Yesterday, Davy passed away suddenly from a reported heart attack. I've been a fan of the Monkees since I was wee high, having discovered them through daily syndicated airings of their sitcom in the 70s, and very shortly thereafter hearing much of their music still being played on the radio a decade and more after their heyday. I've taken some good-natured ribbing over being such a fan of the group, for the usual reasons: "They weren't a real band!" and "They didn't even play their own instruments!"
Well, I don't know what a "real" band is. Do you have to be lifelong friends who grew up together and learned music playing in your basements? Or are you strangers to each other brought together by an outside entity? If we rule out the latter, then we have to eliminate the likes of Kiss, Supertramp and Metallica from the list of "real" bands, won't we?
And the old trope that the Monkees didn't play on their own records was shattered by their third LP in 1967, on which the four played virtually every note of music found in those grooves (and wrote most of the songs themselves as well). The reason they didn't play most of the music on their first two albums was a simple one: working 14 hour days filming their TV show, they only had a few hours to spare at night to record their song vocals before catching some sleep and repeating the grind the following day. There simply wasn't enough time to also let them lay down instrumentation tracks as well, although Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork were two accomplished professional guitarists more than up to the task, and even Micky Dolenz became proficient on the drums (he had to learn to play them for the show, having previously been a guitar player in various garage bands). Davy could play a bit of guitar and piano, but I think even he would admit he didn't have the chops to do much more at the time than shake the maracas.
So the music was performed by session men, including the legendary "Wrecking Crew" who, when they weren't recording with the Monkees, by the way, were laying down the music for PET SOUNDS and SMILE by the Beach Boys...and I've never heard anyone say as a result that the Beach Boys weren't a real band, have you? Later, after having proven they could play their instruments, the Monkees began using session musicians again, as the foursome essentially split into four solo acts under the Monkees name, each working in different studios with different sidemen (and often different producers), with only one or two other Monkees occasionally sitting in on the tracks. Nevertheless, the band earned a reputation as a tight touring outfit, and did many concerts across the U.S. and in Asia.
You could essentially split the Monkees into two factions: Mike and Peter were professional musicians with no acting experience when they were hired to be in the band, while Davy and Micky were professional actors. Jones, barely out of his teens, was already a veteran stage actor of musicals in the West End and on Broadway, and he had even recorded a couple of singles in the midst of the British Invasion bloom that went nowhere on the charts, so he knew his way around a song. Both sides approached the Monkees from vantage parts that were often diametrically opposed, but somehow it all meshed, and the group released what I feel are some of the absolute best pop singles of the Sixties. Go ahead, tell me that "I'm a Believer", "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and "Daydream Believer" aren't some of the finest Top 40 songs ever. You can't. because your argument is invalid!
Ahem.
Anyway, I told you all of that so I could tell you this, my Davy Jones story.
Now, I've seen the Monkees (minus Mike) twice in concert, and both of those shows rank in my Top Ten of all-time best live shows (and I'll even put one of those two concerts as #2 on my list). They put on fun, festive, frantic and phenomenal shows, and I wish a lot of supposedly "serious" artists today would take a page from the Monkees playbook when it comes to performing on stage.
Knowing how good they are on stage, I was particularly excited a few years back when the Mayor of Calumet City decided to work with our agency to promote a series of live outdoor concerts in town, and one of the artists booked was Davy Jones.
That was a particularly bad summer weather-wise, however, and our rainfall in August neared historic levels. The high school field we planned to use for the concert was flooded out, forcing us to move to a parking lot. Unfortunately, somehow the rumor had spread that the entire concert had been cancelled.
On the day of the show, threatening thunderclouds loomed, but the rain held off. Sadly, so did most of the expected audience. We couldn't really blame them...some had no doubt been misinformed that the concert was off, and others probably looked out of their windows and figured it was going to rain yet again, so why risk standing around outdoors getting wet and possibly smoted by Zeus? We had maybe 100 or so people there...far, far less than expected.
Before the show started, I recall hearing more than a few people commenting that, upon seeing the puny size of the crowd, Davy would undoubtedly quickly run through his numbers without much enthusiasm. After all, for an artists used to playing before thousands, how could such a tiny gathering whip up any excitement for him?
But I never doubted that Davy Jones would give us his 'A Game'. I'd seen the Monkees play live before, and I assured everyone that Davy was a pro, and he would give it his all.
This is the best part of my story: Davy Jones proved me everlastingly right. It didn't matter that the crowd was small...he had his band played as if they were before a packed house at Carnegie Hall. In the end, it was one of the best "house parties" any of us who were there could ever hope to attend.
Davy Jones was a professional in every good sense of the word. His obvious sense of joy at being on stage and performing was very nearly palpable, and it generated an electric buzz that connected him with his audience in ways that most musicians could only hope to achieve.
I'm very glad I got to see the Monkees twice on stage, but even happier that I got to spend that soggy night with Davy Jones, doing the thing he loved so much.
