The Monkees' Peter Tork Talks About Touring With Jimi Hendrix | Letterman
study these faces because very shortly one of these lucky ladies is going to win a dream date with former monkey Peter Tork you must be very excited about tonight I'm thrilled about tonight I don't even want to give it away I'm so thrilled all right well let me as you know tonight ladies and gentlemen someone in our studio audience will win a date with former monkey Peter Tork now here's how this works sure go ahead and applaud if you like [Music] 15 years ago every girl in the world wanted to date with one of the monkeys but there just weren't enough of those lovable mop tops to go around today there is a new generation of girls and they still want dates with the monkeys and who can blame them so late night is proud to have the opportunity to let one lucky girl in our studio audience win a date with former monkey Peter torque ladies and gentlemen now bear with me girls I just have to explain the rules first it's the something the legal department is making me do before the show we pre-selected five finalists for the win a date contest their names are sealed in envelopes and will be chosen by drawing so now if we may let's take one more look at our finalists who all must be on Needles and Pins right now I know I am yeah all of those folks are the uh where oh there they are they okay now we're going to bring out Mr torque right now and he's going to select his dream date for the evening [Music] very excited about all of this I'm excited too David all right now uh may we have the drum please uh the lovely Marie O'Donnell ladies and gentlemen [Applause] that's all right I'll get them half sold later do we uh do we uh thank you very much Marie now did we beat the drum David we uh um we're going I'm going to spin this is that correct all right we'll mix these up [Music] not about enough a little more okay Peter all right select the lucky winner of the dream date with Peter torque if you will I know I know my hand is guided by a power greater than myself and here it is yeah it's funny there's no name on the envelope I'll open it up Lucky winner is it's very exciting here on the David Letterman show I'm going to read that for you uh you want it please yes all right get ready ladies Esther Pollock [Applause] come on down [Applause] [Music] congratulations uh Esther this is a Peter Tork and uh it probably goes without saying that uh you you must have been a big monkeys fan huh yeah uh let's see if for everybody else who was not chosen uh do not be a despondent we have uh monkeys albums for everyone else who was not chosen all right now a dollar 47 in the clearance bins All Right Now esther uh oh they've grown up have they um Bill Wendell aware is our happy couple going to spend their dream day Dave Peter and his date will be whisked off to Rockefeller Center snazzy Green Room in the heart of New York City where they'll watch a taping of America's fastest growing late night show Late Night with David Letterman very exciting where's the store all right yeah Esther uh and Peter come on over here uh I know you uh have a lot to talk about we're going over to the dream date of a lifetime thank you Bill here in the Esther this is the Green Room where are you from uh Florida Florida and St Louis the same time all right and I guess there's done some time uh now just come on in here this is our actual Green Room have a seat thereafter if you will and Peter over uh let me introduce you to your here let me introduce you to your chaperone for the evening this is Larry Bud Melman [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] anything you want waiter could you step in here uh see to it that these folks get the best of everything and go ahead and put it on my tab and nothing is too good uh for you folks tonight congratulations Esther I will be checking back with you during the course of the evening Peter nice to see you we'll be talking with you a little bit later Fried Chicken whatever you want have a nice time and there will be photos and a souvenir album after all of this is over uh my heart is thumping a mile a minute we're going to pause now but we'll be right back with Joe Piscopo yes yes there's the happy couple Esther Pollock and former monkey Peter torque of course I guess once you're a monkey always a monkey [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the former monkey Peter torque has enjoying his dream date with the Esther Pollock and we'll be checking in with those folks again Joe before we talk about oh there they are right now they seem to be Spellbound I I think they're becoming more than good friends um I'm next guest whom you've actually already met this evening was a member of a musical group that has sold over 36 million records their television series was also a huge success all over the world many many countries around the world it is still seen in most of them uh though the band broke up in 1969 hard to believe truly a phenomenon welcome again Peter Tork foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] first of all how was the big date going how are you and after getting along famously it couldn't be better I'm just so glad that I know I told you it was going to be some extra something was going to guide my hand and it's true it's been one of the uh been a high point in my day what kind of things are you doing back there well we have we've been graciously serving this afternoon she's watching you talk right now I asked her how are you uh hope it's uh hope it's all right we um you can see that we're having uh we were having a pizza and chicken oh yes there's no no fair too good for us I'm really glad that the uh at the height of of the success of your television program I'm sorry I didn't mean it it's quite all right please I didn't have anything to say did you did you ever uh did you ever have a a win a date contest for real that one of those fan magazines would sponsor um yeah but uh I lost you didn't get to go out with it I didn't