Micky Dolenz

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MICKY DOLENZ MONKEES AROUND WITH A VERSATILE SOLO CAREER

by Ernie Thomas

Over the years, Micky Dolenz has hosted his own radio show, directed and produced television and films on two continents, recorded children’s albums, written books, created and developed television series, and starred in a hit Broadway musical.

In short, Micky Dolenz is an entertainment renaissance man, capable of doing the whole gamut well enough to find success in every aspect of the business.

Yet he will forever be best known as the singing drummer of the Pre-Fab Four, –– The Monkees –– who parlayed a low-budget television sit-com modeled after the old Marx Brothers film short, into a recording and touring career that has lasted forty years.

Dolenz was already a veteran entertainer by the time he beat out more than 400 other hopefuls, signed on with The Monkees, and took his place in pop culture history.

“Yeah, I guess it’s my genes,” laughed the 60-year-old as he chatted with me long-distance while cruising down a California highway. “Both my mother and father were in show business. My father was an actor and a singer who did light opera. My mother was an actress and singer, until she got married and had kids. So I grew up in a show biz family. I just found some old home movies of me doing a screen test when I was six years old.”

Dolenz was a nationally known television star by age 10, as the lead character of the hit NBC-TV series, “Circus Boy,” which ran from 1956 to 1958.

“Being a child actor can be tough sometimes, but it was a great experience,” he recalled. “It’s hard to make the transition from child actor to teenager in the business. You’re no longer a cute little kid and you’re not yet an adult. You’re this kind of pimply little bundle of hormones that is a has-been at age 14.”

Dolenz speaks only from watching friends go through that process. “My parents wisely took me out of the business and put me back into a normal life and sent me to a normal school. I started doing a little bit of acting on the side when I started college to be an architect. I figured I’d fall back on show biz if I couldn’t make it as an architect,” he laughed.

Long before they made a Monkee out of him, Dolenz was rocking in local bands. “Being the guy with the guitar on the beach or at parties, really does get you attention from the girls,” he laughed. “I started playing guitar a little and then singing. I had a band called, The Missing Links, and another called Micky & The One-Nighters,” he laughed.

“I only do many 20 or so shows a year, because I still love going out and singing rock ‘n’ roll from time to time,” he said. “I really only started doing this solo concert show of mine a couple of years ago, so it’s still pretty new and exciting.”

Dolenz generally does between 75 and 90 minutes on stage with a nine piece group, that includes horns and his sister Coco Dolenz, who sang background on some Monkees hits.

The Monkees are well represented in Dolenz’ live show, as one might expect. “I do all the big Monkees hits and I do them just as they were recorded. I remain very faithful to the sound of the old records,” he stressed. “When we’re not doing Monkees hits, I go back to my past, to songs that have a connection to me.”

For instance, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Good” was the song he performed while auditioning for The Monkees. “All the songs that aren’t Monkees hits are introduced with a little story, so people understand why we are doing them,” he said. “Like when we play ‘Purple Haze’ and I tell people about Jimi Hendrix being The Monkees opening act.”

Coco switches places with brother Micky to sing lead on their treatment of Linda Ronstadt’s “Different Drum,” a tune originally written by Dolenz’s fellow Monkee, Michael Nesmith.

“I wasn’t even planning on doing any live shows this summer because my radio gig was keeping me too busy,” he said the morning drive he hosted for New York’s oldies station, WCBS-FM. That gig ended abruptly this month. “Yeah, the same day they pulled the plug on you there in Chicago (at WJMK), they pulled it on us in New York and went with a ‘Jack’ format.”

“I had a great time working with everyone at WCBS-FM. It was a lot of fun. I’ve had a couple of calls from some of the satellite (radio) companies, but I’m not really sure that radio is what I want to do again right now,” he said.

“The main thrust of my interests right now are to do Broadway, or Off-Broadway or even regional theatre,” he said. “One of the first stage productions I ever did was right there in the Chicago area at the old Pheasant Run Theatre back in the early 1970s.”

“I did Elton John’s musical, “Aida”. I was in the national touring company for six months and then went to New York in 2004 and did it on Broadway for eight months,” he said. It was while doing an interview about “Aida” on WCBS-FM that he was offered the gig as morning drive host.

“I’ve been doing some auditions and I’m up for a couple of [Broadway] shows right now. I’m just waiting to hear back. One of them is in Los Angeles, one is on the road, and the other one is in Pittsburgh. That’s probably what I want to focus on right now, because I really like doing stage work. It’s a lot of fun and the hours are good.”

Dolenz also has a couple of television projects in the early stages of development. “I’m working on a variety of things that I’ve co-created or created –– a reality show, a sit-com, a children’s show, and an animated show. Doing the radio show slowed me down for a little while, so now I’ve got a lot going on.”

He recently completed a children’s book that he expects will publish by the year’s end. “I’m kind of all over the board,” he laughed.

“In the end, it all comes down to the level of quality of a project. I’d rather be directing a great little film, than acting in a lousy play or vice versa. The medium that I work in is not as important as the quality of what I’m working on,” he said. “I have always just followed my nose and gone with my gut when it came to my career, and that method has not failed me yet.”

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