Micky Dolenz began a life-long friendship with Harry Nilsson purely by happenstance, when Nilsson pitched something that would eventually become a Davy Jones vehicle on the Monkees’ 1967 album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.
“He was working at a bank in the [San Fernando] Valley,” Dolenz tells WCBS, 101.1 FM, “and writing songs on the side. The publisher [Lester Sill] brings him into the studio one day, sits him down and says: ‘This is Harry Nilsson, a new songwriter guy, and he wants to play a couple of things.’ He played ‘Cuddly Toy,’ and Davy said: ‘I like that; I’ll do it.'”
From there, Nilsson’s star quickly rose, as he wrote and/or sang such hits as “Everybody’s Talkin,'” “Coconut,” “Without You” and “Me and My Arrow.”
“Harry told me, years later, when he walked out of the recording studio,” Dolenz adds, “the publisher said to him: ‘You can quit the bank now.’ [Laughs.] Harry and I became very, very good friends for years and years.”
More recently, Dolenz used Harry Nilsson’s “Remember” as the title track for a 2012 solo album. Dolenz was there when Nilsson originally wrote the song some four decades earlier; it previously appeared on Son of Schmilsson.
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