GOODBYE, DAVY JONES...

He with that unmistakable British accent, he who fell in love with a new girl in each Monkees' episode, he who sang Monkees' songs, including "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You", "Daydream Believer" (a #1 Monkees hit), and "Valleri". He who is no longer with us, due to a fatal heart attack when he was caring for his horses in Florida. He is, and was, Davy Jones, a former Theatre trouper, who went on to become a member of The Monkees. It's been said that Davy's Monkee-ness was already in place, and Micky, Peter and Mike were among the zillions of actors who applied for The Remaining Three Monkees. And so, it's 'Bye Davy'. Another voice of the past, gone just like that. Time waits for no one, right? It's always sad to learn that another musician has met The Reaper. Here's proof that time changes things...here's a fairly recent picture of Davy Jones; most stars have some resemblance to their younger selves as time goes on. The Elder Davy doesn't look anything like his Monkees character.
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Losing your favorite pop stars ain't easy. After all, it's we who buy the records/tapes/cd's of their music; we invite them into our homes where they entertain us; either that or oldies radio stations are casting about, sending signals to radios nationwide; on occasion, worldwide. So we get attached to them, and then they pass away and it's almost like losing a family member. So I was saddened to hear the news today, oh boy...it used to be that big rock stars overdosed, or their tour jet crashed, or that they were playing with guns which accidentally went off or whatever. Nowadays it's everyday mundane things like heart attacks, or back problems, or cancer. Heck, Glen Campbell has Alzheimer's Disease. I guess Even The Monkees have to face the Grim Reaper one day. We've lost two Beatles, after all. I don't know why, but lately I've been thinking we're going to be losing a bunch of rock stars sometime soon, and I'm alarmed I thought that, now that Davy's gone. Shudder.

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Back in the old flower-power days, Controversy Rocked The Monkees! OhMyGosh,The Monkees didn't play their own instruments! It's well-known that session musicians were heavily used on records by Herman's Hermits, The Byrds, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Love, The Mamas and The Papas, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys, to name a few. Good songs are good songs no matter who plays them, as long as they play them well! This first Monkees' album was great fun; it was issued in 1966, a good mixture of ballads, pop, and (almost) hard rock. There was something for everybody here. For this album, Mike Nesmith (another Monkee) wrote a song titled "Papa Gene's Blues", but on the Record And Jacket, it was listed as "Papa Jean's Blues". It was changed later, but the "Papa Jean's" first-Monkee Albums are worth a bit more in terms of collectors' value.
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Another Monkees album, "More Of The Monkees", was issued in 1967, featuring "I'm A Believer", the one song that everyone on the planet knows by heart. Man, that record was big; it was on the charts almost forever, and is a shrewdly-crafted record; every word and note were letter-perfect; a cold, calculated piece of Pop Songwriting. But the Monkees wanted to do more on their records than Just Sing, and the producers would have none of that. They fought tooth and nail, and the contentious climate led to the dismissal of Don Kirshner, who was a big power-broker-type-producer in charge of Everything and Then Some. Kirshner went on to use a Cartoon group, The Archies. Cartoons can't rebel or put their fists through walls (Monkee Mike actually did that).
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The Monkees did play (almost) everything on their third album, "Headquarters" (1967), on which they sounded like an enthusiastically energetic Garage Band, and on "Pisces Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD", their fourh album, they really sounded sharp; they brought in a few outside musicans but the proceedings were under the group's control. All of the Monkees wrote songs;  Davy was a part of all this, and beginning with the group's fourth album, "The Birds, The Bees and The Monkees",  Davy co-wrote quite a few of the group's songs, as did the rest of the group. So I'm sticking up for The Monkees here. They were a respectable band, being four strangers thrown together and expected to put out some kind of saleable musical product. I think they did quite well. Of course, The Monkees had access to many great songs by great songwriters, so that did set themselves a part from the competition, but still, it takes talent to pull that off, doing the songs well, sounding like a real rock group. So there's a concise history lesson for ya. But getting back to Davy Jones...
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Before the Monkees, it looks like Colpix Records was going to try and market Davy as some sort of Teen Idol in the mold of Bobby Rydell or Fabian. I haven't heard anything on this "David Jones" album; I'd place it as being released sometime in the early 1960's. I  remember reading in one of my Rock Books the fact that David Bowie had to change his name from "Jones", because he wanted to avoid confusion with the "David Jones" pictured here. If you collected Monkees' records, you might remember the bright red-and-white labels which Monkees were on (Colgems--Columbia Pictures/Screen Gems). The old Colpix label was, of course, Columbia Pictures' label.
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This is probably the hardest Monkees album to find; it's called "Changes" and features only Micky and Mike in a sort-of Last-Gasp manner. After Peter left, Mike, Micky and Davy recorded two albums. Mike left, the group still owed the record company one more album, so this is what happened. It came out in 1970, and featured lightweight pop tunes written mostly by outside writers (Micky wrote one song for this LP). People had seen 'four' Monkees, and after Peter left, there were 'three' Monkees. Then Mike left, and the Monkees are a two-man band here. Some people joked that if this kept up, pretty soon, this group would be called "The Monkee". And here is that Monkee...
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After The Monkees disbanded, Davy came out with this album in 1972, and "Rainy Jane" was the hit here. Some say this album consists of old Monkees session tapes, which is possible, but who knows for sure?. I've seen several Monkees' reunion concerts and as Davy aged, he was barely recognizable, but when you heard that voice, you knew it was him. Pre-Monkee, Davy was quite the all-around song and dance man; so much so that he once said, if someone opened the refrigerator door, he'd do "ten minutes" when the light came on. Of course, he played tambourine, maracas and other percussion instruments, and the back of one of their albums shows him playing acoustic guitar.
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Here's another artifact of Davy's post-Monkees-days; a rather misguided attempt at grafting sci-fi onto pop music; it was released in the mid-'70s and disappeared without a trace; this is not The Record That Set The World On Fire. You might recognize Boyce and Hart; as a team, they wrote a whole bunch of Monkees' songs, such as "Last Train To Clarksville", "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone", "Take A Giant Step", "Let's Dance On", "Valleri" and quite a few more. Davy wrote a charming tune for this LP, titled "You And I", a tune he later did for The Monkees' reunion LP, "JustUs", which came out in 1996 along with a one-hour TV special which was done in a style similar to the old Monkees episodes. Micky and Davy are the two persons on the left of this album cover.
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I think I have a good idea of what Generations before mine felt upon hearing of Rudolph Valentino's death, Glenn Miller's disappearance, of Frank Sinatra's death, and of course, Elvis left the building long ago. And now those of my generation (and younger than that) see some of their favorite performers disappearing into the haze. A Purple Haze, that is...