Monkees singer
Michael Nesmith died at the age of 78
The members of the pop group The Monkees (from left to right): Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davy Jones. Photo: Hanson / epa / pa / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
At the end of the 1960s, Michael Nesmith and his bandmates from the Monkees were among the great teen idols of the time. Now Nesmith has died too.
The singer and guitarist of the US cult band The Monkees, Michael Nesmith, is dead. He died peacefully of natural causes in his house on Friday, his family told the music magazine “Rolling Stone”.
Nesmith was 78 years old. His band colleague Micky Dolenz linked a report on the death of the singer on Twitter on Friday. “I am heartbroken,” wrote Dolenz. He has lost a close friend and partner.
The Monkees consisted of Nesmith, Dolenz, lead singer Davy Jones, who died in 2012, and bassist Peter Tork, who died in 2019. The band was originally formed in 1965 as a boy band for a television show. With their hits “I’m a Believer”, “Last Train to Clarksville” and “Little Bit Me, Little Bit You”, they were also successful outside of television.
Micky Dolenz on Twitter
All four were teen idols. In 1967, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the Monkees sold millions of albums. A few years after the end of the television series in 1968, the group initially disbanded. But the musicians performed together over the years and went on tour together again in 2011.