Monkees member Peter Tork dies at age 77

Peter Tork, who played bass and keyboards with The Monkees, has died at the age of 77. According to The Washington Post, Tork died on Feb. 21. His death was confirmed by his sister, Anne Thorkelson.

Tork appeared with the rest of The Monkees — Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, and Davy Jones, who passed away in 2012 — on two seasons of the band’s eponymous TV show in the late ’60s and in the 1968 film, Head. During this period, the group enjoyed a string of hits, including “Daydream Believer,” “I’m A Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You,” and “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone.”

“The songs that we got [in the ‘60s] were really songs of some vigor and substance,” Tork told EW in 2016. “‘(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone’ is not peaches and cream. It comes down hard on the subject, poor girl. And the weight of the song is indicated by the fact that the Sex Pistols covered it. Anybody trying to write ‘‘60s songs’ now thinks that you have to write ’59th St. Bridge.’ Which is an okay song, but has not got a lot of guts. ‘Stepping Stone’ has guts.”

Tork was the first member to leave the band, at the end of the ’60s, but participated in reunions, starting in the mid-’80s. In 1994, he released a solo album, Stranger Things Have Happened.

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