The first Record of the Week featuring the Pre-Fab Four, The Monkees.
During their two year assault on the record charts there was a massive demand for Monkees music. The truth is the folks at Screen Gems and the record label, Colgems, had no idea how to respond. Though the Monkees dominated record sales between 1966 and 1968 one has to wonder what could have been had the record company truly understood what they had.
"Valleri" was never intended as a single, but was literally forced on to the market by demand. Looking for additional Monkees songs to play, a DJ taped "Valleri" off of the Monkees television show and played it on the air. The response was as expected, but the song remined in the can.
You see, by this time Nesmith, Dolenz, Tork and Jones had taken control over their music. No longer were they forced to do the bidding of Don Kirshner, and with this new control, all future Monkees releases had to be under a "Produced by the Monkees" banner.
The earlier recording of "Valleri" had been produced in an earlier session by Boyce and Hart and didn't meet the new criteria.
Back to the studio.
This new recording became the Monkees sixth straight gold single, and the last top five hit for the Pre-Fab four.
I have always loved this recording with Louie Shelton's killer guitar solo and consider it a perfect pop single. It might be my favorite pop single of all time. That opinion is not shared by everyone. Michael Nesmith calls this a "terrible record" and there are rumors that during the 1996 Monkees tour of the UK he turned his back to the audience when the song was played.
The 1996 tour. Mike Nesmith faces the audience during Valleri.
Nesmith can't complain too much. After all he landed "Tapioca Tundra" on the flip side.
Here's the 1968 recording from the episode "Monkees Blow their Minds".
Here's the original Colgems single in a standard Colgems paper sleeve.
The Monkees - Valleri - Colgems Sleeve
The Monkees - Tapioca Tundra - Colgems Sleeve
The Monkees - Valleri - Vinyl 45
The Monkees - Tapioca Tundra - Vinyl 45
'til the Monkees 50th Anniversary tour
Keep the Adventure Alive,
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