May 6
Sonny Osborne makes a Monkee of himself
Sonny Osborne on stage at Sangamon Park, Mahomet, IL - June 9, 1968. Photo by Dan Tackett.Bluegrass is one genre of music that totally captivates me. Another period of music I dearly love is the rock of the 1960s. I was a teen when the British invasion landed in America.
Without a doubt, the biggest act from that assault was the Beatles. America countered with a fabricated group, which was on fairly equal footing during the years of 1966 through 1968, the Monkees.
Despite what many critics say, I am fairly reverential when I speak of the impact of the Monkees. One of the four main proponents of the pre-fab four was Mike Nesmith. Many people don’t realize at the time, Nesmith, Gram Parsons and Ricky Nelson were in an unknown race for being deemed the originator of what would later be termed country-rock.
There also is great evidence that Nesmith might have been a little ahead of the pack.
In 1966, Nesmith used Glen Campbell on a country rock track Nez had written. The song appeared on the debut of the Monkees first album, “Papa Gene’s Blues.” In 1967, the Monkees used Doug Dillard for some fine banjo work on a tune for their fourth disc. Michael Martin Murphy had penned this song titled, “What Am I Doing Hangin Round.”
By 1968, Nesmith was in full-blown invention of country rock. In May of 1968 (Wow…it was 40 years ago, this month), Nesmith flew to the RCA studios in Nashville to record with some of the finest musicians Music City had to offer. One of those incredible session banjo pickers hired at the time was a 30-year-old Sonny Osborne.
I got into a conversation with Sonny a few years back at one of Terry Lease’ s festivals at the Crowne Plaza in Springfield, Ill. This was the last time the Osborne Brothers played the event. In cornering Sonny for a few moments, I asked him about the Monkee sessions. Sonny’s face lit up. It appeared to me he had to purge himself of the whole proceedings that had gone on several years prior to our conversation.
I could tell he probably had never been asked about the Monkees sessions for years, if possibly ever. He honestly wanted to talk about it. During our conversation, many people tried to approach Sonny and it was quite evident to me that I had his steadfast attention.
Sonny said the sessions were really weird and idiotic. The whole thing was exceptionally disorganized. Many of the premiere Nashville session players were in the studio: Wayne Moss on acoustic guitar, David Briggs on organ, Lloyd Green on steel, Norbert Putnum on bass, Kenny Buttrey on drums, and of course Sonny Osborne on banjo. As a sidenote, many of these musicians in the 1970s spawned the great eclectic band Area Code 615 and from that group, would evolve into Barefoot Jerry.
The studio had been booked for a week or two, and the sessions were paid for. But, there was no sign of Mike Nesmith. Evidently he was out in Nashville somewhere and these A-team musicians spent much of the day, as much as 8 or 9 hours, awaiting his arrival.
“Nesmith was enthused with Lloyd Greens steel work,” Sonny recalled. “He went down to ShoBud and spent $15,000 to $18,000 on a steel guitar.” This was a great deal of money in the 1960s to spend on an instrument.
On May 28, 1968, Nesmith finally showed up and they recorded the first version of Nesmith’s classic song, “Propinquity.” This version didn’t appear until Rhino Records released it 28 years after the fact, on a disc of Monkees rarities titled, Missing Links Volume 3. It is interesting to note, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band did a wonderful version of the song on their Uncle Charlie and his Dog Teddy album,which happened to yield the band’s hit version of “Mr. Bojangles.”
The next day of recording was even more prolific. On this particular day, Harold Bradley replaced Moss on guitar, Bobby Dyson replaced Putnum on bass and Jerry Carrigan replaced Buttrey on drums. Sonny was still around for more of the action.
On this May date, they recorded another Nesmith-penned tune, “Don’t Wait for Me,” which appeared on the Monkees disc from 1969, Instant Replay. They also recorded the first version of “The Crippled Lion,” which later appeared on, Missing Links Volume 2 issued from Rhino in 1990.
Also from that same May date; there was an early version of a great Nesmith tune, “Some of Shelly’s Blues,” which also appeared on Missing Links Volume 2. Ironically, this song appeared also on the above-mentioned Nitty Gritty album. The final song covered that day was entitled Hollywood, and that recorded version has never been issued.
Sonny continued to stress the idiocy of how the sessions were handled. He thought they were terrible and didn’t enjoy them one bit. To this day, he hasn’t listened to those sessions and doesn’t care to.
My life has been filled with many serendipitous moments. One of those wonderful times was the few minutes I got to pick Sonny Osborne’s brain about being –somewhat reluctantly — a Monkee.
Editors Note: BluegrassJournal.com writer and music fanatic Rickey Lamb contacted Sonny recently to clarify some memories from that conversation years ago and Sonny was gracious enough to talk with Rickey at length about the Monkees Sessions and the music industry. We’ll have that part of the story on tomorrow.
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