NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Songwriter Bobby Hart, a key part of the Monkees\u2019 multimedia empire who teamed with Tommy Boyce on such hits as \u201cLast Train to Clarksville\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m Not Your Steppin\u2019 Stone,\u201d has died. He was 86.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Hart died at his home in Los Angeles, according to his friend and co-author, Glenn Ballantyne. He had been in poor health since breaking his hip last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Boyce and Hart were a prolific and successful duo in the mid-1960s, especially for the Monkees, the made-for-television group promoted by Don Kirshner. They wrote the Monkees\u2019 theme song, with its opening shot, \u201cHere we come, walkin\u2019 down the street,\u201d and enduring chant, \u201cHey, hey, we\u2019re the Monkees,\u201d and their first No. 1 hit, \u201cLast Train to Clarksville.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Monkees\u2019 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI always credit them not only with writing many of our biggest hits, but, as producers, being instrumental in creating the unique Monkee sound we all know and love,\u201d the Monkees\u2019 Micky Dolenz wrote in a foreword to Hart\u2019s memoir, \u201cPsychedelic Bubblegum,\u201d published in 2015.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As Boyce and Hart grew in fame and the Monkees took more control of their work, they pursued their own careers, releasing the albums \u201cTest Patterns\u201d and \u201cI Wonder What She\u2019s Doing Tonite\u201d and appearing on such sitcoms as \u201cI Dream of Jeannie\u201d and \u201cBewitched.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n They were also politically active. They campaigned for Robert F. Kennedy when he ran for president in 1968 and wrote the brassy \u201cL.U.V. (Let Us Vote)\u201d in support of the 26th Amendment, which in 1971 lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. Their other songs included the Monkees\u2019 melancholy \u201cI Wanna Be Free\u201d and the theme to the daytime soap opera \u201cDays of Our Lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n They were covered by everyone from Dean Martin (\u201cLittle Lovely One\u201d) to the Sex Pistols (\u201cI\u2019m Not Your Steppin\u2019 Stone\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the 1970s and \u201980s, Hart managed several hits with other collaborators and even contributed material to another TV act, the Partridge Family. He worked with Austin Roberts on \u201cOver You,\u201d an Oscar-nominated ballad performed by Betty Buckley in \u201cTender Mercies,\u201d and with Dick Eastman on \u201cMy Secret (Didja Gitit Yet?)\u201d for New Edition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He and Bryce toured with Dolenz and fellow Monkee Davy Jones in the \u201970s, put out the album \u201cDolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart\u201d and received renewed attention when the Monkees enjoyed a comeback in the 1980s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Boyce, who died in 1994, and Hart were the subjects of a 2014 documentary \u201cThe Guys Who Wrote \u2019Em.\u201d Hart was married twice, most recently to singer Mary Ann Hart, and had two children from his first marriage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He was a minister\u2019s son, born Robert Luke Harshman in Phoenix, Arizona. In his memoir, he remembered himself as a shy kid with a \u201cstrong desire to distinguish\u201d himself, as he wrote in \u201cPsychedelic Bubblegum.\u201d Music was the answer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n By high school, he had learned piano, guitar and the Hammond B-3 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 1950s, hoping first to become a disc jockey, but soon working as a songwriter and session musician.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n His name shortened to Bobby Hart, he toured as a member of Teddy Randazzo and the Dazzlers, and with Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein wrote \u201cHurt So Bad,\u201d a hit for Little Anthony and the Imperials later covered by Linda Ronstadt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He also befriended Boyce, a singer and songwriter from Charlottesville, Virginia, with a \u201cvery unusual personality, spontaneous and extroverted, yet very cool at the same time.\u201d Boyce and Hart helped write the top 10 hit \u201cCome a Little Bit Closer\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 20 Years Of<\/span>Free<\/span>Journalism<\/span><\/p>\n Your Support<\/span>Fuels<\/span>Our Mission<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Your Support<\/span>Fuels<\/span>Our Mission<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/68c7f59d1800002c848c7f21.jpeg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale&format=webp)
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