Monkees contemplate how to memorialize Davey Jones

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The three surviving Monkees aren’t planning to attend Davy Jones’ funeral because it would likely bring too much unwanted attention to his family during their time of grief, the group’s Micky Dolenz said Tuesday.

He and fellow Monkees Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith have talked of attending one of the memorials that Jones’ family is planning to hold in New York and in the late singer’s native England, Dolenz said. And he added he’s considering organizing a memorial himself for Jones’ friends in Los Angeles.

Whether the surviving Monkees would perform at any of the gatherings, or at any other time in the future, is an open question.

“The three of us, Mike and Peter and I, we have never worked together just as a threesome. Mostly it was Peter, David and I and then Mike would join us,” Dolenz said of the band’s periodic reunions over the years.

“We’ve been talking, we’ve been communicating, but it’s way too early, I think, to project or predict anything like that.”

A private family funeral will take place in Florida this week, Jones spokeswoman Helen Kensick said Tuesday, declining to give any further details. Planning for a family service in England and a public memorial in the U.S. were still under way.

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