Michael Nesmith

In returning to the stage for his first solo U.S. tour in 21 years, singer-songwriter and part-time Monkees member Michael Nesmith demonstrated that his penchant for taking music above and beyond the norm remains fully intact. Over the course of his nearly two-hour show Sunday at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, the 70-year-old musician and his four-piece band turned in 17 songs spanning more than 40 years. He started with “Papa Gene's Blues,” a song from the Monkees' 1966 debut album and which he described as “one of the first songs I ever wrote,” and reached as far forward as “Rays,” the title track from his most recent studio album, released in 2006.

In returning to the stage for his first solo U.S. tour in 21 years, singer-songwriter and part-time Monkees member Michael Nesmith demonstrated that his penchant for taking music above and beyond the norm remains fully intact. Over the course of his nearly two-hour show Sunday at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, the 70-year-old musician and his four-piece band turned in 17 songs spanning more than 40 years. He started with “Papa Gene's Blues,” a song from the Monkees' 1966 debut album and which he described as “one of the first songs I ever wrote,” and reached as far forward as “Rays,” the title track from his most recent studio album, released in 2006.

Members of the Monkees may be closing in on 70 years old, but that doesn't mean they aren't still ready and willing to Monkee around. Lead guitarist, singer and songwriter Michael Nesmith, who is joining Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork for a 12-city reunion tour, recently set Monkees fans abuzz when he wrote on his Facebook page that Jimmy Fallon was begging to sing “Daydream Believer” in place of Davy Jones on the upcoming tour, which opens...

Once pegged as "the smart Monkee," singer, songwriter and guitarist Michael Nesmith is now embarking on his first U.S. solo tour in more than two decades. Nesmith shot to fame after "The Monkees" series premiered in 1966, and though he recently reunited with the band for a tour, it's now his turn to hit the road solo. The 70-year-old artist and his backing band will focus on the deep trove of country, folk and rock music he made after leaving the Monkees in 1970. Nesmith will hit the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills on March 24, with guest guitarist John Jorgenson dropping in for one number during the L.A.-area tour stop.

With a Monkees reunion tour looming next month, singer, songwriter and guitarist Michael Nesmith has taken to Facebook to head off what he says is a campaign by a contigent of Monkees fans who are threatening to boycott the tour unless actor Kevin Spacey steps in for the late Davy Jones to sing “Daydream Believer.” Other observers in the music business quickly started reposting Nesmith's note, several of them deriding misguided fans for suggesting...

On the heels of last fall's reunion tour with other surviving members of the Monkees , Michael Nesmith will embark on his first major U.S. solo tour in more than two decades. The singer, songwriter and guitarist will open the run of shows March 21 in Franklin, Tenn., just outside Nashville, followed by a March 24 stop at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, the closest he'll come to Los Angeles proper. The tour will continue with performances March 26 in Santa Cruz and March 27 in San Francisco before more dates in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Minnesota and a half-dozen other states before wrapping up with final stops April 16 in New York and April 17 in Washington, D.C. The full tour itinerary is available here . PHOTOS: Iconic rock guitars and their owners “The songs I'll play are a touch chronological and a touch thematic,” the 70-year-old Texas-born musician, long based in Northern California, said in a statement.

Once pegged as "the smart Monkee," singer, songwriter and guitarist Michael Nesmith is now embarking on his first U.S. solo tour in more than two decades. Nesmith shot to fame after "The Monkees" series premiered in 1966, and though he recently reunited with the band for a tour, it's now his turn to hit the road solo. The 70-year-old artist and his backing band will focus on the deep trove of country, folk and rock music he made after leaving the Monkees in 1970. Nesmith will hit the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills on March 24, with guest guitarist John Jorgenson dropping in for one number during the L.A.-area tour stop.

Michael Nesmith has made a career out of walking a few steps ahead of the crowd. A member of one of the most popular bands of the 1960s, a pioneer of country-rock music and winner of the first video Grammy award, Nesmith has parlayed his visions of the future into a business empire that's still on what he calls a "rocket ride" of growth. He's not the sort of fellow you'd peg to spend much time reminiscing about his salad days.

If Michael Nesmith's first studio album in 14 years were to set off a pop fad, no doubt it'd be dubbed the "Urbane Cowboy" phenomenon. Although Nesmith the entrepreneur spent most of the '80s building his Pacific Arts Corp. into a multimedia giant, Nesmith the musician demonstrates that he never lost his love of the wide open spaces of his native Texas. Also intact is his skill at crafting lyrics that are always literate without sounding forced.

Michael Nesmith was the guitar player with the Monkees, the 1960s pop group/sitcom. Post-Monkees, he produced the movie "Repo Man" as well as "Elephant Parts," which was the first music video to receive a Grammy. And post-post-Monkees, he wrote his first novel, "The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora" (St. Martin's Press), published in 1998. Nesmith, 56, who has homes in Los Angeles and Santa Fe, N.M., is working on his second novel.

