Michael Nesmith aunts, and grandmother. Bette took temporary jobs ranging from clerical work to graphical design and developed very good secretarial skills, including shorthand and, auspiciously, touch typing. When Nesmith was 13, his mother invented the typewriter correction fluid later known commercially as Liquid Paper. Over the next 25 years she built the Liquid Paper Corporation into a multimillion-dollar international company, which she finally sold to Gillette in 1979 for US$48 million. She died a few months later, aged 56. Nesmith was enrolled in the Dallas public school system in 1949, aged 6. Describing himself as an indifferent student, he nevertheless participated
Michael Nesmith to put together a band. Nesmith said he would be interested only if noted pedal steel player Orville "Red" Rhodes was part of the project; Nesmith's musical partnership with Rhodes continued until Rhodes's death in 1995. The new band was christened Michael Nesmith and the First National Band and went on to record three albums for RCA Records in 1970. Nesmith has been considered one of the pioneers of country rock. He also had moderate commercial success with the First National Band. Their second single, "Joanne," hit No. 21 on the Billboard chart, No. 17 on Cashbox, and No.4 in