#Beachwood Confidential Newsletter

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Peter Tork and J&R Music World staff, 1995.

“The J&R Music World staff rallied around Peter Tork as the former Monkee visited the lower Manhattan superstore to promote his new album, ‘Stranger Things Have Happened’ on Beachwood Records. Shown, from left, are Loren Polans, J&R manager; Jim Drzik, J&R assistant manager, pop store; Jay Rosen, J&R assistant manager, pop store; Doug Diaz, J&R head music boyer; Rich Kueton, J&R indie buyer; Charlie Bagarozza, J&R store manager; Mary Jane Glaser, J&R video buyer; Tork; Sue Vovsi, J&R GM; Baby Rupnarain, J&R marketing; and Burt Goldstein, president of Big Daddy, which distributes the Tork album.” - Billboard, July 22, 1995

A fan shared a photo from this event on Twitter, here.

"[W]e would hang out, and I said, ‘Peter, I noticed that all the other Monkees have solo albums. Why don’t you have a solo album?’ And he said, ‘Well, I just never got around to it.’ I said, ‘Well, you know, I have a label, I have national distribution, and I have a studio.’ I said, ‘Why don’t we make a record and we’ll try, you know, we’ll shop it to the majors and if nobody picks it up, we can still put it out on my label. So there’s no doubt about it, we’re making a record that’s coming out.’ And he said, ‘Okay.’ So we worked on it about four months, and at the end of the four months, he said, ‘You know what, James? I don’t want to shop it. I want it on your label.’" - James Lee Stanley, Tales of the Road Warriors, March 2019 (x)

"‘I want some ambiguity — not straight moon-June-spoon-lovey-dovey,’ Tork says of his music." - Chicago Tribune, January 19, 1996 (x)

Q: “Why, after all this time, do we finally have the first Peter Tork CD?” Peter Tork: “I don’t know. Shouldn’t I have ever put one out? Oh, you mean why did it take me so long? I don’t exactly know… I needed James and he couldn’t help as long as I lived in the San Francisco Bay area. That’s one thing. I suppose, too, that until recently, I wasn’t equipped psychologically.” - Beachwood Confidential Newsletter, 1995 (x)

“My personal thanks to James, I have my first album, after all these many moons. How far freakin’ out, man. I waited a long time to work with him again. Thanks beyond words, buddy. Thanks, too, to those who stuck by me. Love to all, Peter” - Stranger Things Have Happened 1994 liner notes (x)

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Clips from 1997 and 2006.

Q: “Why did you get into the music business?” Peter Tork: “Approval. Respect. Love. Girls.” - Beachwood Confidential, 1995 (x)

* * *

"What I was working towards was to be in a group. When the Beatles hit, where were all the folkies going to go? But I also wanted to be a folk music performer. A lot of what I did was hanging out, feeling for the first time that I was part of the scene, walking down the street and seeing people I knew, doing a little flirting." - Peter Tork, Bringing It All Back Home: 25 Years of American Music at Folk City (1986) (x)

* * *

"Dear Peter, I hope this doesn’t sound stupid. It’s something I’ve always wanted to know. Why do rock stars get all the women? I figured you would know. Even my sister likes you a lot and she doesn’t really like anyone very much. She says hi, btw. I was thinking of becoming an architect but that doesn’t seem to get the girls excited. Should I learn to play guitar? Thanks bro,  Jon L."

"Dear Jon, Thanks for asking. I’ve never wondered the same thing; I’ve been too busy trying to get the women by being a pop star so I’ve never had time to stop and tell on the roses, as it were. But since it all came up lo, these many years ago, I’ve actually given the matter some thought. Here’s some of what I’ve come up with: For one thing, those of us who got into show business did so IN ORDER to get attention. This is sometimes an outgrowth of a conviction in childhood that people didn’t much care about us, or even notice us. We determined that if we could get the millions (or, say, dozens) to love us, then it wouldn’t matter that we weren’t much regarded on an individual basis in our youth. For some of us, it worked. Unfortunately, it has its drawbacks. You don’t get to know these ahead of time, so I’m going to tell you. One of them is, that the girls we do get mostly want us for the show we put on. By that, I don’t mean only the stuff that goes on onstage, but the way we present ourselves when we meet someone. I have a ready stock of funny stories and sly ways to hook a girl in, but in the end, that’s what she goes for, and when it comes time for me to be myself, she’s always kind of shocked. […] Check it out: architecture is a deeply satisfying career and you’re going to find a relationship that suits you if you’ll only let it happen and what you do for a living will be only one measure of your true value in the eyes of a worthy, intelligent, supportive woman. Good luck, Peter” - Ask Peter Tork, The Daily Panic, 2008 (x)

* * *

"In spite of all his clowning, Peter was a rather serious chap. […] Peter was a loud, powerful singer (I used to call him a romp’em, stomp’em type of singer), while I was a soft ballad singer. He had enormous stage presence and I had very little. He played the banjo, I played the guitar. […] He was restless and intense, while I was calm. He loved to be with a lot of people all of the time, whereas I liked to be completely alone some of the time. And last, but not least, Peter Tork had quite a way with the girls." - Bruce Farwell, 16’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967) (x)

