In September 1966 NBC premiered a situation comedy about a rock and roll band called the Monkees. The inspiration for the series was the zany fast-paced Beatles film A Hard Day's Night. As the Beatles were naturally unavailable, NBC instead held open auditions to locate four young men who could look, act, and sing convincingly enough to pass for a real pop group. It is rumored that the five hundred plus hopefuls who came to the audition included Steven Stills and Harry Nilsson. However, the parts went to Davy Jones, an English actor and apprentice jockey who created the role of the Artful Dodger in the musical Oliver!; Peter Tork, a folk musician working in Greenwich Village; Michael Nesmith, a folk and country singer from Texas who was a budding songwriter; and Micky Dolenz, a former child TV star who had played in a few garage bands in his native California.
The quartet was musically groomed by a team of pop music professionals led by Don Kirshner, the head of Alden Music Publishing (the Brill Building). He brought in the best songwriters from that company—Neil Diamond, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Harry Nilsson, and others—to write bright, up-tempo pop tunes with catchy hooks for the group. The Monkees didn't initially play their instruments (to be fair, neither did most vocal groups of the era), but they functioned well as a group. Their self-titled first album was released prior to the television debut; one of the tracks, "Last Train to Clarksville," became a top ten hit. Its success created a demand for a tour, so the group learned to play their instruments proficiently and started performing live. After the show's first year the actors were beginning to have their own musical ideas; led by Nesmith, who by this time had emerged as the bandleader (in real life if not on the show), the Monkees demanded complete control over their music. To perhaps everyone's surprise, they got it. Though derogatorily called the "Pre-fab Four" (after the Beatles, known as the Fab Four), the Monkees enjoyed popular success as a group even after the television show was canceled in March 1968.
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Brill Building, the Beatles, the Hollies, the Dave Clark Five
Must Haves:
 "I'm a Believer"
"Pleasant Valley Sunday"
"I'm Not Your Stepping Stone"
"Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day"
The Turtles, the Beau Brummels, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Grass Roots
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