Offbeat folk singer songwriter Peter Tork from the Monkees dies aged 77
- Tork was a multi-instrumentalist who became the first member to leave the early ‘boyband’, feeling restricted artistically
Peter Tork, the offbeat folk artist who found fame with 1960s pop band the Monkees, has died, his team announced on Thursday. He was 77 years old.
“It is with beyond-heavy and broken hearts that we share the devastating news that our friend, mentor, teacher, and amazing soul, Peter Tork, has passed from this world,” his team posted on his official Facebook page, without specifying a cause of death.
The musician in 2009 had been diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare form of cancer that affected his tongue.
“There are no words right now … heart broken over the loss of my Monkee brother,” tweeted drummer-singer Micky Dolenz, one of the band’s two surviving members.
A classic teeny-bopper band, the Monkees were the original reality television stars, whose four-piece group was first conceived as a show in 1965 that went on to win two Emmy awards and in 1967 outsell the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
Songs including Daydream Believer, I’m a Believer and Last Train to Clarksville all topped the charts – but the wisecracking foursome drew criticism by some who considered them a rip-off of the Beatles, who rushed onto the American pop culture scene a few years earlier.