R.I.P. Davey Jones

[Pipeous]

I was a monkees fan too. and Nesmith made a funny movie that I remember fondly. it was called elephant parts. second half was an evening with sir walter raleigh. all filmed in an atco trailer.

[rgray]

Sorry to hear of his death. Whenever I hear the Monkees I am reminded of my late sister who had a huge crush and numerous posters of him in her room. My wife and I saw the Monkees, Herman's Hermits, and a few other oldies back around 1986 in Richmond, VA.

[Bigtuna]

I must admit I was a Monkees fan as well, however I grew up watching them on Nick at Night. Davey Jones was the man in my eyes as a kid, he had the girls, crazy cars, and not to mention he was a rock star at that, maybe not a god, but pretty cool none the less. Of coarse I grew out of their music eventually, but the Monkees' music will always hold a special place in my heart. It reminds me of when I was a kid. Earlier this year me and a couple of my friends even broke out into "I'm not your stepping stone" at a late night jam, so I guess I'm still a fan. RIP Davey.

[Santiago]

Didn't Neil Diamond write a bunch of their songs? And Stephen Stills didn't make the cut.

[Charley wild]

I was well beyond my teens when they came along but I enjoyed their show and their music very much! They had some great songs and I enjoy them to this day!

[Eddie Sheehy]

There was a 'Battle of the Bands' on Radio Luxemburg between The Monkees and The Small Faces (Rod Stewart) - the D.J played head-to-head songs from both bands and the audience mailed in their votes on postcards... The Monkees won by a landslide... fond memories... RIP Davey

[Jim Ferguson]

I too was a Monkees fan as a kid!!!! We all knew that other studio musicians were behind the scenes playing the music. Here is a nice video of Louie Shelton who came up with the lick for Last Train to Clarksville...........nice to give some credit where credit is due, eh...:-)
Louie is the same Louie Shelton who played the lead in Boz Skaggs' "Low Down", the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back", & of course he was the lead guitar sound for all of Seals & Crofts hits. Man 'o man......this guy has such a distinct sound.
Enjoy......Peace,
Jim
PS.....I've also added Louie playing I Want You Back

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A_K6NktOJs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip-LzbWs6FQ

[citeog]

There was a 'Battle of the Bands' on Radio Luxemburg between The Monkees and The Small Faces (Rod Stewart) - the D.J played head-to-head songs from both bands and the audience mailed in their votes on postcards... The Monkees won by a landslide... fond memories... RIP Davey

Yeah, the Monkees might have won but the Small Faces gave us "Itchycoo Park", an old favourite of mine.

I remember watching the Monkees on RTE on a black-and-white television with my father relentlessly mocking me for liking such drivel as I did to him when he listened to Walton's Irish music programme on Saturdays.

Fond memories indeed....

Paul

[Eddie Sheehy]

Yes indeed, Paul. And we didn't have to worry about someone wanting to switch to another channel...

If you must sing a song, sing an Irish song...

[citeog]

Yes indeed, Paul. And we didn't have to worry about someone wanting to switch to another channel...

If you must sing a song, sing an Irish song...

Actually, Eddie, I'm a Dub expat so, being on the east coast, we had a choice of what was then Telefis Eireann, BBC (there was no 1 or 2 or 3 in the sixties) and, oddly enough, Welsh television, not UTV. I had the fainne as a kid so it was easy enough to teach myself Welsh from the telly (for those of you who don't know what a fainne was, it was a gold lapel pin that denoted a fluent Irish speaker). I tried my (then) new-found linguistic skills on a couple of Taffies who were over for a rugby game in Lansdowne Road and they thought I was having a fit of some kind. Peasants...

All the best.

Paul

[foldedpath]

For people of a certain age (as I was) when the Monkees came along, and if you were already playing in Rock garage bands (as I was), and listening to things like Cream, Grateful Dead, Zappa, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers (as I was)... the Monkees were anathema.

They were the height of the attempt by "The Man" to co-opt "our" music. It was the start of a trend that ended in the Orlando music factories that pumped out the likes of Britney Spears and whoever is currently on your local radio station playing pop music.

Nesmith was the only real musician in the group, and I'll miss him when he's gone (unless I go first, which could happen). This is just my personal opinion, and I know we're not supposed to speak ill of the recently departed. But missing Davey Jones for me, on purely musical terms, is like mourning the death of Barry Manilow or Wayne Newton.

I was at the local Safeway grocery store today, and the checker at the register had to mention to me how sad she was, at his passing. I nodded and made nice noises. The Cafe is a musician-oriented site, so I don't have to do that here. I can express (I hope) an honest opinion, while recognizing that it won't be shared by others here. For me, the Monkees were always, and will always be, everything that's wrong with commercial music.