get the I didn't get to win the girl now uh for people who uh it's hard to believe people watching don't know about the television show The monkeys and the group and so forth how did that begin how did the group come together how did the show yeah well the the thing about the group it's interesting that sort of when you say the monkeys you think of a couple of things one was a TV show one was four actors who played characters with their own names like right there it says Peter torken that was the name of the character I played right he was really stupid um but it's all right I'm real intelligent folks yeah I was worried that maybe make a move on her while you were gone but well apparently Esther is an enormously attractive woman there she is yeah yes uh Esther asked me to put in a good word for her she said we noticed that the losers got albums but Esther wanted me to make sure we got one faster and you were talking to Heaven album you were talking about how you were four actors on your show um well the the cast of the show was put together by uh by audition and uh I tried out for the part and I got it yep now had you musical experience to that point yes I had I'd been a singer in the Greenwich Village stages for two and a half years singing my little ditties with my banjo and guitar uh Nesmith Mike Nesmith my ex partner if you're watching this Mike eat your heart out [Music] he uh he'd been a folk singer and uh Mickey and Davey who were selected uh for their acting experience were also musicians although they weren't uh instrumentalists you know we they learned how to play their instruments and when we went on the road uh we actually did play our own yeah tell me about that the show came first and then the the record started to come as it were yeah well the whole cons as far as I know the whole they don't tell me everything folks I'll tell you uh the whole thing was thought of as a package and uh they selected the guys and they hired Don Kirchner to make the music um and uh which he did and uh very successfully too the records uh have at one point the monkeys as a recording project outsold The Beatles um I find myself it's real interesting I find myself taking only very little credit for all of that because one of the things about the project it serves to distinguish between the project and the actors and the and the crew when you said the monkey's on stage you met the four actors or musicians or whatever we were at the time but the monkeys as a whole thing was a television show production it's like you're not the David Letterman show you're David Letterman starring in the and it's like that kind of a thing when you uh started to become more than a TV show you became a musical group you had to go out that's right and so how what happened when you had to perform the music that had not been recorded by you guys to begin with OR or had it we well uh the first two albums were put out pretty much without our help as instrumentalists and we went out on the road and we did those two so we did most of the songs from those I'm an experienced musician I've been I've been playing uh piano and guitar and French horn practically continuously since I've been nine years old and boy am I winded so it oh God was it more difficult than we would imagine it to be or not quite so different I don't know how difficult do you imagine well to me it seems it would be impossible if I had to now suddenly become a musician to play music that people had heard me play on a TV show that I never played well I don't uh I don't know David did you ever play any music at all no no never took piano or sang or anything like that well they're probably very tough yeah on the other hand but what the point I'm trying to make is these guys did have musical experience Mickey was a group a lead singer he was a group all by himself stop he was a lead singer for a group called the missing links ironic huh uh and David Jones was a singer on Broadway and so neither of these guys was like musically bereft if you know what I mean um and uh so when it came that time to just teaching them an instrument or they picked it up readily so it was Mike and Mike was an experienced musician and I was and we just taught these guys simple parts we reduced the parts to a mere smidgen of their former selves and uh went out on the road and we enjoyed ourselves and incidentally one more thing David I have to say and Willie um when we first played when we first played we were doing the pilot we just got we fired up our amps and we just played for the first time together never having rehearsed and we got the crew to dance so that the the point I'm trying to make here again this Peter's stop we were not as bad musicians as people were making us out to be that's all I'm trying to say okay no but that wasn't that wasn't what I was implying I was just curious about the process and I know that one of your opening acts when the monkeys was up performing was Jimi Hendrix and uh now this is a strange sounding combination we'll find out about that and many many other things with Peter Clark [Applause] [Music] welcome back to the show Peter torque is with us and we when the banner is touring the former the band to which I used to belong the group yeah the monkeys Jimi Hendrix was an opening act correct opening act poor Jimmy boy did he ever not know what he was bargaining for Jimi Hendrix one of the great musicians of all time a blazing Pioneer of the guitar a man [Applause] [Music] [Applause] when I get to Rock and Roll Heaven I'll tell him how you felt um here's um if I ever get to rock and roll uh not so here's a man a blaze training Panama Trail blazing Pioneer of music uh opening with his music which was then even newer than it is today and it still has not been essentially uh put into into the past uh opening for a bunch of screaming teeny boppers who wanted only to see their little you know the sparkling colory dots there they want that they got on their color TVs like you do right there at home they