More Of The Monkees CD - Import

The Monkees: Peter Tork, Michael Nesmith (vocals, guitar); Davy Jones (vocals); Mickey Dolenz (drums).
Additional personnel: James Burton, Glen Campbell, Wayne Erwin, Gerry McGee, Louie Shelton, Al Gafa, Al Casey, Michael Deasy, Don Peake (guitar); Jimmie Seals (saxophone); Neil Sedaka, Michael Cohen (piano); Bobby Hart (organ); Don Randi, Michael Rubini (harpsichord, organ); Larry Taylor, Russell Savakus, Larry Knechtel, Bob West, Carol Kaye, Ray Pohlman (bass); Hal Blaine, Billy Lewis, Herbert Lovell, Jim Gordon (drums); Norm Jeffries, Henry Lewy, Frank Capp, Julius Wechter, Gene Estes, David Walters (percussion); Tommy Boyce (background vocals).
Producers include: Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart, Michael Nesmith, Jeff Barry,
Jack Keller.
Reissue producers: Andrew Sandoval, Bill Inglot.
Recorded in Hollywood, California and New York, New York in 1966. Originally released on Colgems (102). Includes liner notes by Andrew Sandoval.
The Monkees second album More of the Monkees lived up to its title. It was more successful commercially, spending an amazing 70 weeks on the Billboard charts and ultimately becoming the 12th biggest selling album of all time. It had more producers and writers involved since big-shots like Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Jeff Barry and Neil Sedaka, as well as up-and-comers like Neil Diamond all grabbed for a piece of the pie after Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, the men who made the debut album such a smash, were elbowed out by music supervisor Don Kirshner. The album also has more fantastic songs than the debut. Tracks like "I'm a Believer," "She," "Mary, Mary," " (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone," "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)," "Your Auntie Grizelda," and "Sometime in the Morning" are on just about every Monkees hits collection and, apart from the novelty "Grizelda," they are among the best pop/rock heard in the '60s or any decade since. The band themselves still had relatively little involvement in the recording process, apart from providing the vocals along with Mike Nesmith's writing and producing of two tracks (the hair-raising rocker "Mary, Mary" and the folk-rock gem "The Kind of Girl I Could Love"). In fact, they were on tour when the album was released and had to go to the record shop and buy copies for themselves. As with the first album though, it really doesn't matter who was involved when the finished product is this great. Listen to Micky Dolenz and the studio musicians rip through "Stepping Stone" or smolder through "She," listen to the powerful grooves of "Mary, Mary" or the heartfelt playing and singing on "Sometime in the Morning" and dare to say the Monkees weren't a real band. They were! The tracks on More of the Monkees (with the exception of the aforementioned "Your Auntie Grizelda " and the sickly sweet "The Day We Fell in Love," which regrettably introduces the smarmy side of Davy Jones) stand up to the work of any other pop band operating in 1967. Real or fabricated, the Monkees rate with any pop band of their era and More of the Monkees solidifies that position. ~ Tim Sendra
Clearly they were not America's answer to the Beatles, even though at the time moptop fans seethed and decided to boycott them. They were the best manufactured pop group ever, and in Michael Nesmith had a musical semi-genius. Their second album, apart from the wretched "Your Auntie Grizelda," carries on from their debut. It contains the mantric "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone," Neil Diamond's chunka-chunka-chunk "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)," the funky "Mary Mary" and the paragon, "I'm A Believer," also written by Neil Diamond. Euphoric and nostalgic and completely marijuana-free.