* * *

“Next to his music, girls interested Peter Tork more than anything else in the whole wide world. He loved them all — and most of them loved him. Peter wasn’t tall, dark or handsome, but he made up for his liabilities with his great warmth, enthusiasm and sense of humor. He was also basically a very kind and giving person. He just had a way of making people happy even when he was broke, freezing cold and there were no prospects for work in the future. That Pied Piper-ish quality Peter had attracted girls of all shapes and sizes. He had many brief romances and a couple of very serious ones, and even today Peter is still good friends with almost every girl he knew, dated, or fell in love with during his Greenwich Village days.” - Lance Wakely, 16, March 1967

* * *

“Peter was great for the chicks of the village… they queued up to see him and talk to him. But eventually he had an offer to join the Phoenix Singers, who were short of a guy to play banjo AND guitar. And if you still have any doubts about whether he really does play, and play well, then the thing to do is ask the management behind the Phoenix Singers. Even without the Monkees, there is little doubt that the amiable Peter would have mae the grade in the music business. When, eventually, Peter went to the West Coast, to California, he wasn’t kept waiting long for fame. Within two months he was auditioned and accepted for the Monkees. Behind him was a mass of previous girlfriends but, unlike many blokes, Peter has the knack of staying on very friendly terms with girls even after he’s stopped going out with them.” - Record Mirror, February 25, 1967

* * *

“...Inside his dressing room, he towels the sweat from [his] head, takes out a guitar, pulls up a chair and starts singing ME a song. [...] He DIPS me, yes, like a dance dip, asks me permission and then kisses ME chastely on my cheek!... [...] Months later, when I returned back to earth, I received a three page letter from Peter Tork (remember, he asked me for my address before the dip) which was just beautiful, poetry mixed with kindness, which is how I choose to this day to describe him as a human.”:

“I heard this on the radio!

‘TODAY at 4pm, THE MONKEES will be appearing at RECORD WORLD!’

I looked at a map to see where Record World was located (yes, I had a map in my glove compartment) and plotted and within seconds, turned the car in the opposite direction of Georgetown and hightailed to some mall in Virginia. The line to meet the Monkees was surprisingly huge. It wrapped all the way around the mall twice. Anxious to make it back to campus for the first night of my senior year, which we all know is the BEST night of the year, I became anxious the line was too long and The Monkees would leave before they got to me. I needed to come up with a plan, stepping off the line, I found myself moments later in Sharper Image, purchasing a small tape recorder.

With tape recorder in hand, I marched myself up to the security guard outside the RECORD WORLD where all four of the Monkees were signing records.

‘I’m here from the Georgetown University newspaper, The Hoya. I wasn’t even sure if that was the title of our school newspaper…a lucky guess.

‘I’m hoping to get a quick interview with the guys.’

‘Sure, right this way.’

WOW!  That was easy.

They let me cut the line and stand RIGHT behind the Monkees while they continued to sign records. Me looking out at a sea of other Monkee lunatics, just like me!

OMG!!!  I had NO questions, I had no way of handling being this close to the four guys that I spent my entire pubescent life fantasizing about marrying, dancing or at least camping!

‘Hello.’ Micky Dolenz says to me!!! and I go numb. I got nothing.  

I look over to Peter Tork, who asks me my name and when I say Mary, Davy Jones chimes in and says, ‘Ah, Mary Mary.’


WHAT!!!!????  Smelling salts please?? (Actually, true story, Lara did really pass out once when she met Davy Jones at a book signing!)

I stumbled my way through the interview, holding up the tiny tape recorder every time I asked a question. Thankfully they never caught on that the tape recorder didn’t even have batteries in it or that I had not actually pushed any of the buttons to start or stop recording. I just moved it from my mouth to their face, like a child playing make-believe.

I kindly say thank you and tear up. The security guard ushers me away from the table but right before I was about to steal a tuft of [Micky]’s hair, Peter Tork looks at me and said, ‘write your phone number down here.’

In a Monkees haze, I write it and then, I’m quickly whisked away by security.

I cried the entire 3-hour car ride back to DC, happy tears, and this was before cell phones, so I had no one to call and scream the news. Just me, alone, reliving how I had just pulled off a Monkees miracle.

When I arrived back to my senior year house, all my pals were wondering why I was so late and informed me I had thirty minutes to get dressed because we were all heading out for the BIG first night back at school. The night you waited all summer long for, so you could show off how great you looked to your biggest crush.

I threw down my bag, jumped in the shower and was interupted by my roommate telling me that I had a phone call.

Wet from the shower, I grabbed the call.

‘Hi.  This is the Monkees Tour Manager.  Peter Tork asked me to leave two tickets for you at the Will Call for tonight’s show.  It starts at 8pm.’

I looked at the clock…it was 6pm….the concert was two hours away, back to where I had just left the scene of my delicious deception.

I HAD TO GO!

I started down my list of roommates to come with me, one at a time, rejection, followed with ‘YOU’RE NUTS!!’

