Terrific song by the ex-Monkee from his 1973 album Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash.
Michael Nesmith: Some of Shelly’s Blues
Square
A compendium of musical delights by Alan and Margaret Ashworth
Terrific song by the ex-Monkee from his 1973 album Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash.
Terrific indeed! Maybe the best song from a really great, underrated songwriter (Not to mention country-rock pioneer).
Nez wrote this back in the late 60s, recorded it Nashville with the famed Nashville Cats as part of some fantastic sessions in 1968 intended for The Monkees (At this point, the group’s unity of 1967, winning the right to play on their albums, had splintered and Nez was looking ahead to his solo career).
Some fine songs from those Nashville sessions made the last couple of Monkees albums Nez appeared on (“Listen to the Band” and “Good Clean Fun” among them), but somehow “Shelly” never made the cut?
Linda Ronstadt and her Stone Poneys (Who’d previously scored a bit hit with Nez’s “Different Drum”) covered “Shelly,” and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band would have a minor hit with “Shelly” a few years after that.
But Nez didn’t release his version until 1973, and the original “Monkees” recording didn’t get released until the early ‘90s. Many others have covered this gem too. All of them are pretty great.
Thanks for that. I’ve been thinking for a while of doing an Off the Beaten Tracks on Papa Nes and this should spur me into action.