Ep. 38 - BOBBY HART ("Last Train to Clarksville")

The legendary songwriting team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart found early success with songs such as “Lazy Elsie Molly,” which was a Top 10 R&B hit for Chubby Checker, “Come a Little Bit Closer,” which was a Top 5 pop hit for Jay & The Americans, and the instrumental theme song for the long-running soap opera, Days of Our Lives. The pair are best known, however, for writing and producing more than 20 songs for The Monkees, including “Last Train to Clarksville,” “(Theme From) The Monkees,” “I Wanna Be Free,” “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” “She,” “Words,” and “Valleri.” As artists, the Grammy nominated duo found success in the late 1960s with the self-penned Top 40 hits “Out & About,” “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight,” and “Alice Long (You’re Still My Favorite Girlfriend).” Bobby Hart wrote a number of hit singles apart from Tommy Boyce, including “Hurt So Bad,” which was a hit for Little Anthony & The Imperials in 1965 before finding subsequent chart success with the Letterman, Jackie DeShannon, and Linda Ronstadt, who made it a Top 10 pop hit in 1980. He also wrote Helen Reddy’s #1 single “Keep on Singing,” as well as Lane Brody’s #15 country hit “Over You,” which was included in the film Tender Mercies and earned Bobby Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations in 1983. He continued to score on the R&B and pop charts into the 1980s with New Edition’s “My Secret” and Robbie Nevil’s “Dominoes.” Most recently, the Monkees recorded Boyce & Hart’s “Whatever’s Right” on their critically acclaimed 2016 comeback album, Good Times. In 2015 Bobby published his autobiography, Psychedelic Bubble Gum: Boyce & Hart, The Monkees, and Turning Mayhem into Miracles.