Finally, I bribed my most beautiful and most fun pal Emily to join me. I think the bribe was, I’ll pay all your bar tabs the entire first semester if you drive to Virginia with me.  If you saw how we drank back then, this was a generous offer.

She agreed to join me, but made me promise we could be back by midnight as to not miss out on the first night back to school.

‘Done!’

And there we were, back in my car, heading two hours south, right back to where I just come from.

We arrived at the concert hall and Emily (my personal timekeeper) reminded me. ‘You have two hours…that’s it.’

We had great seats and a bunch of songs in, a roadie came and plucked us from our seats to go backstage. WHAT!

There was an intermission or maybe it was the moment between the last song and the encore, but all I remember what that it was fast and there was a lot of scrambling.

This was the first ‘backstage’ I had ever seen.  A minute in, Peter Tork comes over to ME!?  Says, ‘I’m so glad you made it’ and invites ME!? into his dressing room.

I look at Emily, who somehow understands just how big a deal this was to me and grants me, sternly, ‘10 minutes!!’

Inside his dressing room, he towels the sweat from [his] head, takes out a guitar, pulls up a chair and starts singing ME a song.  

The 13-year old girl in me dreamt about this moment for years and now it was right in front of me. My very own little concert with Peter.

‘2 minutes!’ An announcement comes up on a loud speaker, but the perfect amount of time for him to put down his guitar, change his shirt, tell me that I was a very special person (something about my aura), asks me to write down my address in a small book AND then………

He DIPS me, yes, like a dance dip, asks me permission and then kisses ME chastely on my cheek!

The door opens, Emily is now [tapping] her feet and thwarting off flirtatious talk by Davy Jones (with something I remember as subtle as ‘FUCK OFF!’)

‘You’re done!’ She tells me sternly.

I was, forever.  Forever change, just like Marcia Brady was when Davy Jones kissed her on her cheek.

The whole ride home we laughed at the idea that we were ‘groupies’ and I tried to downplay to her how UNBELIEVABLE and SUREAL the whole moment was. Like I had manifested a dream.

Later that night, back with other people my own age, back to what we all deemed very important…shots and dancing, I was still reliving every moment of what happened that magical day, wishing I had a phone to call Lara (she’d never believe it) or that that there was a special Monkees hotline that I could call to discuss ‘my feelings.’

‘What is that!?’ My friend Chudney asked me mid dance to Franki Valli’s Oh What A Night, pointing to a small foam ball peeking perfectly outside the middle of my bra. I looked down, reached in and just started laughing.

Peter’s microphone fob (or whatever the furry thing is at the tip of the microphone) must have fallen into my shirt during our torrid dip.

This was sure to go into the Smithsonian of my life.  

Months later, when I returned back to earth, I received a three page letter from Peter Tork (remember, he asked me for my address before the dip) which was just beautiful, poetry mixed with kindness, which is how I choose to this day to describe him as a human.

Yes I was 22 and he was 52, yes this moment would be fully frowned upon today, but it was my moment, willingly and open heartedly.  I willed myself backstage and into that dressing room and I’m grateful for that his real sweetness and this (I’m hoping you find benign and funny) story.

Yesterday when I heard of Peter’s passing, I danced with my daughter (even dipped her a few times) and then expressed gratitude to Peter and The Monkees for keeping me innocent, for keeping me weird and for keeping me alive with possibilities of real love – the kind you get from a song, or a glance or a sweet cheek kiss.” - Mary Giuliani, thriveglobal dot com, February 2019

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Peter Tork and James Lee Stanley promoting Stranger Things Have Happened at Costa Mesa’s Tower Records on December 2, 1995. Photos by Pat Smith.

“He plays ‘em, and he sings the songs [on Stranger Things Have Happened]. Backing him on the album are Dolenz, Nesmith, ex-Eagle Timothy B. Schmit and his current music mate/opening act, acoustic guitarist and yarnspinner James Lee Stanley. ‘I want some ambiguity — not straight moon-June-spoon-lovey-dovey,’ Tork says of his music. He delivers that straightaway in the title track [listen], a world-beatish ditty that explores love through the metaphor of Mao's Long March. ‘The inference to be drawn is that once you've fallen in love, then the work begins,’ he explains. ‘Everybody wants to think you fall in love and that's it, like in movies and pop music. The truth is that's not the truth. The bloom of infatuation always wears off. Then what?’” - Chicago Tribune, January 19, 1996

“Songs on the album span from hard rock and reggae to classical. ‘The music is eclectic, very broad-based,’ Tork said. ‘Peter is a multi-faceted guy,’ [James Lee] Stanley said. ‘He is largely influenced by reggae.’” - The Defender, February 21, 1996

