EARLY! "The Monkees" Peter Tork Signed 4X6 B&W Photo

Description: Up for auction an EARLY! "The Monkees" Peter Tork Hand Signed 4X6 B&W Photo Postcard. ES-2214 Peter Halsten Thorkelson (February 13, 1942 – February 21, 2019), known professionally as Peter Tork, was an American musician, composer and actor, best known as the keyboardist and bass guitarist of The Monkees. He grew up in Connecticut and in the mid-1960s was part of the Greenwich Village folk scene, and as an accomplished musician, befriended Stephen Stills. After moving to Los Angeles with Stills, he was recruited for the musical television sitcom The Monkees, and became a teenage idol between 1966-68. Tork recorded his debut solo album Stranger Things Have Happened in 1994, and later toured with his blues band Shoe Suede Blues. Tork was born at the former Doctors Hospital, in Washington, D.C. Although he was born in the District of Columbia in 1942, many news articles incorrectly report him as born in 1944 in New York City, which was the date and place given on early Monkees press releases. He was the son of Virginia Hope (née Straus) and Halsten John Thorkelson, an economics professor at the University of Connecticut. His paternal grandfather was of Norwegian descent, while his mother was of half German Jewish and half Irish ancestry. He began studying piano at the age of nine, showing an aptitude for music by learning to play several different instruments, including the banjo, acoustic bass, and guitar. Tork attended Windham High School in Willimantic, Connecticut, and was a member of the first graduating class at E. O. Smith High School in Storrs, Connecticut. He attended Carleton College before he moved to New York City, where he became part of the folk music scene in Greenwich Village during the first half of the 1960s. While there, he befriended other up-and-coming musicians such as Stephen Stills. Stephen Stills had auditioned for the new television series about four pop-rock musicians but was turned down because the show's producers felt his hair and teeth were not photogenic. When asked if he knew of someone with a similar "open, Nordic look", Stills suggested Tork should audition. Tork got the job and became one of the four members of the Monkees, a pop band of the mid-1960s, created for a television sitcom. Tork was the oldest member of the group. Tork was a proficient musician before he joined The Monkees, and though other members of the group were not allowed to play their own instruments on their first two albums, he had played what he described as "third chair guitar" on Michael Nesmith's song "Papa Gene's Blues" on their first album. He subsequently played keyboards, bass guitar, banjo, harpsichord, and other instruments on their recordings. He co-wrote, along with Joey Richards, the closing theme song of the second season of The Monkees, "For Pete's Sake". On the show, he was relegated to acting as the "lovable dummy", a persona Tork had developed as a folk singer in New York's Greenwich Village. The DVD release of the first season of the show contains commentary from the various bandmates. In it, Nesmith states that Tork was better at playing guitar than bass. In Tork's commentary, he states that Jones was a good drummer and had the live performance lineups been based solely on playing ability, it should have been Tork on guitar, Nesmith on bass, and Jones on drums, with Dolenz taking the fronting role, rather than as it was done (with Nesmith on guitar, Tork on bass, and Dolenz on drums). Jones filled in briefly for Tork on bass when he played keyboards.

Price: 129.99 USD

Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

End Time: 2024-12-22T18:18:07.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 USD