The Monkees minute believes that we are somehow this accomplished rock 'n' roll band that got their own television show. ... you putting the record out like this is just beyond the pale." Within a few months of their debut album, Music Supervisor Don Kirshner would be forcibly dismissed and the Monkees would take control as a real band. The Monkees' first single, "Last Train to Clarksville" b/w "Take a Giant Step", was released in August 1966, just weeks prior to the TV broadcast debut. In conjunction with the first broadcast of the television show on September 12, 1966, on the NBC
Midnight Train to Georgia would leave LA on the midnight plane - which brought the idea of a "superstar, but he didn't get far." Gospel/soul singer Cissy Houston recorded the song as "Midnite Train to Georgia" (spelled "Midnight ..." on the UK single) released in 1973. Her version can also be found on her albums "Midnight Train to Georgia: The Janus Years" (1995), and the reissue of her 1970 debut album, "Presenting Cissy Houston" originally released on Janus Records. Weatherly's publisher forwarded the song to Gladys Knight and the Pips, who followed Houston's lead and kept the title "Midnight Train to Georgia." The single