Q: “Why, after all this time, do we finally have the first Peter Tork CD?” Peter Tork: “I don’t know. Shouldn’t I have ever put one out? Oh, you mean why did it take me so long? I don’t exactly know… I needed James and he couldn’t help as long as I lived in the San Francisco Bay area. That’s one thing. I suppose, too, that until recently, I wasn’t equipped psychologically.” [...] Q: “How did you come to work with your producer, James Lee Stanley?” PT: “James is about my oldest friend. No, make that my friend of longest standing. I worked with him once before, in my early days, and I thought, as a result of that experience, that it would be very good for me to work with him again. Plus, he was in the neighborhood.” Q: “How did you pick the songs?” PT: “Each one differently. Some of them I’ve had on my mind to put [on] my record for a long time. Others we just sort of played and started to record.” [...] Q: “Why didn’t you put Long Title on Stranger Things Have Happened?” Peter Tork: “We tried, but it’s how these things go sometimes. We weren’t happy with the way it was turning out, so we dropped it. Maybe the next solo album.” Q: “How do you write a song. What starts you off.” PT: “Pretty women start me off, and there’s no one way to write. Sometimes someone says something that sounds interesting, and you jot it down. Sometimes you find yourself humming something that you realize you haven’t exactly heard before. The hard part is ‘asking’ for the inspiration to get the other parts, other verses, bridges, if any, etc.” - Beachwood Confidential newsletter, 1995

“‘It’s kind of middle-of-the-road, up pop,’ [Tork] says. ‘Micky and Mike Nesmith sing backup on a couple of songs. If it isn’t available in your local record store, you can get it by calling 1-800-Not-Ribs-0!’” - Los Angeles Times, November 12, 1995 (x)

“That’s another reason that we were friends for life, because I saw him shine when, you know, there were no Monkees, the Monkees idea wasn’t even on the horizon. And he was a wonderful performer and a wonderful musician, and I saw him like that. And I think the fact that he got that from me, that kind of respect all through that period, probably helped the bond as well. 
And I remember that, after The Monkees’ resurgence, I think it was about, it might have been ’90, ’91 or something, and I said, ‘Peter, why haven’t you made a record? All these guys have made solo records, and you haven’t.’ And he was so humble, he just said, ‘Well, you know, no one has asked me.’ And I said, ‘Jesus, Peter, I have a studio, I have a record label, I have distribution.’ I said, ‘Why don’t we, at some point, make you a solo record, and we’ll shop it, you know. And the worst case scenario, if literally nobody likes it but us, we can put it out on my label, which is distributed by Capitol. So we can’t lost, you know.’ And, you know, I just, I just said, ‘Let’s just do that.’ And I, I must admit that my vision of the first album, because I had seen him perform this organic acoustic music, I wanted to present him doing those, those banjo things. I wanted to make, essentially, an acoustic record, so that I could demonstrate that there was no… no phony stuff behind him, that he was the guy doing this stuff. I wanted to present that so it would shift peoples’ conception of him. Yes, he’s a Monkee, and he was famous and he was a teen idol. He was also always this musician, he played the acoustic guitar — he really played the guitar, he really played the banjo, he really played the piano. And I wanted to do that. But he said, ‘James, you know, I’m not that guy anymore. I want to do a rock ’n’ roll — I’m a rocker, I want to do a rock ’n’ roll record. And I wanna do, I like all these synths and stuff.’ So I said, ‘Okay, well, I mean, let us… let me see what I can do to help further your vision.’ One of the things I’ve always done as a producer is try to figure out what the vision of the artist was, and then serve that. And I learned that from reading about George Martin, who never discouraged The Beatles. He never said, ‘That’s a stupid idea, we can’t do that.’ He always tried to help bring to life whatever the vision was that the artist had. So that’s what I tried to do with Stranger Things Have Happened. Tried to just assist him in realizing that vision. […] [With the 7A re-release] I went back and revisited the record, and I’ll tell you the truth, I liked it a lot. I was, I was genuinely surprised by how much I liked it. I mean, it was Peter’s thing, not mine, and it sounded like a Peter record. It didn’t sound like one of my records; if you listen to my stuff, it’s much different than that. But I liked it, you know. I thought it was very inventive and very varied. [...] [As a songwriter, Peter] was always trying to do something which you hadn’t heard. Which is pretty rare, because many of the hit songs that you hear are derivative, they sound like some other hit song. Peter always wanted to write something that you hadn’t heard before. [...] I mean, his writing was interesting, you know, and fun to play. Always surprising.“ - James Lee Stanley, The Monkees Pad Show

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Peter Tork at The Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village in 1965 (photo 1) and onstage in 1967 (photos 2-4).

“I’d say, passing the ‘bread basket’ in some of those coffee houses I played in for nothing [in the early Sixties] is my outstanding Village memory.” - Peter Tork, 16 magazine, 1967

“Peter Tork of the Monkees played at the Night Owl the same winter the Lovin’ Spoonful were fired. He played guitar and banjo and did funny songs like ‘Albert [sic] the Alligator.’ His last four nights Peter sang off-key, ‘but he was such a charming performer we let him stay,’ owner Joe Mara told [Hit Parader].” - Hit Parader, April 1967

“I took music theory in college — and when I was starving in the Village, I used to transcribe arrangements for a living. That means I would take a record and play it and then put the notes down on music manuscript paper. I was a perfectionist and my music manuscripts are still the most beautiful you’ll ever see.” - Peter Tork, 16’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967)

