In 1967, The Monkees were on top of the world - they’d reached peak stardom, with a successful tv show, number one hits like “Steppin’ Stone” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” and now they were about to embark on a tour of North America. They were America’s sweethearts, the picture of innocence and good, clean fun. On the other end of the spectrum was budding star James Marshall Hendrix - soon to be known as Jimi. Seemingly from two different worlds, The Monkees and Jimi Hendrix would be paired together on the same tour as perhaps one of the oddest lineups in music history.
Pairing Jimi with The Monkees was like pairing Alice Cooper with The Partridge Family, but the strange combination originated organically. It was Monkee Micky Dolenz who devised the idea.
A year prior, in 1966, The Monkees were in New York on a press junket when a friend invited Micky down to Greenwich Village to scope out an up-and-coming guitarist. Always up for a night out, Micky obliged. He sat in the front row and watched as a group of gangly young men with various instruments and little black bow ties poured onto the stage. They were Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, and at the forefront was Jimmy James himself. His hair was in the awkward first stages of being grown out, his slender fingers wrapped around the neck of his guitar. He was far from the guitar god he would soon come to be seen as - that is, until the music started. Immediately, Jimmy James proved he was a force to be reckoned with as he raked his teeth against the strings of his guitar, playing the perfect riff. Micky was in awe.
It would be an entire year before Micky ran into Jimmy James again - this time as the breakout star of the Monterey Pop Festival under the name Jimi Hendrix. Still relatively unknown, Jimi had changed his entire persona. Out with the bow ties and in with flamboyant clothes in bright colors, countless rings, and the perfect hippie hair. Micky watched once more as the boy from Greenwich Village enraptured the audience with his wicked musicianship, singing “Hey Joe” with his beautifully soulful voice.
Micky’s mind raced as he watched Jimi - The Monkees had been searching high and low for an opening act for their upcoming tour, and Jimi would be perfect for the spot. In his mind, The Monkees were a group based on theatricality, much like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and so he suggested the pairing to The Monkees’ producers. It wasn’t just Micky who had fallen in love with Hendrix’s music, either. Fellow Monkee Mike Nesmith had heard a recording of Jimi while at a dinner party with John Lennon, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison and immediately recognized a new mover and shaker in the music industry.
Jimi, however, had already made public comments knocking The Monkees. He’d stated, “Oh God, I hate them! Dishwater…You can’t knock anybody for making it, but people like the Monkees?” Nonetheless, Jimi would be booked as The Monkees’ opening act on July 8, 1967, and soon after joined the tour in Jacksonville, Florida.
Each night, The Monkees would stand on the sidelines (or, in the case of Mike Nesmith, in the front row), entranced by Jimi’s performance. Nesmith later recalled, “I’d never heard anything like that in my life. It brought me to my knees, moved me back three feet. So every night I’d sneak down to the stage, and I’d sit hidden with all these people…listening to this exalted music that this guy was making. Hendrix was something, I’ll tell you.” The Monkees had been so captivated that they hardly noticed the abuse that was being hurled at Jimi by the audience of prepubescent teenyboppers.
As Jimi tried his best to put on a show, he was drowned out by the audience chanting, “We want The Monkees!” Jimi would press his lips to the microphone and sing “Foxy Lady” while the audience screamed “Foxy Davy!” in response. Quickly, Jimi grew tired and frustrated after being met night after night with taunts and abuse. After only seven tour dates, Jimi had had enough. He threw his guitar to the floor and allegedly stuck his middle finger up at the entire audience before walking off stage and quitting the tour.
Although the tour hadn’t worked out quite as planned, Jimi and The Monkees had gotten along swimmingly. They spent their week together partying and singing, bonding and jamming. Jimi’s offstage persona was far from the intimidating figure he was on stage. He was quiet and kind, never one to hog the spotlight. He eventually went on his own well-deserved tour - and afterwards, lived in the home of Monkee Peter Tork.
While the pairing of Jimi Hendrix with The Monkees might seem like a glaringly obvious mistake now, it had originated as an innocent partnering of two entities whose purpose was to give an audience the gift of music. While the tour may not have gone as well as hoped, it helped bring Jimi further into the forefront of the American music scene and generated a loving friendship between vastly different people. In fact, The Monkees had been one of the first mainstream groups to recognize Jimi, ever. Nonetheless, it is still one of the oddest pairings in music history.
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