{"id":23929,"date":"2022-10-25T05:30:44","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T09:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23929"},"modified":"2022-10-26T08:11:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T12:11:48","slug":"dolenz-jones-boyce-hart-remembering-the-feeling-part-2-of-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/25\/dolenz-jones-boyce-hart-remembering-the-feeling-part-2-of-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart: Remembering the Feeling (Part 2 of 5)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Continued from Part One<\/a>\u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n

Jennings\u2019 boyfriend at the time was none other than Bobby Hart. \u201cWe invited Claudia\u2019s masseuse to come for Thanksgiving dinner,\u201d Hart recalls. \u201cAnd she said, \u2018Can I bring my son? He would love to be in the music business!\u2019\u201d When Hart met deWalden \u2013 whom he characterizes as \u201cthis flamboyant Italian man\u201d \u2013 he took an instant liking to him. On learning that deWalden spent a lot of time in the Far East, he made him an offer: \u201cI\u2019ll tell you what,\u201d Hart told deWalden. \u201cI\u2019ll give you two or three songs that I publish. See what you can do with them in Singapore and Hong Kong or wherever.\u201d DeWalden did just that, setting up publishing deals for Hart\u2019s songs in that part of the world. \u201cHe started getting cuts for me,\u201d Hart explains. \u201cAnd that was the beginning of his long and successful music publishing career.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about music publishing,\u201d deWalden admits. \u201cBobby taught me everything. The moment I met him, I saw immediately what a great person he is. He’s a person you can trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

On one of his frequent trips to the Pacific Rim, deWalden found himself engaged in conversation with some Japanese music promoters. Learning of his association with Bobby Hart, one of them made a suggestion: \u201cIt would be great if you could ask The Monkees to get back together and come and do a tour in Japan.\u201d DeWalden agreed to bring the idea to the long-split group. But by 1974 the four former Monkees were unlikely to find consensus. \u201cTwo of them said yes,\u201d deWalden says, referring to Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones. \u201cThe other two said, \u2018Absolutely not.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Hart recalls reaching out to Dolenz on deWalden\u2019s behalf. \u201cI called him, and he said, \u2018Nesmith doesn\u2019t want to have anything to do with The Monkees, and we don\u2019t even know where Peter [Tork] is!\u2019\u201d For their parts, Dolenz and Jones had of late been doing some concert appearances as a duo. But in 1975, two members wouldn’t be considered a Monkees reunion.<\/p>\n

\"\"Yet sensing a potentially lucrative and rewarding opportunity, deWalden wasn\u2019t about to give up. \u201cI\u2019m the one who came up with the idea,\u201d he says, an assertion backed today by Hart. \u201cI said, \u2018Why don\u2019t we do a tour of Southeast Asia with Tommy and Bobby and Micky and Davy?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart met with deWalden at a Sunset Strip restaurant owned by Dolenz. \u201cWe had lunch,\u201d Hart recalls, \u201cand we had such a great time! We hadn\u2019t seen much of each other in the past eight years.\u201d He says that the consensus was, \u201cWell, if the money\u2019s there and they\u2019re offering, then sure. We\u2019re up for something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeWalden went to work putting together a Southeast Asia concert itinerary for the following year. But there was a more immediate matter at hand. \u201cThe first thing we did,\u201d says Bobby Hart, \u201cwas ask Tommy: \u2018See if we can get Keith to put a band together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guitarist and band leader Keith Allison already had a massive r\u00e9sum\u00e9 when he received the call. The Texas-born musician had been a member of the post-Buddy Holly lineup of The Crickets, led by Allison\u2019s cousin, drummer Jerry Allison. After kicking around the American southeast with the likes of Ray Peterson and Johnny Rivers \u2013 often crossing paths with friend, college classmate and fellow Texan Mike Nesmith \u2013 Allison moved to Los Angeles. As a solo artist, he would open for the Rolling Stones twice, and played often on Boyce and Hart demo recordings. He was \u201cdiscovered\u201d one day when he went to get a voucher for payment on some recent session work. Arriving at the Whisky A Go Go, he found Boyce and Hart involved in the taping of a new television show. \u201cI saw all these film trucks,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI walked in, I looked up, and I saw Dick Clark<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark saw him, and was struck both by his charisma and his passing resemblance to Paul McCartney. Within days, Allison was a cast member of Clark\u2019s newest show, the five-days-a-week Where the Action Is<\/i>. Co-starring on the show with \u201chouse band\u201d Paul Revere and the Raiders, he became fast friends with the group (whom he had known since meeting them on tour in Hawaii years earlier) and eventually playing \u2013 uncredited \u2013 on many of their hits.<\/p>\n

\"\"Allison toured with the Raiders for years, playing his own set before the Revolutionary-costumed band took the stage. By the late \u201860s, he had joined the group as bassist, and with singer Mark Lindsay Allison helmed the group\u2019s work in the studio. The Raiders\u2019 major-label run came to an end in 1974 when both Lindsay and Allison left the group. Allison \u2013 who as a highly skilled and easy-to-get-along-with player \u2013 was always in demand, and immediately found himself on tour with old friend Johnny Rivers.<\/p>\n

And he had long been close with Dolenz and Jones. \u201cBy that time, Davy had moved to Santa Barbara,\u201d Allison recalled, \u201cand he kept a room at my house in Hollywood.\u201d Allison recalled that it was Jones who first brought the idea of becoming DJB&H\u2019s band leader to him. \u201cDavy said to me, \u2018Cowboy, if you\u2019re doing it, I\u2019m in. Otherwise no.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Boyce had a group already, and Allison scheduled rehearsals with them at SIR in Hollywood. And on June 21, 1975 Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart made their public debut onstage at an amusement park, Six Flags Over Mid-America, near St. Louis, Missouri. \u201cWe walked onstage,\u201d recalled Allison, \u201cand we all looked at each other and said, \u2018Holy shit.\u2019 It was like the glory days of ten years earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bobby Hart smiles at the memory. \u201cWe did more than one show that day,\u201d he recalls. \u201cBut when you added them up, it was 26,000 people. Somebody said, \u2018Oh, this<\/i> is an audience.\u2019\u201d It was an auspicious start to a tour billed as \u201cThe Great Golden Hits of The Monkees – The Guys Who Wrote ‘Em and the Guys Who Sang ‘Em.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One\u2026 Jennings\u2019 boyfriend at the time was none other than Bobby Hart. \u201cWe invited Claudia\u2019s masseuse to come for Thanksgiving dinner,\u201d Hart recalls. \u201cAnd she said, \u2018Can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51],"tags":[4961,4960,1235,1507],"class_list":["post-23929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","tag-boyce-and-hart","tag-dolenz-jones-boyce-and-hart","tag-keith-allison","tag-monkees","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23929"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24149,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23929\/revisions\/24149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}