wanted to see the people on screen and so Jimi Hendrix we want the monkeys and Jimmy said well and the men and he did something that I can't do on television you'd have to blank it out and uh what did he do Jimmy did what he he made an obscene gesture oh okay on stage the little monkey fans yeah [Applause] I know that there are many out there now who regret to their will regret to their dying day that they didn't stand still and listen to this giant I myself we made it a point to get out early to the concerts the few concerts that the poor Jimmy um you know I really I have to say uh it's it was a it was a tragic mistake from Jimmy's point of view and uh while I got an awful lot of enjoyment we'd go early and listen to this great music blazing and then we go out and dance for the kids how did he get uh added to the bill I mean whose idea was he um we saw him at Monterey Pop Festival Mickey and I and Mickey pulled the strings it took to get him uh on the tour as a matter of fact at a certain level I think it probably was very prestigious for him to have been thrown off of a monkey tour looks good on his resume that's right thrown off a monkey card uh what was what was that like did you did you get a real sense that you guys were uh I mean it must have been very exciting or what we're a uh a force in music to be contended with certainly not uh no as a matter of fact uh the records were made relatively artificially at least you know there's this kind of there's this uh abstract idea that the groups are supposed to be playing on their own albums and we didn't do that on our first two albums and the records were mighty successful and we reap the artist's benefits which I spent profligately and uh I couldn't even used to spell that word let me let me let me interrupt you here you bring up profits now this thing turned into a monster because it was on one network and I think it eventually was on all three networks eventually on all three games around the world I was looking at a list of the countries uh the music uh in Japan uh just a hit all over again recently yes just recently late last year for the first four monkey albums were in the top 30 album sales in Japan now do you it's I know it's staggering do you realize are you getting any of that [Applause] now the thing is about television it declines every time they show a given episode the actors get a little bit less and less until the 10th episode the 11th episode nothing but the records uh you get the same share of it's the sales that goat yeah while they keep on selling ask Lucy yeah is there any chance of a uh of of the the group the four of a gentlemen getting back together and touring or doing more records or doing another television show or any of that make me an offer to reunite the monkeys yes right to reunite is there interest enough in that in the other there's this country well it's it's hard to say there's a lot of interest a lot of people say why don't you guys get together and I say I give up yeah yeah what have you done since what are you doing currently uh I'm glad you asked me that question David uh uh let's see this is uh tomorrow night I will be an Old Saybrook at a place called The Cabaret performing as a solo just me and my banjo and my guitar uh and hopefully an audience and uh the following day at one in the afternoon I'll be on the New London Pier at a place called the sail Fest so if you like the tall ships I imagine that that's a good place to see and I'll be doing those kinds of things and in August I'll be taking my band a rock band of some kind to uh Cape Cod for two shows in early August and we'll be going to bunratties in Boston we've been performing all along and continue to do yep I've been performing music with a band and uh as a matter of fact uh they told me not to bring my guitar I was I think maybe they were they were afraid I was going to play it no no no I think what we're going to do now is bring out your dream date to Esther Pollock uh it'll be great to see her again we'll be right back hotel accommodations for most guests of Late Night with David Letterman finished by Berkshire place a Dunphy Classic Hotel in exchange for this announcement for reservations at dunfee hotels in the US and Europe call toll free 800-228-2121 hi there we're nearly finished here we're talking now with the Esther Pollock who won the win a date with Peter torque contest earlier and I have some questions Esther that our staff has asked me to ask you how was your dream date with Peter very nice okay uh was it everything you thought it would be more uh what is your favorite monkeys song okay uh Peter would you say that this that song was written with a girl like her in mind well let's see that if she'd mentioned a song Let's go she had mentioned a song and she didn't you didn't mention this you didn't mention a song if you could have a date with another one of the monkeys who would it be and why no I'm satisfied okay uh Esther where were you when you first heard the monkeys were breaking up don't remember okay let me by the way Peter what are the other members of the organization doing now we know what you're doing and you mentioned uh oh you didn't really say no I didn't and uh with any luck I won't uh okay yeah uh okay one more here Esther I guess when you wake up tomorrow this will all seem like a dream I see so to make those memories last forever we have first of all the monkey's Greatest Hits there you have a copy of that and right here we have your scrapbook of the evening oh your dream date with Peter Clark that's mine oh we have a wonderful thing for you uh thank you very much Peter it was a pleasure meeting you and thank you for uh thanks to the studio audience also thanks to Joe Piscopo uh Paul Shaffer in the band and of course our announcer Bill Wendell tomorrow night our big Christmas special from SCTV Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis comedian George Miller and look at Chris's Christmas Customs around the world good night
2023-06-14 15:59
