I'm pretty much with the review gallery on this one. Yes, it needed an editor and yes, Randi obviously doesn't show a lot of respect for Mike's music during his Monkees period (which I thought was his best work), but neither did Mike. It was just a `stepping stone` to him. And yes too, the exact goings on portrayed in this book were probably somewhat garbled, and the tone of the author's narrative did smack of some sour grapes. Also the gallery gripes about the author's disrespect toward Mike's early music (and The Monkees' too), I cannot forgive. She couldn't possibly have been there. Papa Gene's Blues, Mary Mary, You Just May be the One, Tapioca Tundra, King/Goffen, Neil Diamond, Nilsson, Boyce and Hart). It was the peak of something, too bad Mike couldn't see it.
I saw a little more upside in Ms. Massingill's detailed and very perspicacious accounting of everything Mike put out there over a lifetime in countless genres (especially what Randi did in the appendices, listing and cross-referencing categorically this mountain of work). The sheer volume of creativity when you see it listed like that is quite a marvel (though much this mountain was `ahead of its time`). All told I can see how Mike's lifelong followers could be critical of this book. But for those of us (like me) who primarily loved Mike's contribution to the Monkees, and largely lost track of him after `Joanne,` I was stunned at the areal view Randi gave us of everything he had done as he reached his life's `third act.` I also sensed from this manuscript that it's not easy being the biographer of an uncooperative subject. One other thing I can say in Randi's favor is that she's not the only one to describe Mike as an unreliable control freak responsible for killing many a golden goose. Everything I've read by the 3 of the other Monkees, plus Bert and Bob (the two producers who invented them), and Bobby Hart too (the surviving songwriter from Boyce and Hart) all characterized Michael as a cranky, self-absorbed malcontent who could not collaborate with anyone and was responsible for breaking up the Monkees. Mickey: When the two musicians talked the two actors into the mutiny plan (led by Mike) to ditch Kirshner, Boyce and Hart, and take `total control` of their music and be a real band from the Headquarters album on, Mickey (the actor) was the one who said, `That's like Leonard Nimoy saying he wants to become a real Vulcan...` 24 year old Mike Nesmith should have listened to him at the time!
The astonishing question I had after seeing the very sharp appendix data Randi provided, is how did Mike keep making flop after flop after flop, yet still came out of it with 3 (albeit consecutive) fortunes (and 3 wives). According to `Total Control` the reasons are: (1) The Monkees Fortune (Mike blew this 1st fortune all gone after he quit because they were never a real band), (2) The Rich mom who died early Fortune (Mike inherited the Liquid Paper Corp buyout), (3) The Sued-them-5-years PBS Fortune (and eventually won a mega-settlement). Mike was a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them...
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