The Story Behind the 1960s Hit Songwriting Duo Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart

The 1960s has the duo of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to thank for some of the biggest pop-rock hits to come out of the decade. The hit songwriting duo is behind some of The Monkees’ greatest hits including “Last Train to Clarksville.” But they had multiple claims to fame before and after they were topping the charts with The Monkees and were even singers in their own right.

Both born in 1939, Boyce was a native of Charlottesville, Virginia, while Hart was raised in Phoenix, Arizona. Though they were from opposite ends of the country, the two came together through their mutual love of music and desire to make it a career that brought them to Los Angeles. After high school, Hart entered the Army, later moving to LA to pursue a career as a singer where Boyce was living and trying to make it as a songwriter.

The latter’s perseverance led to his first big break in 1959 as a co-writer on Fats Domino’s “Be My Guest.” According to the 1986 book, Behind The Hits: Inside Stories of Classic Pop and Rock and Roll, Boyce waited for hours outside of Domino’s hotel room to pitch the song and give him a demo. His persistence paid off, as “Be My Guest” peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Boyce’s first hit as a songwriter. This set the stage for a pair of successful singles for Curtis Lee, Boyce co-writing his 1961 hits, “Pretty Little Angel Eyes” and “Under the Moon of Love.”

In the midst of this success as a songwriter, Boyce met Hart in 1959. The two teamed up as songwriters, penning such hits as “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” by Paul Revere and the Raiders and “Come a Little Bit Closer” by Jay & the Americans, in addition to co-writing the theme music to the soap opera, Days of Our Lives. They had a major career breakthrough in 1965 when they were tapped to write songs for The Monkees, the fictional band of Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork for the NBC series of the same name. The theme song from the show, “Last Train to Clarksville” and “I Wanna Be Free” are among the hits the duo wrote for the group. In addition to writing, Boyce and Hart were also heavily involved in the recording process, singing backing tracks alongside the session musicians that The Monkees would sing over.

Their success with The Monkees served as a launching pad for their own career as artists. From 1967 to 1969, Boyce and Hart released seven singles off three albums. Their most famous hit was “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight” in 1967, which reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. After The Monkees disbanded, Dolenz and Jones joined forces with Boyce and Hart to form a quartet in 1976. It was short-lived, lasting less than a year and releasing only one album.

“We had very different vocal styles,” Hart explained to Medium about him and Boyce. “Tommy was just really kind of commercial pop. I was leaning much more toward soul and R&B influences … Because of our success with The Monkees, we had these offers to be artists. When we were asked to record together as a duet team, I was against it. I fought it for some time as we always wanted to be artists in our own right. Nevertheless, we accepted the opportunity to work together, and we made it work.”

Boyce and Hart later pursued solo careers, reuniting in the 1980s when The Monkees saw a resurgence in 1986. But Boyce’s life came to a tragic end in 1994 after struggling with depression and later suffering from a brain aneurysm. Hart is still alive in 2023 at the age of 84.

Photo L-R: Tommy Boyce, Davy Jones, Bobby Hart and Micky Dolenz (Photo by Chris Walter/WireImage)