Rock byRichard Cook
As cult figures go, Michael Nesmith must be as homely as a tea cosy. The bearded fellow who stares placidly out from the cover of Magnetic South & Loose Salute (Camden Deluxe), decked out in star-spangled Texan duds and daring us to laugh at his stetson, has had a queer sort of musical career. He was the one proper muso in the Monkees, the TV-show Beatles who accidentally reeled off some of the fizziest American pop of the sixties, and when he went on to a solo career he returned to his original patch, an easy-going hybrid of folk, country and rock. "Hank Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmie Rodgers - somehow I always get back to them," he says in his original sleevenotes to Magnetic South, which first appeared in 1970. Loose Salute came out four months later (those were the days), and now both records have been reissued together on a single, mid-price disc: they are the best bargain of the year.
The music is no-frills but shamelessly idiosyncratic, a blueprint for an Americana that nobody followed up, and in the age of Beck, Nesmith might almost be the model crossover musician. There have been plenty of fruitless arguments about who invented country rock - Roger McGuinn? Gram Parsons? How about Michael Nesmith? It's a reasonable call, listening to these 30-year-old records, since there's as much torch and twang in these tracks as in any more renowned fusions. But Nesmith had an ear for too many other peculiarities to let him claim the crown of original crossover. His idea of Texas music went a bit further south than many, which explains the Mexicali percussion - and harpsichord! - of "Tengo Amore". Playing in the Monkees around the time of Head must have left its mark, too, which could account for the odd little psychedelic flashes that intrude on the first album in particular. Nesmith also took a historical overview which let him slip in ancient songs such as "The One Rose That's Left in My Heart", also covered by Leon Redbone, without making them sound ridiculous.
He was helped in having such a terrific group, the First National Band. When they motor through the old Monkees hit "Listen to the Band", it has a steely intensity which Nesmith's benign humour undercuts just enough to stop it sounding relentless. His own vocals are often modestly placed in the middle of the mix, but he was a good singer, and the occasional yodel (thank you, Jimmie Rodgers) sounds like that of a man who didn't have to affect a lonesome prairie blues. His few leanings towards pretension came out more strongly on subsequent albums such as The Prison, which showed an unlikely taste for existential rambling. Where many country singers find God, Nesmith seemed to find Camus, and it surely wouldn't have impressed Jerry Lee Lewis.
Even so, Nesmith's country rock was very self-aware. He called some of his later records And the Hits Just Keep on Comin' (it was a flop) and Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash (from 1975, and about as standard as musk-rat jam). He wended his way to the end of the decade with some further mild-mannered collections, and even picked up a one-off hit with the charming "Rio", but by then Nesmith was pretty much finished with performing music and he hasn't done a record since. He was finally teased into doing one of the Monkees' reunion tours but it was a lamentable experience and he has gone back to a boardroom role (his Pacific Arts company actually pioneered the whole idea of rock videos). Now someone at RCA should couple up those other two records and we can have all the Nesmith we need on our shelves.
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