[journeybear]

The Monkees came along at just the right time for me and my brothers to argue endlessly about whether they were jive or cool. I was ambivalent, and thought a lot of their songs were piffle but a few were cool - "Last Train To Clarksville," "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone," "Shades Of Grey," "Mary Mary" among them. They did represent a sort of peak of pop culture, and they did get a lot of well-written songs. The Pre-Fab Four - now that's funny! They were so big that David Bowie had to change his name to differentiate himself from this David Jones. It was odd how their career declined when they started taking themselves seriously, playing their own instruments and such. It is worth noting that Mike Nesmith later had a mildly successful solo career and put out some decent music, and also even back in the day wrote "Different Drum," a good enough song, and a hit for The Stone Poneys, the lead singer of which was Linda Ronstadt. They were a phenomenon, for sure, and the model for later pre-fab pop groups like The Spice Girls and either Backstreet Boys or New Kids On The Block - I forget which - all of which I can do without, of course, and when put up next to The Monkees actually pale in comparison. Not that that is much of a yardstick, but still, in retrospect, they weren't all that bad. This puts a bit of a damper on Leap Day for me.

This is my favorite Monkees cover (turnabout is fair play) - blew my mind when I learned the source. it is very much transformed.

[Bernie Daniel]

Somewhere in my basement is a shelf of old LP's is one called "Loose Salute" -- Michael Nesmith and Tom Rush were on it -- but I think that was after the Monkees broke up. But I don't have any Monkee's LP's -- don't know why because I listened to them....

[Rosemary Philips]

Their TV shows were hysterical. Nesmith turned out to be a major talent. I must confess, I had a mad crush on Davy when I was a kid and I just knew that my love for him was more pure than anyone else's. Alas...

[foldedpath]

They did represent a sort of peak of pop culture, and they did get a lot of well-written songs.(

They sure did, and they also had a lot of great LA studio cats playing "their" instruments, like Tommy Tedesco, Carol Kaye, and Glen Campbell. This was at a time when most of the other bands in the pop explosion were actually playing their own instruments and writing their own songs.

I think that's what grated the most, at the time. The fact that my cohort of the same general age group were busting our butts learning how to... 'ya know... play our instruments.

[jim simpson]

I too was sad to hear of Davey's passing. Today my wife admits that Davey Jones was her first hearthrob.
His appearance in the Brady Bunch movie was funny, the teachers are swooning, then the high school rock back starts backing him up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR2Kq8IE4Ps

[journeybear]

... This was at a time when most of the other bands in the pop explosion were actually playing their own instruments and writing their own songs.

I think that's what grated the most, at the time. The fact that my cohort of the same general age group were busting our butts learning how to... 'ya know... play our instruments.

I dunno. The bottom line for me has always been whether I liked a song, regardless of how it arrived in my consciousness. It took a bit of doing for me to ignore some of the plastic aspects of their whole deal, and evaluate their songs on their own merits, despite how they were produced. Someone told me a few weeks ago that The Byrds' first album was mostly played by The Wrecking Crew, which I find impossible to believe - and if anyone ever proves this is so, it is going to really mess me up. At least with The Monkees, there was no pretense this was anything otherwise. Don't forget, this was a time when it was common practice for bands to mime playing their instruments in TV appearances - sometimes they didn't even bother to plug them in or give the singer a mike.

There have been loads of instances where someone became successful just by being cute rather than talented - 'twas ever thus, 'twill ever so be. But if they have some redeeming qualities (like talent ) they may well get a pass from me. That said, I must confess that Davey was my least favorite Monkee, though I'm sure he was the favorite of most girls - just so goshdarned cute. Mike, Mickey, Peter, Davey. Sorry, just the way it is. Nah, not even sorry. Just not that important to me. Sorry.

[foldedpath]

Don't forget, this was a time when it was common practice for bands to mime playing their instruments in TV appearances - sometimes they didn't even bother to plug them in or give the singer a mike.

I think that's a red herring. Everyone had to do that, back then.

This was a period when there was a major shakeup in the music industry between the "old school" where performers didn't write and perform their own stuff, and the newcomers who did. The Beatles being the major gate-crashers, due to sheer force of talent.

The Monkees were on the wrong side of that line, for many of us at the time.

[John Rosett]

I saw the Monkees in 1966 in Greensboro, NC. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was the opening act...

[journeybear]

Heard about that tour. Also The Who opening for The Buckinghams. Weird stuff. Missed them both, that time around. Caught them later.

