A Monkee carries on: Micky Dolenz will share songs and stories at City Winery Pittsburgh
Courtesy of David Salidor
Since he hit 80 in March, it’s natural to wonder how Micky Dolenz is feeling now that he has passed that milestone.
“Hey, glad to be above ground,” Dolenz said with a laugh on the phone from his home in Los Angeles last month. “So far, so good.”
The fact that Dolenz turned 80 might well have been a poignant landmark for him and it certainly was for the legions of fans who latched onto the Monkees in the 1960s or discovered them in the decades that followed. Upon the death of guitarist Mike Nesmith in 2021, Dolenz became the last surviving Monkee.
Over the last couple of years, he has kept the Monkees flag flying with tribute shows to his departed comrades. But now, he explained that “it’s time to take off the black armband and move on,” so he is taking to the road with a new show, “Songs and Stories” where Dolenz looks back on a career that extends back to his days as a child star on the NBC-TV series “Circus Boy” in the 1950s.
Along the way, Dolenz not only recounts his adventures with the Monkees in the 1960s and beyond, but also his own solo work and some of the people he has encountered along the way, such as Paul McCartney, Elton John and Chuck Berry. During the show, Dolenz shows video clips and plays Monkees songs and other tunes.
“The songs are punctuated by cool stories,” he explained.
Dolenz will be singing those songs and telling those stories at City Winery Pittsburgh in two shows, at 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Sunday. It will be one of about 50 concerts Dolenz does every year. He explained that due to his age he is now “more selective” in what he undertakes.
Perhaps of all the Monkees, show business was in Dolenz’s blood from the very beginning. The son of two actors, Dolenz believes he performed in public for the first time when he was at Kennywood Park while on a promotional tour for “Circus Boy.”
“I had a pet elephant on the show and my dad chaperoned me on a press junket,” Dolenz remembered. Someone asked him to sing a song, and he took a stab at the Sheb Wooley novelty hit “The Purple People Eater” before an elephant came out of the wings.
“My first professional gig was opening for an elephant at Kennywood Park,” Dolenz said.
Years after the curtain came down on “Circus Boy,” Dolenz was among the 400 or so musicians and actors who responded to an ad in the Hollywood Reporter for four “folk and roll musicians” and “insane boys” for a television series for NBC-TV. Hatched by movie director Bob Rafelson and producer Bert Schneider and meant to have the same humor and anarchic spirit the Beatles brought to their movies “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!”, Dolenz was “the wacky drummer” who played music and embarked on various adventures with Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davy Jones. Thanks to “The Monkees,” Dolenz became a household name.
When the series debuted in September 1966, it was an immediate success. The group’s self-titled debut album landed at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and stayed here for 13 weeks. It was knocked out of the No. 1 spot by “More of the Monkees,” which had an 18-week run at the top. Two more No. 1 albums followed, and the group racked up three No. 1 singles – “I’m a Believer,” “Daydream Believer” and “Last Train to Clarksville.” The band’s first U.S. outing famously had Jimi Hendrix as an opening act until promoters realized the pairing was not compatible.
The Monkees burned bright and fast. The series ended in 1968 and the band followed suit two years later after a few albums failed to stir anywhere near the same level of interest as the work they made while they were living room fixtures. All the band members embarked on solo careers, none of which came close to the success of the Monkees, though Nesmith won critical acclaim for several country rock albums he made in the 1970s.
But the world wasn’t quite finished with the Monkees just yet. Younger audiences discovered the group when the series went into syndication in the 1970s and could be found on local television stations. Then, a renewed wave of Monkeemania arrived in the 1980s, leading Dolenz, Tork and Jones to revive the band – Nesmith sat it out – head back out on the road and make new music. In the years after, the Monkees toured frequently. There were occasional new albums, too. Following Jones’ death in 2012 and Tork’s in 2019, Nesmith and Dolenz criss-crossed America with a Monkees “farewell tour.” Their final performance was just a month before Nesmith’s death as a result of heart failure.
Outside of the Monkees, Dolenz has stayed busy. He has worked as a director and producer in television, done stage work, been a voice for cartoon characters, and has released several solo albums. His most recent work has included a tribute to Nesmith recorded in the midst of the COVID-19, and an EP where he covers songs by REM. The album “Live at the Troubadour” became available in November.
And, yes, aside from asking how he’s feeling, it’s natural now that Dolenz has reached octogenarian status to ask when he might be calling it a career. He admits to some “typical aches and pains,” but said he still likes performing.
“I’m like the Energizer Bunny,” he said. “The travel is tough, but the shows are easy. That’s why they call it playing.”
Additional information on the City Winery shows is available at citywinery.com.