Peter in 1964 (photo © Andrew Sandoval); in photo 2, the Phoenix Singers (from left to right: Roy Thompson, Arthur Williams and Ned Wright) are pictured at the October 1964 Denver campaign event mentioned below (photo by Steve Fitzgerald for the Messenger & Inquirer).
“One night, I was sitting around the Kettle of Fish, the private hang-out of the folk singers who live in the Village, and Peter came in with a big grin on his face. ‘Bruce,’ he yelled, ‘I got a job, a real job!’ And when he told me how Lance Wakely (one of the best guitarists on the scene then and now) had gotten him a job backing up the Phoenix Singers, I was really happy for Peter — and he, of course, was overjoyed.” - Bruce Farwell, 16’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967) “We worked with the Phoenix Singers for about seven months, and during the last couple of months there were bad vibrations in the air. Pete loved to clown around on stage and the Phoenix Singers didn’t dig that. Pete also disliked being ordered around or told what to do. These two elements clashed, and the fireworks that resulted were the following: It was in October 1964, and we had just finished an in-person, fund-raising concert for Lyndon B. Johnson in Denver. As I said, the pressure had been building for several months. Two of the Phoenix Singers didn’t want Pete in the group, but my buddy Ned wanted him to stay because he dug him musically. I had mixed feelings at the time. I agreed that musically Pete was excellent, but I felt that he had to cool it a bit on stage because there was a personality conflict between him and the two Phoenix Singers mentioned. […] [W]e got on the plane to New York. It was on the way from Colorado to New York, at 30,000 feet in the air, that the three Phoenix Singers had a meeting, and two against one (for Ned still dug Pete’s musicianship) they voted Tork out of the group. Peter was quiet for the whole flight, and I could tell he was not very happy. I don’t think he cared about the Phoenix Singers that much, but I think he cared about the security that the job had provided and the fun he had been having on the road. I stayed on with the Phoenix Singers for quite a while, and Pete went on to the old routine down in the Village.” - Lance Wakely, 16 Magazine, April 1967 (More about that Denver campaign event here.) “I played bass as an accompanist for a group called James Hendricks and Vanessa.” - Peter Tork, Off the Record with Steve Escobar
