Michael Nesmith invented country rock. Or maybe something even better.
, Gram Parsons or the Eagles invented country rock. To me, nobody married the two like Nesmith. The records he made with his First National Band between 1970 and 1973 were flawless, ranging from achy ballads to swaggering jams and all of it soaked in echo, pedal steel and the singer’s dry wit. The music itself was fantastic, thanks, in part, to Nesmith’s decision to center so much around Red Rhodes and his pedal steel.
You could fill a double record with these melancholy songs — “Conversations,” “Nine Times Blue,” “Joanne” — about discovery, love and ultimately distance. Or take Nesmith’s “Different Drum,” a song that Monkees producers rejected and that became famous through the version sung by Linda Ronstadt, with her band the Stone Poneys, in 1967.
“Different Drum” is a kiss-off dressed up as a love song. The narrator acknowledges he’s going to be alone, that his partner will be happier with somebody else, and yet he’s not merely trying to save face. He’s trying to convince himself that he’s made the right choice. Listen to how Nesmith delivers the line “I’m not ready for any person, place or thing to try and pull the reins in on me” on his beautifully bare version of the song, recorded for 1972’s “And the Hits Keep on Coming.
But at that moment in time — his mid-50s — he seemed particularly cranky when I tried to ask him about the Monkees. I knew he had refused to participate in their big 1980s reunion, and seemed to have an uneasy relationship with the band’s legacy. This led to this cringey exchange.
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