“When I left college the second time, I went to New York — Greenwich Village — where I scrounged around trying to earn dimes and quarters to make enough to eat. Some weeks I made six or seven dollars, and I never made more than fifty. Sometimes I needed a handout from home — my father teaches at the University of Connecticut — but I got along without very much. Once I had a day job as an office boy for a music agent but got fired after a month because I couldn’t get there on time — I was burning the candle at both hands.” - Peter Tork, Seventeen, August 1967

Q: “Why did you get into the music business?” Peter Tork: “Approval. Respect. Love. Girls.” Q: “How did you get into the music business?” PT: “I was in Greenwich Village in 1963, with some college buddy of mine, listening to some folksinger, when my buddy said, ‘go back uptown and get your banjo, you can do at least as well as this character.’ So I did, and I could and I never looked back.” - Beachwood Confidential newsletter, 1995

More about Peter's Village days here.

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With George Harrison at Kinfauns, July 1967; photos from Flip magazine, plus a screenshot from George Harrison: Living In The Material World.

“[At the Speakeasy on the night of July 3, 1967] a meeting between The Beatles and The Monkees [took place]. […] By 3.0[0] a.m. George was serenading everyone with the help of his ukulele, Peter Tork was playing banjo like he had just invented it, Keith Moon was drumming on the table. Micky Dolenz was chatting quietly to Paul. Mike Nesmith and his wife had slipped quietly away and the crowd had thinned slightly. But the party still had another three hours to run!” - The Beatles Monthly, September 1967 “Peter was sitting beside George. They called me over right away. George sat on the floor to let me in. All night long we were singing and joking. George made up this crazy, mad song about Harry somebody. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a party so much.” - Lulu, Monkees Monthly, September 1967 The following day… “At George’s house, Peter and George exchanged thoughts on the sitar and got along like old friends.” - Ric Klein, Flip, November 1967 “The next day, George invited me and Bill Chadwick out to hang with him. He showed us his sitar and we talked about music — Indian and Rock.” - Peter Tork, Beachwood Confidential Newsletter, 1995 “[George] was kind enough to invite me and my pal Bill Chadwick out to his house, and to take us to visit Ringo later that day. He was as kind and as gentle a man as you could imagine.” - Peter Tork, Liverpool Echo, 28 November 2011 (x)

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Happy birthday to Ringo Starr!

“[Ringo,] whom I found to be very down to earth and calm… even wise.” - Peter, Beachwood Confidential Newsletter, 1995 “First social call was to Peter Tork’s house. When we arrived Peter was wearing a string of beads and very little else, since it was far too hot to be anywhere but a swimming pool that day. Dave Crosby (Byrds) was there, too, and we had a good get-together. […] I suppose the highlight of L.A. this time for us was the session we had at Peter Tork’s place. Peter Asher joined us there — he played bass, Peter Tork was on piano, George and Dave Crosby on guitars and Ringo drumming.” - Mal Evans, The Beatles Monthly, August 1968 “Just relaxed, just played what you could play. […] I played with Ringo Starr, Ringo, and George once, played with those guys. Same thing: bam, everything settles down, everything’s in order, everything is taken care of, and play what you can play.” - Peter, Musicgroups, 2007 Peter: “Steve [Stills] was there [too], and he was embarrassed; he shook hands with George and kind of turned his back on him, the way shy guys will do. […] We all jammed, Stephen and George and Ringo, and I was on keyboards, and I don’t remember who played bass. It was fabulous to hear Ringo play. My God, what a drummer. God, he was good. He was so solid, and the authority was astounding. I learned so much just by playing with him for five minutes; it was a wonderful experience.” Q: “It’s a bummer it didn’t get recorded.” Peter: “It is too bad, nobody thought to record it. The best we had at the time was cassettes, but even so, that would have been a wonderful jam.” - Rolling Stone, 2007 “He does his 'Ringo All-Star' show every so often and whenever it’s in the neighborhood I catch it and go backstage and say hi. We have a number of interests in common and we catch up. He’s a sweetie. He’s just a total sweetheart.” - Peter Tork, Clevescene, 2017 (x)

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A look at songwriter and composer Tork:

