Bobby Hart, 86, co-wrote ‘Last Train to Clarksville’ and other hits for the Monkees

NEW YORK Bobby Hart a key part of the Monkees multimedia empire who teamed with Tommy Boyce on such hits as Last Train to Clarksville and I m Not Your Steppin Stone has died He was Hart died at his home in Los Angeles according to his friend and co-author Glenn Ballantyne He had been in poor vitality since latest his hip last year Boyce and Hart were a prolific and prosperous organization in the mid- s especially for the Monkees the made-for-television group promoted by Don Kirshner They wrote the Monkees theme song with its opening shot Here we come walkin down the street and enduring chant Hey hey we re the Monkees and their first No hit Last Train to Clarksville The Monkees eponymous million-selling debut album included six songs from Boyce and Hart who also served as producers and used their own backing musicians the Candy Store Prophets as session players I invariably credit them not only with writing various of our biggest hits but as producers being instrumental in creating the unique Monkee sound we all know and love the Monkees Micky Dolenz wrote in a foreword to Hart s memoir Psychedelic Bubblegum published in As Boyce and Hart grew in fame and the Monkees took more control of their work they pursued their own careers releasing the albums Test Patterns and I Wonder What She s Doing Tonite and appearing on such sitcoms as I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched They also were politically evolving They campaigned for Robert F Kennedy when he ran for president in and wrote the brassy L U V Let Us Vote in promotion of the th Amendment which in lowered the voting age from to Their other songs included the Monkees melancholy I Wanna Be Free and the theme to the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives They were covered by everyone from Dean Martin Little Lovely One to the Sex Pistols I m Not Your Steppin Stone In the s and s Hart managed several hits with other collaborators and even contributed material to another TV act the Partridge Family He worked with Austin Roberts on Over You an Oscar-nominated ballad performed by Betty Buckley in Tender Mercies and with Dick Eastman on My Secret Didja Gitit Yet for New Edition He and Bryce toured with Dolenz and fellow Monkee Davy Jones in the s put out the album Dolenz Jones Boyce Hart and received renewed attention when the Monkees enjoyed a comeback in the s Boyce who died in and Hart were the subjects of a documentary The Guys Who Wrote Em Hart was married twice majority of late to singer Mary Ann Hart and had two children from his first marriage Related Articles Popular s actor Loni Anderson of the hit TV series WKRP in Cincinnati has died Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg has died after battling cancer He was a minister s son born Robert Luke Harshman in Phoenix Arizona In his memoir he remembered himself as a shy kid with a strong desire to distinguish himself as he wrote in Psychedelic Bubblegum Music was the answer By high school he had learned piano guitar and the Hammond B- organ He also started his own amateur radio station eventually adding a console turntables and microphones After graduating from high school and serving in the Army reserves he settled in Los Angeles in the late s hoping first to become a disc jockey but soon working as a songwriter and session musician His name shortened to Bobby Hart he toured as a member of Teddy Randazzo and the Dazzlers and with Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein wrote Hurt So Bad a hit for Little Anthony and the Imperials later covered by Linda Ronstadt He also befriended Boyce a singer and songwriter from Charlottesville Virginia with a very unique personality spontaneous and extroverted yet very cool at the same time Boyce and Hart helped write the top hit Come a Little Bit Closer for Jay and the Americans and were a strong enough combination that Kirshner recruited them for his Screen Gems songwriting factory They were assigned to the Monkees Requested to come up with songs for a quartet openly modeled on the Beatles they devised a twangy guitar line similar to the one for Paperback Writer and wrote Last Train to Clarksville a chart topper in When Kirshner suggested a song with a girl s name in the title they turned out Valleri and reached the top For the show s theme song a stroll outside was enough Boyce began strumming his guitar and I joined in by snapping my fingers making noises with my mouth that simulated an open closed hi-hat cymbal Hart wrote in his memoir We had created the perfect recipe for inspiration and started intonating about just what we were doing Walkin down the street Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter