tork was actually the better of the two.
When “The Monkees” debuted in 1966, Tork and fellow Monkees Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones became teen idols.
In the Monkees iteration, Nesmith was the serious one, Jones the cute one and Dolenz was zany.
Tork said he adopted his “dummy” persona from the way he’d get audiences to engage with him at Greenwich Village folk clubs in the early 1960s.
During its two-year run “The Monkees” would win an Emmy for outstanding comedy series and the group would land seven songs in Billboard’s Top 10. “I’m a Believer,” “Daydream Believer” and “Last Train to Clarksville,” would reach No. 1. Dolenz and Nesmith are still alive. Jones died in 2012.
