A Gerry Goffin & Carole King composition, of course, allegedly named after Pleasant Valley Way; a road in West Orange, New Jersey which stakes out a path from the heart of suburbia into the Watchung Mountains. Or so I am informed.
Produced by Douglas Farthing Hatlelid(aka Chip Douglas).
Mike Nesmith: lead guitar;
Peter Tork: keyboards;
"Fast" Eddie Hoh: drums;
Micky Dolenz: vocals;
Chip Douglas: bass guitar.
photograph by crowolf.
Famously sporting a riff stolen from The Beatles, the 45 release - issued on July 10th, 1967 - featured in the second series of their hit tv series, and peaked at #3 in the Billboard Charts. It also appears on the group's fourth LP, "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd." released in November, 1967.
▼ THE MONKEES: PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY from "Pleasant Valley Sunday b/w Words" 45 (Colgems) 1967 (US)
6 comments:
Wedding Present covers this song on their Hit Parade series, sticking pretty close to the original.
I didn't know Wedding Present covered this. Nice choice.
WP covers were all over the place: ever hear them do the theme from "Cheers"? Their version of Neil Young's "Don't Cry no Tears" is excellent.
Ib, West Orange was a little ways south of my home. I never really knew the place. The Watchung Mountains were what Westerners would call low, rolling hills. Pretty though. Too many Jersey memories in too short a time. I have just heard from 3, count 'em, 3, high school crushes. One of whom is visiting with her husband and wants to know if we could get together for lunch today. I had not heard from any of these women in over 35 years. I think Facebook is evil. I want to tell them, "Leave me alone with my bitterness and my false self serving memories dammit!" Around the time of my sweater/banjo picture I was in a band that mostly covered monkees songs.
In the very late 60's, for me, the Monkees were close to gods. Much more so than the Beatles or the Stones. My uncle's girlfiend's brother gave me their first LP on a visit to their home in Glasgow in 1969. I was in love with it from the first.
We did not have a record player in my house until I was eight or nine years old, although I had already availed myself of an old red plastc cased dansette which was hugely temperamental. That is not to say we were poor. It would seem music was at that time a very low priority in my parents' household; almost inconceivably so.
I could handle not owning, or having access to, a tv until I was five years old or so. But not owning a record player really pissed me off. Rebel, or what ?
Oh. These high school crushes ? Very dangerous ground, agreed. I am very wary of Facebook too. Twitter is a curse.
I have not aged well or advanced in terms of expectation, so I have no intention of getting in touch with pretty faces ( or otherwise) from the past to massage anybody's ego.
More on this later, perhaps.
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