He did, however, participate in choral and drama activities during his years at Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas. An early accident with a hammer smashed the ring finger on Nesmith's right hand, and he did not learn to play guitar until his twenties. An urban legend says a prank with a firecracker went wrong, leaving Nesmith with a hand injury, and that a doctor suggested he learn to play guitar to recover his dexterity (the incident never actually happened). Nesmith was an indifferent student, and in his teen years an occasional prankster. Their fortunes changed when Bette invented typewriter correction fluid, later known commercially as Liquid Paper. With his father gone, Nesmith's mother worked as a secretary.
In 1981, Nesmith won the inaugural Grammy Award for Video of the Year for Elephant Parts, a "video record" consisting of humorous sketches and visual representations of songs, breaking new ground for the concept of music videos, which would shortly become ubiquitous with the advent of MTV.īorn in Houston, Texas, Nesmith was an only child, and his parents, Warren Audrey Nesmith and Bette Nesmith Graham, separated when he was very young. A pioneer of country rock, Nesmith notably composed " Different Drum", a hit for Linda Ronstadt (by way of The Stone Poneys). Nesmith is survived by four children: Christian, Jonathan and Jessica, with ex-wife Phyllis Barbour Nesmith and Jason, with Nurit Wilde.Michael Nesmith (born Robert Michael Nesmith on Decemdied December 10, 2021) was an American singer-songwriter and musician, perhaps best known as a member of The Monkees. Nesmith was the only child of Bette Nesmith, the inventor of Liquid Paper, a typewriter correction product she sold the company to Gillette in 1979 for $48 million, a fortune her son would inherit after her death in 1980. Nesmith would participate in most Monkees reunions for the rest of his life, including the recent “The Monkees Farewell Tour.” The last stop of the tour was at L.A.’s Greek Theatre on Nov. Nesmith launched Pacific Arts Corporation in 1974, using it as a platform to experiment with music video - he won the first Grammy Award for video for his 1981 video “Elephant Parts” - and produced such cult films as “Repo Man” and “Tapeheads.”Īfter sitting out the Monkees’ 20th anniversary reunion, he returned to the fold for the 30th anniversary, recording the new album “Justus” in 1996.
He formed the First National Band, one of the first country-rock bands to achieve commercial success, but he wound up spending most of his career operating on the fringes of pop-rock music while working as a pioneer in home video. He achieved success as a songwriter outside of the group as well, when Linda Ronstadt’s Stone Poneys had a hit with his “Different Drum” in 1967.īy that point, the wool-capped guitarist started introducing elements of country music into the Monkees, a musical direction he’d continue to pursue after he left the band in 1970. Nesmith was the only member of the Monkees to write original material on a regular basis, with “Mary, Mary,” “You Just May Be the One” and “The Girl I Knew Somewhere” among his signature tunes for the band. Despite their success, Nesmith bristled at the notion that the group was a creation of the producers and steered the Monkees away from their prefabricated origins, pushing the band’s record label to let the group play their own instruments on “Headquarters,” their third album.
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