Q: "From what sources do you draw your songwriting inspirations?" Peter Tork: "Sometimes just a phrase or a word catches my fancy. Then I hear a musical line. I try to figure out what kinds of sounds are coming out. Basically I just go by the sound. Then I try to find words that sound like they belong there." - Blitz!, November/December 1987 Q: "How do you write a song. What starts you off." Peter Tork: "Pretty women start me off, and there’s no one way to write. Sometimes someone says something that sounds interesting, and you jot it down. Sometimes you find yourself humming something that you realize you haven’t exactly heard before. The hard part is 'asking' for the inspiration to get the other parts, other verses, bridges, if any, etc." - Beachwood Confidential Newsletter, 1995 "I’m really pleased that the stuff that I have written has been a little outside the mainstream. [...] [In 'For Pete's Sake,' one chord] is a 7-add-4, which is a highly unusual chord. It sort of fell out of my hands on the guitar. [...] I wrote a set of chords once [in college] and thought, 'Gosh, this is great.' I couldn’t think of anything to do with them. A couple years later I wrote 'Can You Dig It,' to those chords. They were… let’s see: D-minor to B-flat major 7th to an E diminished 9th chord. That’s a really interesting way to set it up to the V chord. Or to look at it another way: we’re in A — Arab scale, which is— I don’t want to get too heavy. But it’s an unusual scale in Western music, in pop music. And it worked fine for me. I was just really glad. It just fell out of my hands again. It really felt good." - Peter Tork, Shanley On Music, 2014 "I like to sit at home and play piano and write stuff. I have a blues band. This coming January, I’m going to be going down to Lexington, Kentucky. I’m going to have them play a piece I wrote for piano and orchestra. It’s fairly brief. It’s seven minutes long. They’ll be doing some pop music, it’s a pops orchestra. But I’ll have them tackle this thing I wrote." - Peter Tork, ibid "[As a songwriter, Peter] was always trying to do something which you hadn’t heard. Which is pretty rare, because many of the hit songs that you hear are derivative, they sound like some other hit song. Peter always wanted to write something that you hadn’t heard before. […] I mean, his writing was interesting, you know, and fun to play. Always surprising.“ - James Lee Stanley, The Monkees Pad Show

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Photo courtesy of Pat Smith.

Q: “Why, after all this time, do we finally have the first Peter Tork CD?” Peter Tork: “I don’t know. Shouldn’t I have ever put one out? Oh, you mean why did it take me so long? I don’t exactly know… I needed James [Lee Stanley] and he couldn’t help as long as I lived in the San Francisco Bay area. That’s one thing. I suppose, too, that until recently, I wasn’t equipped psychologically.” […] Q: “How did you come to work with your producer, James Lee Stanley?” PT: “James is about my oldest friend. No, make that my friend of longest standing. I worked with him once before, in my early days, and I thought, as a result of that experience, that it would be very good for me to work with him again. Plus, he was in the neighborhood.” Q: “How did you pick the songs?” PT: “Each one differently. Some of them I’ve had on my mind to put [on] my record for a long time. Others we just sort of played and started to record.” […] Q: “Why didn’t you put Long Title on Stranger Things Have Happened?” PT: “We tried, but it’s how these things go sometimes. We weren’t happy with the way it was turning out, so we dropped it. Maybe the next solo album.” Q: “How do you write a song. What starts you off.” PT: “Pretty women start me off, and there’s no one way to write. Sometimes someone says something that sounds interesting, and you jot it down. Sometimes you find yourself humming something that you realize you haven’t exactly heard before. The hard part is ‘asking’ for the inspiration to get the other parts, other verses, bridges, if any, etc.” - Beachwood Confidential newsletter, 1995

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Photo 1 from the Beachwood Confidential newsletter, 1995.

A look at some backing vocals on Stranger Things Have Happened... “It’s Mike and Micky you’ll hear [on backing vocals on ‘Milkshake’]. Thanks, guys, it made my day.” - Peter Tork, Stranger Things Have Happened liner notes (x) "Why didn’t Davy sing on this recording?" Peter: "We actually wanted him to, and we had him here in the studio, but he’d brought along Anita and his daughters, Sarah, Jessie, and Annabelle, and by the time we got done talking over all the family stuff, it was time for them to go, and we never got Davy back in the studio. Incidentally, Jessie played us a piece of her own composition that was seriously good work. James and I were knocked out by it. Look for great things from her. And she’s only twelve." - Beachwood Confidential newsletter, 1995 “Davy was just such a personable, funny guy, and very available, you know. I remember he came to the studio and just cracked us up. And Peter and I realized, we didn’t get him to sing! It was a funny hour.” - James Lee Stanley, The Monkees Pad Show "My first solo album [Stranger Things Have Happened], I used Cass’ daughter, Owen, and John Phillips’ daughter, Mackenzie, as background singers on a song ['Giant Step‘], and you can hear it, it sounds like the Mamas and the Papas back there. It’s fabulous.” - Peter Tork, Rolling Stone, 2007, published February 2019 "[Peter] was always so lovely and kind to me.” - Owen Elliot, comment on a post by Nurit Wilde in 2021 (x)

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"Get What You Pay For" (Tork); live on August 20, 1988. Footage via sunnygirlfriend13 on YouTube.

“A song dating back to Peter’s ‘days with the Monkees on the Columbia lot,’ according to the debut issue of the quarterly Beachwood Recordings newsletter, Beachwood Confidential.” - Stranger Things Have Happened vinyl liner notes (x)

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The Monkees (on the set of “It’s A Nice Place To Visit”) perusing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967. Photo by Bill Chadwick.

