Curtain falls for Monkees’ leader Davy Jones
LOS ANGELES: Before there was MTV, before American Idol made overnight stars of people you never heard of, there was the Monkees, a band fronted by a diminutive singer who was so boyishly good looking that teenage girls swooned the first time they ever saw him.
That was at the end of the summer of 1966, when Davy Jones and his three Monkee cohorts – Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Micky Dolenz – arrived on weekly television, portraying a carbon copy of another band called the Beatles.
Each Monday night for the next two years, people would tune into NBC to see the comical trials and tribulations of four young musicians who tooled around in a tricked-out car called the Mon-
‘Prefab Four’ were actors hired to emulate the Beatles
keemobile. Although all four members handled the lead vocals in their music videos, it was Jones, the onetime child star of the British musical stage, who quickly became the group’s heart-throb.
Jones died on Wednesday of a heart attack near his home in Indiantown, Florida, just months after he, Tork and Dolenz had com- pleted a tour marking the Monkees’ 45th anniversary. He was 66.
The Monkees had been created to cash in on the Beatles’ popularity, and although they never came close to achieving the critical stature of their counterparts, they did carve out a permanent niche in music as what Rolling Stone’s Encyclopedia of Rock ‘n’ Roll has called “the first and perhaps the best of the ‘60s and ‘70s prefabricated pop groups.”
Their songs were melodic, catchy, and many have endured over the years. The first two they released, Last Train to Clarksville and I’m a Believer, became No 1 hits. So did Daydream Believer, on which Jones sang the lead and which Dolenz said four years ago remains the Monkees’ most requested song at concerts.
“Of the four actors they hired, Davy Jones was by far the most accomplished as a singer and as a performer. He was really the perfect choice,” said Rich Podolsky, author of a biography of Don Kirshner, who was The Monkees TV show’s musical director.
Born in Manchester, England, on December 30, 1945, Jones had been a child star in his native country, appearing on television and stage, including a heralded role as “The Artful Dodger” in a London production of the play Oliver.
When the show came to Broadway, he earned a Tony nomination for the role.
He was then aged 16, a success that brought him to the attention of Columbia Pictures/screen Gems Television, which created The Monkees programme.
Hundreds of musician-actors turned out for the auditions, but the young men who became the Monkees had no idea what ultimately awaited them.
“They had an ad in the newspaper,” Jones recalled on NBC’S Today Show last year, “and then we all showed up.”
When they put him together with Tork, Dolenz and Nesmith, the chemistry was obvious.
The Monkees would soon come under fire from music critics, however, when it was learned that session musicians – and not the group’s members – had played the instruments on their recordings. They were derided as the “Prefab Four,” an insulting comparison to the Beatles’ nickname, the “Fab Four”.
The group eventually began to play their own instruments and, eventually, even the critics would come around. Although the Monkees received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1989, one hon- our that has eluded the group was induction into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. For years, supporters have circulated petitions demanding that the group be included.
Jones is survived by his wife, Jessica Pacheco, and four daughters from previous marriages. – Sapa-ap