Monkees: Here we come — to Lakewood, minus the late Davy Jones

Don’t look for a Tupac-style hologram of Davy Jones when the surviving Monkees play the Lakewood Civic Auditorium Saturday night.

Micky Dolenz laughed at the notion in a call to his Los Angeles home. Even for a made-up TV band dubbed “the Prefab Four,” the idea seemed pretty silly. But that doesn’t mean Dolenz, Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork — the three remaining Monkees — are going to forget their friend and former castmate on the television show that ran from 1966 to 1968. The band itself remained together until 1971.

“We’re not trying to replace him, but we are going to pay tribute to him,” Dolenz said.

Jones was 66 when he died last February of a heart attack after falling ill while caring for his beloved horses at his ranch in Florida.

Jones’ sudden death didn’t launch plans for the tour that comes to town Saturday, but it did spur things on, Dolenz said. The guys had been kicking the idea around for a while. Even Nesmith, who hadn’t joined a reunion tour since the late ’90s, had voiced interest.

“But when Davy passed, that changed everything,” Dolenz said. “We ended up in L.A. for a memorial service. It was a family and friends thing, and it sort of evolved into this 12-city tour. But it’s not being called ‘The Davy Jones Memorial Tour.’ ”

The band — and Dolenz bristles good-naturedly if you call the Monkees anything but a band — has sold more than 65 million albums worldwide since being cast for the TV show about a group in what was always a futile search for fame and fortune.

Jones was an integral part of that success as a singer, but “Mike, Peter and I did 90 percent of the playing,” Dolenz said. The guys’ musical abilities were key to the success of the show, and probably is the reason the legacy survives, he said. “It was about the search for fame, and the amount of hard work that would make [the band] famous,” he said. “The difference is we could actually do it.”

“The Monkees” television show actually was a precursor to programs like “Glee,” Dolenz said. The actors on that show can sing and dance, which gives “Glee” the dimension it has. Both the current hit and its 1960s predecessor are more musical theater than anything else.

That makes sense, as Jones came to the casting call with a Tony-nominated turn as the Artful Dodger in “Oliver” on his resume. From 1956-57,[wmc: cq/imdb: ] Dolenz was Corky in the children’s show “Circus Boy.” Tork was a contemporary of Stephen Stills — who auditioned for the part Tork won — while in New York, and plays seven different instruments. He’s the only Monkee who played on all the band’s albums. Nesmith, who was a West Coast session musician and had put out several 45s before he was cast, was producing tracks for the show even before it aired.

Nesmith’s back story is pretty interesting — his mother, Bette, invented Liquid Paper, the typewriter correction fluid, and he himself is credited with the idea for what became MTV.

“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” Dolenz said. “It just happens.”

The music of the Monkees survives the test of time in part because of the talent of the castmember bandmates, and in part because of the stable of songwriters. That included Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka, Carole King, Carole Bayer Sager, Tommy Boyce and partner Bobby Hart, Harry Nilsson and more.

So why did it all come to an end? Because Don Kirshner, who oversaw the music, wanted the Monkees to record a song that eventually became famous for the Archies: “Sugar, Sugar.”

“That started the palace revolt,” said Dolenz, who laughingly admitted the tune now is part of his own solo show, and that he loves it.

Sweet.

via Monkees: Here we come — to Lakewood, minus the late Davy Jones | cleveland.com.