“Beatle talk! Whenever he gets the chance, Peter talks to others about the Beatles. He’s quieter off the screen than he seems on and is always very courteous to others.” - Ann Moses, Tiger Beat, January 1967

“Tork related an incident that occurred while he and the Monkees, at the peak of their popularity, were staying at a New York hotel. ‘We were hanging out in a hotel room, and looking down into the street, there was a bunch of kids down there holding a copy of The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper album and giving us the finger,’ he said. ‘Hey, we’re Beatles fans too,’ Tork remembers shouting to the group.” - The Central New Jersey Homes News, September 22, 1983

Peter Tork: “[W]hen we were touring in New York, we had a bunch of fans outside the hotel, and over in the corner were a bunch of kids holding up, a small bunch of kids, holding up Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. And we went, ‘Yeah, right, we love that stuff!’ And they went, ‘No, no, you don’t! You guys are awful!’ ‘No, no, we love The Beatles, we are Beatles fans.’ ‘No, you’re not!’” (laughter) Q: “Aw.” PT: “You know, they couldn’t let us like The Beatles because they liked The Beatles, and they didn’t like us, and like that whole thing, friends of my enemies are my enemies, and no middle ground for these people.” - GOLD 104.5, 1999

Q: “What’s the best record you ever heard? The best song? Why?” Peter Tork: “Album, Sergeant Pepper, probably. Of course, as a Beatles fan, I was ready for every new recording that they put out. Plus the buzz was (cuz) Sgt. Pepper was exceptional, even for the Fab Lads. I remember driving to David Crosby’s house — he had a copy and the great stereo, don’t cha know, and on the way I heard Fixing A Hole on the radio. Even without knowing in advance that it was Paul, I remember thinking how strong a cut it was; only to discover it wasn’t even the strongest cut on the album. Then to sit down in front of the stereo and put the album on, …well! It was one of the great experiences of art I ever hope to have. Song — Lady Madonna. It was just about the beat and the music; sort of like What A Fool Believes, where there’s just that great combination of beat, melody and instruments.” - Beachwood Confidential newsletter, 1995

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Happy birthday to James Lee Stanley!

“[I] worked in a nightclub called The Shadow. And I think it was late June [1964] that the Phoenix Singers came through, and Peter [Tork] was in the band, he was the banjo player in — behind the group… And he and I hit it off, and that Monday night, we did an impromptu show together, we just played a couple of tunes, you know, and had a good time, and stayed friends. And then when I opened a club in 1965, there was no place to play in the winter in that area — Virginia Beach, Norfolk… So I opened a club on my own with two friends, we called it The Folk Ghetto, and I contacted Peter in New York City and said, ‘I wanna hire you to come down here for a week and be the headlining act.’ Which he did. […] [H]e was fantastic. He was so good. […] Anyhow, we became friends, and we were friends ever since. [...] And I can tell you that he’s been one of my best friends for my entire life. And one of the more generous people I’ve ever known. And just to give you a window into the kind of guy he was, he would come off a Monkees tour where everything was handled, you know, they would take care of his tickets, they’d take care of his room, they’d carry his instruments, they’d carry his bags, he just had to show up at the airport and they gave him the, you know, the ace treatment. And then he comes off a tour like that and he gets in a rented Dodge with me and we drive around the country playing little rooms, which we filled to the max because it’s Peter Tork, and then he demands that, because I booked all the dates, I take a booking fee off the top. And then he demands that we split the door. He, I mean, you know, he didn’t have to do that. [...] We would hang out, and I said, ‘Peter, I noticed that all the other Monkees have solo albums. Why don’t you have a solo album?’ And he said, ‘Well, I just never got around to it.’ I said, ‘Well, you know, I have a label, I have national distribution, and I have a studio.’ I said, ‘Why don’t we make a record and we’ll try, you know, we’ll shop it to the majors and if nobody picks it up, we can still put it out on my label. So there’s no doubt about it, we’re making a record that’s coming out.’ And he said, ‘Okay.’ So we worked on it about four months, and at the end of the four months, he said, ‘You know what, James? I don’t want to shop it. I want it on your label.’ So I got to put Peter Tork on my label without, you know, paying a huge upfront thing to have a world-famous celebrity on my label. You know, he just said, ‘No, let’s do it with you, man.’ He was, he was great, he was just a great guy, you know [...] He was, he was just my best friend, you know. And a great spirit." - James Lee Stanley, Tales of the Road Warriors, March 7, 2019 (x)

“James is about my oldest friend. No, make that my friend of longest standing. I worked with him once before, in my early days, and I thought, as a result of that experience, that it would be very good for me to work with him again [on Stranger Things Have Happened].” - Peter Tork, Beachwood Confidential newsletter, 1995

“My personal thanks to James, I have my first album, after all these many moons. How far freakin’ out, man. I waited a long time to work with him again. Thanks beyond words, buddy. Thanks, too, to those who stuck by me. Love to all, Peter” - Stranger Things Have Happened 1994 liner notes

“In a nutshell, Peter and I are really good friends. Working with Peter, well, he’s like one of the best men on the planet.” - James Lee Stanley, Sacramento Bee, April 20, 1997

“James and I have a lot of fun playing as a tandem. We don’t just wail on the guitar in unison; we’re very articulate… I’ll be playing a light backbeat or playing the big bass strings while James plays filigrees. A lot is going on when we play together, and then James does his originals during his set… I love working with the Monkees, and I love working with James. I have the best of both worlds.” - Peter Tork, The Record, January 19, 2001

“Tork later confided in his brother Nick that Stanley had given him his life back. ‘I wept when I heard that,’ Stanley says.” - Stranger Things Have Happened 2020 reissue liner notes

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Bruce Farwell and Peter Tork onstage in Greenwich Village, early 1960s.

