Album Review – Michael Nesmith – Infinite Tuesday: Autobiographical Riffs
Review by Geoff Jenke
Michael Nesmith, ex Monkee and solo performer has a new book coming out called Infinite Tuesday: An Autobiographical Riff. The book traces his journey from childhood to the set of the Monkees and on to his solo career.
Before the book is released, Rhino is releasing an audio companion showcasing 14 of Nesmith’s music tracks from the Monkees (and before) through his days with The First National Band and solo releases.
The set flows mostly in chronological order, beginning with the 1965 release of The New Recruit, under the pseudonym of Michael Blessing. This was not Nesmith’s first release. That belongs to a tune called Wanderin’ released way back in 1963 but not on this album. The New Recruit, an anti war song that is surprisingly poppy and surprisingly good, failed to chart, so Nesmith went to audition for the Monkees TV show and was successful.
The Monkees are represented by two of Nesmith’s songs. Papa Gene’s Blues from The Monkees debut album and Listen to the Band, from the 1969 album The Monkees Present. It was also re-recorded for 1970 The First National Band debut album. Both songs show the strength of Nesmith’s song writing, in a world where he was forced to sing other peoples songs.
There is also a very early demo version of the song The Girl I Knew Somewhere with Nesmith on vocals. When released by The Monkees it had Micky Dolenz on vocals and is probably the better version. This song was also the first Monkees track that the band actually played their instruments on.
Unbeknown to me, Michael Nesmith wrote the song Different Drum, a huge hit for The Stone Pony’s featuring one Linda Ronstadt. This Nesmith is version is stripped back with basically just acoustic guitar and vocal. It does show Nesmith has always had more than a passing interest in country music.
From The First National Band we get the two country hits in Silver Moon and Joanne. Joanne was the only single to make top 40 for Nesmith as a solo performer.
The 1977 song Rio is probably the most commercial solo track on the album and it criminally failed to chart in the U.S. but at least was a minor hit in the U.K. and Australia.
From here it is a small collection of Michael Nesmith songs from various albums he released between 1972 and 2005.
This is not a “Best of” set but rather a selection of songs to listen to while reading his upcoming book of the same name. The album is a good start if you are looking to see what Michael Nesmith has done (with and) since the Monkees.
Available April 14th 2017.
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