PETER TORK -- Before They Made A Monkee Out of Him

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Peter Thorkelson age 14

        

Peter Tork Peter Thorkelson, born Feb 13,1942 to John & Virginia Thorkelson.

          Per Mike Nesmith, ”Peter was a much more skillful player than I was by some order of magnitude. He wasn’t a singer, nor was he a songwriter. What I was able to do was write tunes – I could sort of pull those out of a hat.” – which, on the surface of things, led people to assume Mike was the only member of the band with any instrumental talent.

          However, in reality, Peter began studying classical piano at age nine. Around the age of 14, he was given a ukulele by famous folk singer Tom Glazer. Peter picked up the instrument, and quickly moved on to guitar, bass guitar and banjo, as well as various woodwind instruments.

          In 1962, he attended Carlton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He was the school radio station’s DJ and took part in various folk ensembles before flunking out. He then set his sights on becoming a folksinger in New York’s Greenwich Village.

          In 1963, Peter Thorkelson adapts the stage name Peter Tork and begins establishing himself as a folksinger around New York’s bohemian hotbed Greenwich Village. He briefly was a member of a group called Casey Anderson and the Realists. He also formed a partnership with Bruce Farwell, as Tork & Farwell. They were occasionally joined by Carol Hunter and were billed as Tork & Farwell + 1. He made regular appearances at about a dozen local coffee houses, often for “pass the hat” tips.

         For a few months in early 1964, Peter briefly formed a group with Stephen Stills called The Buffalo Fish. Later that year Tork became guitarist and banjo player for the Warner Brothers’ Records folk group, The Phoenix Singers. (They recorded for WB before Peter joined, so he is not on their records.) He toured with them for seven months, including a performance at that most prestigious of all gigs -- Carnegie Hall. Other acts on the bill that night include Johnny Cash, Phil Ochs and legendary bluesman Mississippi John Hurt. In October he made his television debut, as a member of that band, on Canada’s “Let’s Sing Out!” program. Shortly after he appeared with them in Denver, for a Lyndon Baines Johnson reelection fundraiser, he had “a falling out” with the group and was fired. He returned to Greenwich Village and his folk gigs at various cafes.

          By mid 1965, Tork decided to leave New York to seek fame and fortune on the West Coast. Outside of Las Vegas, his ’37 Chevy blew a rod and he had to hitchhike to Los Angeles. He moved in with his friend Susan Haffey, a waitress at The Golden Bear Club at Huntington Beach. Peter became a performer there, and more profitably, a dishwasher and bartender.