Michael Nesmith Memoir, Companion Album Set

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Michael Nesmith in his Monkees days

Rhino Entertainment will release Infinite Tuesday: Autobiographical Riffs, an audio companion to Michael Nesmith’s autobiography, on April 14. The 14-track set—which shares its title with the book—will feature music Nesmith recorded both with the Monkees and the First National Band, and during his solo career. The compilation will be available both on CD and digitally.

In the memoir, Nesmith retraces his journey from his childhood in Dallas, where his single mother Bette invented Liquid Paper, to the set of The Monkees in Los Angeles, as well as his pioneering work in music video and virtual reality.

The set flows in mostly chronological order, beginning in 1965 when Nesmith recorded “The New Recruit” using the pseudonym Michael Blessing. According to Rhino’s press release, “Monkee-mania took over a year later and he spent the next four years making history and music with the quartet. Two songs by the Monkees included here neatly bookend Nesmith’s tenure in the group, with ‘Papa Gene’s Blues’ from the band’s 1966 self-titled debut, and ‘Listen to the Band’ from The Monkees Present (1970), Nesmith’s last album with group for more than 20 years.”

Related: A chat with Michael Nesmith

The collection focuses mainly on the numerous solo albums that Nesmith recorded during the ’70s. He started in 1970 with Magnetic South and Loose Salute, country-rock albums that featured Nesmith and the First National Band, a group he collaborated with for several years. Infinite Tuesday features a song from each album: “Silver Moon” from Loose Salute and “Joanne” from Magnetic South, Nesmith’s first Top 40 hit as a solo artist. The album also includes his recording of his “Different Drum,” a 1967 hit for the Stone Poneys and their 21-year-old singer Linda Ronstadt.

Rhino’s Michael Nesmith collection

The release continues: “Nesmith embraced a multimedia approach to making music in 1975 to create The Prison, an album that was to be played as the ‘soundtrack’ to a novella that came with the music. Represented on this set by ‘Opening Theme-Life, The Unsuspecting Captive,’ that album was also the first released on Nesmith’s record label, Pacific Arts.”

Then in 1979 Nesmith created PopClips, the first-ever music-video program, which aired two years before the dawn of MTV. That same year, Nesmith also recorded Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma, which featured “Cruisin’” and “Light,” which also appear on this set. Nesmith made videos for those songs and others and released them in 1981 as Elephant Parts. A mix of comedy sketches and music videos, this video album won the very first Grammy Award for Music Video.

Infinite Tuesday ends with a pair of tracks from albums released after Nesmith returned from an extended recording hiatus: “Laugh Kills Lonesome” from …Tropical Campfires… (1992), and “Rays,” the title song from his 2005 album.

To pre-order the CD, go here. And to pre-order Nesmith’s autobiography, go here.

Infinite Tuesday: Autobiographical Riffs Track Listing