In conjunction with tour promo, here's an interview with Peter in the Trenton Times:

Peter Tork 'Once Again' a musical force
01/12/01
By RANDY ALEXANDER
Staff Writer

There are three musical sides to Peter Tork. There's his Monkees side, his folk troubadour side and his blues side. Over the next few months, Tork will be hitting the stage in each of those capacities. There's another Monkees reunion tour scheduled for March, immediately followed by a juiced-up touring effort by his band Shoe Suede Blues.

But it's the folk troubadour side that brings Tork to Hightstown this weekend with musical partner and best pal James Lee Stanley, who's recorded more than a dozen solo albums of his own. They arrive tomorrow as a duo at the Grace Norton Rogers School Theater in Hightstown to celebrate the release of their second duo album, "Once Again" (Beachwood) -- further cementing a relationship that began even before the Monkees.

"I don't even want to say how long it's been," says Tork. "There are no cars as old as our relationship. The Empire State Building is not as old as our friendship."

Actually President Kennedy was in office at the time it began, which Tork says was 1962. Stanley's Web site says 1963. Whatever. It was during an open mike night at a club in Virginia Beach -- three years (or was it two?) prior to those first Monkees auditions -- when both were East Coast folk circuit regulars. The music partnership didn't begin until much later, in the mid-'90s.

"James has got tremendous musicality," says Tork. "He's very melodious and has a great sense of arrangement. He writes extraordinarily well-crafted songs -- all of the time.

"There are two good reasons to work with him -- musicality and fearlessness. I don't know that the fearlessness shows up in the music, per se. But if he hadn't been fearless, he'd be in a garage someplace singing weekends.

"He's always been extraordinarily capable of work. He wakes up and he gets things done," Tork continues. "I'm a get-up-and-read-the-paper-and-drink-coffee-and-watch-television kind of guy. He's a much more prolific writer than I am. He can write an album in a week if he needs to. I have written only when I've really forced myself to sit down and do it. If I'm not under some kind of gun, I almost never do write anymore."

Stanley contributes five originals to Tork's three on "Once Again." There are also three covers, including an acoustic version of "Daydream Believer" -- making this the second time in a row that Tork has included a Monkees song on one of his independent albums. "Stranger Things Have Happened," which Tork released in 1996, included "Take a Giant Step." Tork insists he does not intend to make this a trend on successive albums.

He just happens to think "Daydream Believer," the last of the Monkees' three No. 1 hits, is simply a great song. In fact, tonight in Alexandria, Va., Tork and Stanley will be playing at the World Folk Music Association's Benefit Weekend tribute to "Daydream Believer" composer John Stewart of the Kingston Trio. "It's such an anthem," says Tork. "It's one of the Monkees songs that I do in my own personal shows (without Stanley), too."

Much as he enjoys his duo work with Stanley, it's Shoe Suede Blues that really revs Tork's motor. "Blues is among the handful of kinds of music that have ever been transportational to me," he says. "It is among the handful that I have had any aspiration of playing. But in recent years I just said the hell with it, I'm going to do my best with it.

"I get to get off playing the blues. When I'm with my band, I get off every single time. In rehearsal, in recording, in playing on stage -- every single time -- there are at least some moments. The last time we played, it happened for an hour solid.

"There's some getting off on the duo, too -- particularly the harmonies. When James and I hit, the vocal blend is right. But not much blues trickles in. James is not a fan of the blues."

So where does that leave the Monkees in the world of Peter Tork? Tork says he had a "wonderful time together" with Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones just the other day for a Vanity Fair photo shoot anticipating the reunion tour.

"So in terms of that pure clowning, there's a place to get off with the other Monkees," says Tork. "Those are two world class funnymen I get to work with. That stuff is wonderful."

In case you haven't noticed, Mike Nesmith was again not a part of the equation. Once more, he has refused all offers to participate in a reunion.

"Mike is too busy saving the world . . .," says Tork, ". . . or something. "As I've said before, we may not make the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and there may be no place for us in the TV Hall of Fame. But if there is ever such a place as a Hall of TV and pop music at once, then we may be the only ones in it."

Tork's take on the recent Monkees VH-1 biopic is that it was good in terms of his personal career and he was glad to have the name out there.

"And in terms of my personal vanity, I'm glad they chose a good-looking guy to play me," he says. "He actually copped my smile. He actually studied me so closely, he managed to change to my smile for the part. He's a very serious actor. Very dedicated. I enjoyed immensely hanging out with him. And I have every hope for an astounding career for him."

More important than any of Tork's musical collaborations is the milestone he'll be marking this month: 20 years of being clean and sober. "It's unbelievable," he says. "The amazing thing is, every minute has been another milestone. The 20 years is the odometer effect. Any time I look up and think how long I've been clean and dry, I'm just astounded. It is such a liberation. The whole thing about alcoholism is it's an astounding, complicated and devious type of disease."

Tork will be on the road with Stanley when the actual anniversary date passes, but a celebration awaits as soon as he gets back home.

"I'm going to have everybody over," he says. "All my pals and bandmates and associates and friends and fellow recoverers."

PTsgirl Welcome Page Peter Tork Update Peter Tork Official Web Site Shoe Suede Blues Web Site Peter and James Concert Photos James Lee Stanley Stranger Things Have Happened Lyrics

PTsgirl Shoe Suede Blues Photos - Club 66

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