page_title: Peter Tork
section_title: Monkees reunions, other bands, and activities
hierarchical_section_title: Peter Tork / Monkees reunions, other bands, and activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Peter Tork at Family Gras, Metairie, Louisiana, January 2016.
context_page_description: Peter Halsten Thorkelson, known professionally as Peter Tork, was an American musician, composer, and actor who was best known as the keyboardist and bass guitarist of the Monkees.
  Tork grew up in Connecticut and in the mid-1960s as part of the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York City where he befriended musician Stephen Stills. After moving to Los Angeles with Stills, he was recruited for the musical television sitcom The Monkees. The success of the show made him a teen idol from 1966 to 1968. He would later record his debut solo album, Stranger Things Have Happened, in 1994, touring with his blues band Shoe Suede Blues.
context_section_description: In 1986, after a 1985 tour with Jones in Australia, Tork rejoined fellow Monkees Jones and Dolenz for a highly successful 20th-anniversary reunion tour (Nesmith was not interested in a reunion). Tork and Dolenz recorded three news songs for a greatest hits release. The three Monkees recorded Pool It!. A decade later, all four group members recorded Justus, the first recording with all four members since 1968. The quartet performed live in the United Kingdom in 1997, but for several years following, only the trio of Tork, Dolenz, and Jones toured together. The trio of Monkees parted ways in 2001 following a public feud, but they reunited in 2011 for a series of 45th-anniversary concerts in England and the United States.
  Since 1986, Tork had intermittently toured with his former bandmates and also played with his bands, the Peter Tork Project and Shoe Suede Blues. In 1991, he formed a band called the Dashboard Saints and played at a pizza restaurant in Guerneville, California. In 1994, he released his first album-length solo project, Stranger Things Have Happened, which featured brief appearances by Dolenz and Nesmith. In 1996, he collaborated on an album called Two Man Band with James Lee Stanley. The duo followed up in 2001 with a second release, Once Again.
  In 2001, Tork took time out from touring to appear in a leading role in the short film Mixed Signals, written and directed by John Graziano.
  In 2002, Tork resumed working with his band Shoe Suede Blues. The band performed original blues music, Monkees' covers (including blues versions), covers of classic blues hits by greats such as Muddy Waters, and shared the stage with bands such as Captain Zig. The band toured extensively in 2006-2007 following the release of the album Cambria Hotel.
  Tork also had a pair of appearances in the role of Topanga Lawrence's father Jedidiah Lawrence on the sitcom Boy Meets World. In his second appearance in 1995, he joined Jones and  Dolenz in Season 3, Episode 8 ("Rave On"), although they did not appear as the Monkees. Tork was again cast as Jedidiah Lawrence, while Jones was Reginald Fairfield, and Dolenz's character was Gordy. At the program's climax, the three took the stage together to perform the Buddy Holly song "Not Fade Away" and the Temptations' "My Girl." As an inside joke, actor Dave Madden (best known as band manager Reuben Kincaid on The Partridge Family), cameoed as a manager who appeared, wanting to manage the "new" group, telling them that they "could be bigger than the Beatles." Purportedly, both Nesmith and Pattie Boyd (former wife of Beatle George Harrison) attended the taping.
  Tork was also a guest character on 7th Heaven. In 1995, he appeared as himself on the show Wings, bidding against Crystal Bernard's character for the Monkeemobile. In 1999, he appeared as the leader of a wedding band in The King of Queens in Season 1, Episode 13 ("Best Man").
  In early 2008, Tork wrote an online advice and info column called "Ask Peter Tork" for the webzine The Daily Panic.
  In 2011, he joined Dolenz and Jones for An Evening with The Monkees: The 45th Anniversary Tour in 2011.
  In 2012, Tork joined Dolenz and Nesmith on a Monkees tour in honor of the 45th anniversary of their album Headquarters, as well as in tribute to the late Jones. The trio would tour again in 2013 and 2014. In 2016, Tork toured with Dolenz as the Monkees, in what would be his final tour before his death in 2019. Nesmith also played at some of the concerts.
caption: Tork in 2016
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