Anyway, I don't know about that being a red herring, but something was a bit fishy. I am not an apologist for The Monkees or what anyone wants to say they represent, I just think there are a lot of aspects to what was going on then, with them and without them, certainly not all black or white - lots of shades of grey. But there is sonething cynical about putting together a band to cash in, even if it's no secret. Their saving grace is the music was OK, and that they were pretty up front about them being fake. I think you can blame the public for being so easily manipulated, as well.

Man, I am putting way more time into thinking about this over the last hour or so than I have over the last two or three decades. Whenever Mike came out with "Photon Wing." And in about a half hour, I am probably going to forget all about this. When Mike dies, that will shake me up some.

[catmandu2]

...credited them with the very first music videos.

Probably their most significant contribution (multimedia)

[robster]

I was ten when The Monkees hit the scene. I remember playing air guitar on the playground to "Last Train to Clarksville.". A made for TV band that consisted of four reasonably-talented musicians and singers. As others have noted, they had some of the best songwriters in the business supplying them. I saw Jones and Dolenz play a summer show in Cincinnati around ten years ago and enjoyed the heck out of it. I don't think you have to be a singer-songwriter to be a creative music maker. I don't think you have to be the best musician to make great music. I think you have to love what you do. Mickey, Davy, and Peter loved being The Monkees and it showed. Mike, not so much. they made some great tunes before their time was up. RIP, Davy. Thanks for the music.

[allenhopkins]

...Nesmith was the only real musician in the group...missing Davey Jones for me, on purely musical terms, is like mourning the death of Barry Manilow or Wayne Newton...For me, the Monkees were always, and will always be, everything that's wrong with commercial music.

Wow! Didn't know there existed so much anti-Monkees sentiment...

Actually, Peter "Tork" (actually Thorkelson) was probably the most proficient musician of the Monkees; he'd started a career on the Greenwich Village folk scene before answering the casting call for the TV show, and was the only Monkee to play on their first recordings, albeit as "third chair guitar" behind the studio heavies. Tork had an extended, though not terribly successful, post-Monkees music career, including collaboration with George Harrison (on Wonderwall), and others. Davy Jones, as an actor/singer, had been nominated for a Tony Award for his role in the musical Oliver, so was not without vocal chops.

Dolenz came from an acting background (Circus Boy); Nesmith had started a singer/songwriter career, MC-ing the hootenannies at the Troubadour folk club in LA, before the TV show. So we're really not talking "Partridge Family" here; there were some credible musical backgrounds.

True, the Monkees were really a corporate studio creation, put together for a lightweight sitcom that owed an amazing debt to the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, in terms of format. (And I'd like to credit the song sequences in AHDN as being the true "first music videos.") The Monkees did get competent enough as "real" musicians, to tour and perform, and their studio supplied them with material from excellent songwriters, worked into well-produced recordings. The band evolved a bit, too, getting a bit less blandly commercial and more socially aware, as in their Head psychedelia movie.

So: hardly the Beatles, but yet not the Partridge Family. Four reasonably talented performers, given a lot of decent material, and capable of producing songs that we still remember. De mortuis nihil nisi bonum, and let's try to remember Davy a bit fondly...

[Ivan Kelsall]

My sister who's 10 years younger than me, was a great Monkees fan. I remember that when they first arrived on the scene,there was a lot of talk about their being a 'manufactured' band,trying to 'out Beatle' the Beatles. If you forgot all that trashy talk & accepted them for what THEY were,they were good in their own right.
I was very saddened to hear on UK TV last night of Davey's passing,especially as several months ago,Davey,Peter & Mickey were over here being interviewed on a UK TV show,& all in bouncing health.
Mike Nesmith has to be one of my favourite singer/songwriters from that era.Strange that his original version of the song 'Different Drum' was a very slow song. Picked up by a Bluegrass band,'The Greenbriar Boys' & played much faster,their version was in turn picked up by a young (& awesomely beautiful) Linda Ronstadt who virtually made it her own.
The Monkees have gone down in musical history in 'their own right', regardless of odious comparisons with The Beatles. Davey Jones was a big part of the band & will be sadly missed,
R.I.P. Davey - Ivan

[Shelby Eicher]

[I] was a kid watching their Saturday morning show. I loved the Jim and Jesse's cut of "Last Train To Clarksville". While working with Roy Clark I had an opportunity to work with Mickey Dolence. We were rehearsing and he said, "I never imagined fiddles, mandolins and banjos with our music but it sounds great". He was nice and it was a fun experience.