I was so sad to learn that another part of my childhood, and a very fine musician, is gone.
I was always intrigued by the song at the end of The Monkees.
https://youtu.be/wKzw_rapYNsI learned later that Peter co-wrote the aptly-named For Pete’s Sake.
https://youtu.be/pr5dnte9JgUHe was a wonderful banjo player.
https://youtu.be/y-2Lyd-kLY8In December, a passing Monkee was press-ganged into service. “I’d met George when he was visiting Cass Elliot in Los Angeles, and I was dating Cass’s sister, Leah,” Peter Tork says. “Later, the Monkees met the Beatles in England, and he invited me to his house. He played the sitar and said: ‘I’m working on a soundtrack album, I’d love to have you play a little banjo.’” Tork had travelled without his instrument, so Harrison borrowed McCartney’s five-string banjo for the session – “which Paul couldn’t play – at least conventionally, because the folk five-string banjo can’t be restrung in reverse order for left-handers, it must be custom made. I played for 45 minutes, George said, ‘Thanks very much,’ and we went our separate ways.”
Tork’s breezy contribution didn’t make the record, but it can be heard 15 minutes into the film, after Collins is chided by his mother for spying through the wall. “And I did not get paid,” he laughs. “George said: ‘We’ll figure that out later.’ He knew that the honour itself was payment enough!”
Macca’s banjo, Mellotron and a Monkee: the story of George Harrison’s Wonderwall Music