On the heels of last fall's reunion tour with other surviving members of the Monkees , Michael Nesmith will embark on his first major U.S. solo tour in more than two decades. The singer, songwriter and guitarist will open the run of shows March 21 in Franklin, Tenn., just outside Nashville, followed by a March 24 stop at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, the closest he'll come to Los Angeles proper. The tour will continue with performances March 26 in Santa Cruz and March 27 in San Francisco before more dates in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Minnesota and a half-dozen other states before wrapping up with final stops April 16 in New York and April 17 in Washington, D.C. The full tour itinerary is available here . PHOTOS: Iconic rock guitars and their owners “The songs I'll play are a touch chronological and a touch thematic,” the 70-year-old Texas-born musician, long based in Northern California, said in a statement.

Times pop music staff writers Randy Lewis and Mikael Wood discuss the merits of the current reunion tour by the three surviving members of the Monkees in a Google Hangout. The group was assembled out of casting auditions for a 1960s TV sitcom about the misadventures of a struggling rock group, unexpectedly transforming the cast into a bond fide rock band that in 1967 sold more records than the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. The current tour of a dozen dates marks the band's first outing since the death earlier this year of singer Davy Jones, and the first time since 1969 that lead guitarist, songwriter and sometimes lead singer Michael Nesmith has participated in a U.S. tour with his former band mates.

Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork were doing what they could to keep the tone light Saturday night at the Greek Theatre, where the Monkees swung in for a stop on their first tour since the February death of the group's beloved frontman, Davy Jones. Introducing “Randy Scouse Git,” Dolenz acknowledged the dubious fashions of the Monkees' late-1960s heyday by donning a floral-patterned poncho similar to one he wore on the band's TV series. (He likened it accurately to a tablecloth.) And during “Your Auntie Grizelda,” Tork did a goofy soft-shoe shuffle that demonstrated how little the intervening decades have diminished his appealing sense of self-deprecation.

The Monkees haven't toured together in more than four decades, so it seemed only logical that at a rehearsal this week in North Hollywood, the band's three surviving members might not be in sync. But two days ahead of a short reunion tour that began Thursday in Escondido, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork communicated in a secret language as if it were still 1969. In the middle of a long jam, Nesmith, 69, took his hands off his vintage-style Gretsch guitar and began addressing Dolenz in an elaborate sequence of arm and hand signals (think of ground crew guiding a plane in at LAX)

Members of the Monkees may be closing in on 70 years old, but that doesn't mean they aren't still ready and willing to Monkee around. Lead guitarist, singer and songwriter Michael Nesmith, who is joining Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork for a 12-city reunion tour, recently set Monkees fans abuzz when he wrote on his Facebook page that Jimmy Fallon was begging to sing “Daydream Believer” in place of Davy Jones on the upcoming tour, which opens...

With a Monkees reunion tour looming next month, singer, songwriter and guitarist Michael Nesmith has taken to Facebook to head off what he says is a campaign by a contigent of Monkees fans who are threatening to boycott the tour unless actor Kevin Spacey steps in for the late Davy Jones to sing “Daydream Believer.” Other observers in the music business quickly started reposting Nesmith's note, several of them deriding misguided fans for suggesting...

A linguist, a scientist, a journalist and an artist gathered at an idyllic adobe retreat house here recently to identify a critical issue facing humanity. They emerged to inform several dozen guests that most of the world's ills can be traced to problems with learning. "The solutions begin with the lifelong human capacity to enjoy and share the process of learning," the four said in a statement. "Learning must become a means to bridge social fragmentation.

Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork were doing what they could to keep the tone light Saturday night at the Greek Theatre, where the Monkees swung in for a stop on their first tour since the February death of the group's beloved frontman, Davy Jones. Introducing “Randy Scouse Git,” Dolenz acknowledged the dubious fashions of the Monkees' late-1960s heyday by donning a floral-patterned poncho similar to one he wore on the band's TV series. (He likened it accurately to a tablecloth.) And during “Your Auntie Grizelda,” Tork did a goofy soft-shoe shuffle that demonstrated how little the intervening decades have diminished his appealing sense of self-deprecation.

Davy Jones was a promising 18-year-old actor from England when he found himself among the guest performers on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on Feb. 9, 1964 — the same night about 75 million people tuned in to catch the American debut of the Beatles. Like so many others who watched the show from near and far, Jones considered it a life-changing experience. Looking on from the wings as hundreds of teenagers, mostly girls, were screaming ecstatically while listening to the four musicians who came from a town only 20 miles away from his own hometown of Manchester, Jones knew then he wanted a career in pop music rather than theater.

Forty years ago, the Monkees' only feature film, "Head," hit theaters -- and people have been scratching their heads ever since. Though far from a masterpiece like the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" from 1964, the film, starring Davy Jones, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith, is a surreal time capsule -- a psychedelic, stream-of-consciousness blast from the past. It's as if Jean Cocteau had consumed lots of LSD and decided to make a rock movie. Only its true history is a lot trippier, considering that Jack Nicholson wrote the script and a motley crew of the era's icons appears in the film.