Peter Tork, the guitarist and wise-cracking character in the 1960s teen-pop sensation the Monkees, died today at the age of 77, a rep for the group confirmed to Variety. Speaking with the Washington Post, Tork’s sister Anne Thorkelson did not specify a cause of death, although the guitarist had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer a decade ago.
Tork wrote a blog piece for the Post about his diagnosis with adenoid cystic carcinoma after beginning treatment in 2009. Through most of the 10 years since, he had been able to resume an active musical life, participating in Monkees reunion shows as recently as 2016, and recording his own solo blues albums, the last of which, “Relax Your Mind,” a Lead Belly tribute, came out in early 2018.
“It is with beyond-heavy and broken hearts that we share the devastating news that our friend, mentor, teacher, and amazing soul, Peter Tork, has passed from this world,” read a statement on Tork’s official Facebook page, attributed to “the team of Peter’s friends, family and colleagues” that maintained his social media presence. “Please know that Peter was extremely appreciative of you, his Torkees.”
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All four members of the Monkees had rarely played together since Tork left the group in 1968 and the band officially broke up two years later. But after MTV reruns made the band newly hip, Tork regularly participated in reunion tours that began in 1986 and included all of the original members except for Michael Nesmith, who rejoined briefly for a 1996 album and ’97 UK tour. After Davey Jones died in 2012, Nesmith warmed up more to participating in reunion events. Tork, Nesmith and Micky Dolenz made their last appearance together at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood on Sept. 26, 2016.
In 2018, Nesmith and Dolenz went out on the road as a duo, leading many fans to question why Tork was not participating. “I have in general made no secret of the fact that all these recent years of Monkees-related projects, as fun as they’ve been, have taken up a lot of my time and energy,” he said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “Moving forward, I have blues projects that I want to give my attention to...I’m shifting gears for now, but I wish the boys well, and I’ve learned to never say never on things further down the line.” But, Nesmith told the magazine at the time, “I’m afraid I would betray a confidence if I said any more than, ‘This is not a right time for him.’ He has his reasons. They are very private.” However, Tork did add one last song to a new Monkees Christmas album released last fall, a banjo-fueled version of “Angels, We Have Heard On High,” with Dolenz citing health issues as a reason Tork couldn’t contribute more.
While the Monkees were a manufactured, television-centric, American version of the Beatles as depicted in “A Hard Day’s Night,” Tork and fellow guitarist Mike Nesmith were serious musicians who paid their dues on the folk and rock scenes of the early 1960s; vocalist Davy Jones and singer/drummer Micky Dolenz were former child actors. Tork played the “Ringo” role in the group, as a charming and goofy comic foil.
While the Monkees enjoyed enormous chart and box-office success in the wake of the television show, which launched in 1966 and was created by producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, the group grew weary of not being taken seriously. They gradually took on the instrumental and songwriting work on their recordings and made a dramatic split with their past on the uneven and very psychedelic 1968 album and film “Head,” which baffled fans and largely failed to introduce them to a new audience. (The movie became a cult favorite and drew a sold-out audience to a Hollywood screening in November, at which Dolenz and Nesmith appeared but Tork did not.)
“The TV show had this huge ad campaign, and everybody went for all the hype,” Tork told the Los Angeles Times in 2008, when he was participating in a 40th anniversary screening of “Head” at the Egyptian. “The ‘Head’ campaign was designed to be Postmodernist, and the commercials were off-putting. The hip thought it was going to be another bubble-gum movie, and they didn’t want to see it. And the bubble-gum kids thought it was going to be a freak-out movie, and they didn’t want to see it. I think if the movie had been thoroughly promoted in an appropriate way, it would have done much better.”
Tork was by some accounts the most musically proficient member of the Monkees, and someone comfortable with a variety of instruments. In the 1960s, George Harrison invited him to play banjo on his first solo album, the “Wonder Wall” soundtrack, although his picking reportedly only appears on bootleg outtakes and in the film itself. Although he was usually seen playing guitar in his solo acoustic or blues-band shows, in his spare time, he played piano, telling Medium in a 2017 interview that a typical day for him included some casual classical music. “I enjoy playing Johann Sebastian Bach for a hobby, just to take my mind into different places,” he said.