Hey, Hey, It’s Mike Nesmith’s T.J. Yearbook (And a Concert in London, Recorded in ’75)

While we wait for some return calls, and a council meeting, allow me to direct your attention to these two separate but quite related items. First off: A Friend of Unfair Park — and long-ago Thomas Jefferson High School classmate — points out that someone’s selling a copy of the ’61 yearbook on eBay for a quite-whopping $129.99. So happens that’s one of the Documents featuring none other than Mike Nesmith, who began his career as a performer whilst a T.J. Rebel.

Which reminds me: At week’s end I found over on the Big O a ’75 Nesmith concert recorded in London, with and without his crack band. Because for those who think him nothing more than a Monkee and maker of Elephant Parts, the son of Liquid Paper also had a prolific career in the mid-’70s as a maker of slightly off, willfully weird but highly listenable country music — outlaw country, but any definition, which is strange since Nesmith acknowledges he never was fond of C&W.

“Anybody with a Texas accent sings Aida, doesn’t make any difference, sounds like a country-western tune,” he tells the audience. “It’s the nature of being born and raised in Texas with people who talk like that — you tend to absorb it.” Doesn’t hurt here that Nesmith is backed by Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks, otherwise known as Fairport Convention’s rhythm section.