Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Davy Jones (1945-2012)

It has just come to my attention, thanks to the afternoon news, of the passing of actor-singer Davy Jones, former co-lead singer of The Monkees. I say co-lead singer with respect to the fact that Jones shared lead vocal chores more often than not with drummer Micky Dolenz. Anyway, less than 2 weeks after his last concert gig, Jones was admitted to a Florida hospital last night, and passed away earlier today at 66, just 2 months after his birthday.

Jones was perhaps the most visible of the band members after their initial split, guest-starring as himself on The Brady Bunch & The New Scooby-Doo Movies, and, in recent years, did informercials, including one memorable one reuniting him with ex-MTV VJ Martha Quinn (the two acted in a skit when the Monkees shot a Christmas music video for MTV in 1986).

Following is the Monkees' recording of "Daydream Believer", with Davy on lead vocals (and sharing the piano with Peter Tork).



Rest in peace, Davy.

4 comments:

magicdog said...

I've been a longtime Monkees fan who caught the bug during the '86 wave of Monkeemania and never looked back!

I thought Davy would have been the last to die (this may sound morbid, but I 'd always thought it would have been Peter first due to his past drug problems) and I was stunned when I heard the news during a radio talk show this morning.

I had the pleasure of meeting Davy twice: The first was about 15 years ago when he was performing in Vegas. I waited after the show to plead for an autograph, which he graciously gave. I was shaking with excitement! I still have the napkin he wrote it on.


The second was about 9 years ago when he came to be interviewed at the TV station I worked at. For the interview, I brought a ton of memorabilia I had collected of the Monkees and Davy's solo work so the anchors could have something to chat about and after his interview he signed all my stuff and gave me a hug! I nearly fell to the floor I was so stoked! He seemed impressed at the collection.


Goodbye Davy, you will be missed.

hobbyfan said...

I caught the Monkees' 20th anniversary tour when it came to Troy, and was prepared to go last year befor they cancelled their Albany booking. I have a couple of the later albums on cassette, looking to upgrade to CD, then score the older stuff on CD down the line.

I think Davy was to the Monkees what Paul McCartney is/was to the Beatles. The cute one the girls all went for.

magicdog said...

Davy was "the cute one", although I found something to like in each of them.

I guess he was the one who had the most "teen idol" material.

hobbyfan said...

Exactly. It's kind of like they scrambled the band members' personas in relation to their instruments.

For example, Peter Tork (bass/piano)was their Ringo, since he was characterized as being a bit naive or dense. Mike Nesmith was the cerebral one, equating John Lennon, or an amalgam of Lennon & George Harrison.