“As a matter of fact, the interesting thing is that it [Tork] came about because in my Greenwich Village days, I was wearing my father’s high school sweatshirt and it said ‘Tork’ on the back of it because it was his nickname. [Thorkelson] got shortened that way, and for a long time, I wasn’t even Peter Tork, I was just Tork. And some of my friends from back then still just call me Tork as though it were my first name, which is kind of funny.” - Peter Tork, DGB, February 12, 2006

Q: “Why did you get into the music business?” Peter Tork: “Approval. Respect. Love. Girls.” Q: “How did you get into the music business?” PT: “I was in Greewich Village in 1963, with some college buddy of mine, listening to some folksinger, when my buddy said, ‘go back uptown and get your banjo, you can do at least as well as this character.’ So I did, and I could and I never looked back.” - Beachwood Confidential newsletter, 1995

“When I left college the second time, I went to New York — Greenwich Village — where I scrounged around trying to make dimes and quarters to make enough to eat. Some weeks I made six or seven dollars, and I never made more than fifty. Sometimes I needed a handout from home — my father teaches at the University of Connecticut — but I got along without very much. Once I had a day job as an office boy for a music agent but got fired after a month because I couldn’t get there on time — I was burning the candle at both ends. I finally left the Village. There was only so much of that scene I could stand. I took off for the West Coast when a friend invited me out to stay with him. I began looking around for work as a singer. One place I walked into offered me a job as a dishwasher and I took it. I saved a hundred dollars in a month, making fifty dollars a week. I don’t need money. Money doesn’t mean anything to me. If you can’t be happy poor, you can’t be happy rich.” - Peter Tork, Seventeen, August 1967

“He was a funny kind of a guy. He ran around in an old sweat shirt with ‘TORK’ lettered on the back of it and always carried his five-string banjo á la Pete Seeger. He also had what was considered ‘lots of hair’ in those days. […] Peter had a way about it. I mean, he could soften up the toughest audience. If people didn’t like his serious songs, he would play his funny ones. If they didn’t like his funny ones, he would play romantic ones. If they didn’t like his romantic songs, he would sing his ‘provocative’ ones. Usually, the audience was pretty warmed up by then — but just in case it wasn’t, Peter would throw in a spate of funny gags, followed by a series of the most comic faces one could ever see. […] In spite of all his clowning, Peter was a rather serious chap. […] Peter was a loud, powerful singer (I used to call him a romp’em, stomp’em type of singer), while I was a soft ballad singer. He had enormous stage presence and I had very little. He played the banjo, I played the guitar. […] He was restless and intense, while I was calm. He loved to be with a lot of people all of the time, whereas I liked to be completely alone some of the time. And last, but not least, Peter Tork had quite a way with the girls. […] One night at the Why Not?, the owner came over and told us business wasn’t too good. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that if you guys can make a little more noise, we can get more people in off the streets. Why don’t you sing together — and loud?’

Peter and I went over to the corner and talked it over and came up with several tunes which we both knew. Soon, we were up on the stage singing Fennario, Dark As A Dungeon and Blowin’ In The Wind. We took turns wailing away a lead and then harmonizing together. Afterwards, Peter was exuberant. ‘Hey, I thought we were great, man!’ he exclaimed. I admitted to myself that I owed it a lot at the time, but I remembered that my main interest was to become a soulful folk singer. ‘Hey,’ Peter raved on, ‘let’s become a duet.’ Well, it took me a couple of days to make up my mind, but there wasn’t much money and when I got good and hungry I found Peter and we started rehearsing together at his apartment on Bedford Street. Overnight, we became the unfamous, unknown duo — Tork & Farwell. Where did we work? Where didn’t we work would be more like it. We worked at the Why Not?, The Basement, The Cyclops, The Third Side, The Four Winds, The Samurai, The Dragon’s Den, The Raven, The Id — and all the time we kept adding to our repertoire. […] I had moved into an apartment on Broome Street and Peter had had to give up his Bedford Street pad due to a lack of funds. So he started rooming at my place, occasionally. Let me tell you, it was really ‘enchanting.’ A five story walk-up, just off New York’s infamous Bowery. […] Things got tougher and tougher, and Peter finally had to take a job writing music arrangements, just to pay his share of the rent. One night Peter got sick and went home to Connecticut to stay for a few days. I went off to the mid-west on a gig, and when we both came home we found that our apartment had been robbed. All of my instruments were gone. Fortunately, Peter had taken his banjo and guitar with him. […] He is a great guy and he was like a brother to me. I will never forget him — intense, friendly, frank, very funny and clever with an intelligence that goes beyond book learning, and an understanding that goes beyond the surface. And as for the girls — it’s a cinch that Peter still has a way with them. He’s just doing the same thing he used to do — standing up there, making faces, grinning, jumping up and down, singing and laughing and running all about — only now he is doing it for 20 million people all over America, instead of just for a handful of tourists in Greenwich Village.” - Bruce Farwell, 16’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967)