I still find it hard to believe that Davy Jones, the teen idol star of TV’s The Monkees died today at age 66 of a heart attack. Given that Mick Jagger is still going strong, and while Keith Richards appears to have morphed into Treebeard at some point over the last decade, he recently concluded a tour to promote his best-selling autobiography, 66 isn’t that old for today’s geriatric rock stars – particularly if Jones had stuck with the milk diet implied by the Monkees’ first sponsor, Kellogg’s Cereal.
I wouldn’t go as far as Kathy Shaidle’s claim that they were “better than The Beatles,” but certainly the latter group’s prefab imitators had their moments. In their early days, with Don Kirshner leading their sessions, they had the pick of New York’s Brill Building songwriters, such as Neil Diamond, Carole King, and Gerry Goffin. In their second season, after they fired Kirshner, the hits slowed down, but their quirky attempts at psychedelia were some of their most fascinating songs, along with Mike Nesmith’s proto-country rock experiments, which anticipated ‘70s groups like The Eagles by a good five to ten years. (Nesmith’s experiments in music video in the following decade would be dubbed by some as a direct precursor to ‘80s phenomenon MTV.)
You could make a case that 1966 was a seminal year in boomer pop culture. A young person could turn on the TV and flip through the dial to find:
- Star Trek
- Mission: Impossible
- Batman
- The Green Hornet
- I Spy
- The Avengers
- The Wild, Wild West
- And of course, The Monkees
Those shows would be the backbone of syndicated rerun packages for the next quarter century, and most would also be developed into at least one motion picture, and for the first three, entire franchises that continue to this day.
The Monkees’ own picture would arrive first, their infamous 1968 movie Head, featuring a co-writing credit to Jack Nicholson, of all people. As Peter Biskind explored in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, his seminal history of the “New Hollywood” of the late ’60s and seventies, Nicholson was on the staff of RayBert, the company formed by Monkees producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson. Schneider and Rafelson would use their profits from the TV show they co-created to produce a number of seminal early-‘70s films such as Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces. Schneider would also later be at the center at arguably the nadir of the Academy Awards, when he read aloud at the 1975 Awards (along with co-producer Peter Davis) to a standing ovation, a congratulatory telegram from North Vietnam on Davis and Schneider’s anti-Vietnam War documentary, Hearts and Minds, just three weeks before South Vietnam’s final surrender.
If that’s a long way from “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees,” I doubt very much that Jones knew he signing on for a show that would be the spearhead in a cultural revolution in Hollywood, but hey, hey, that’s how it all worked out. For a group dismissed as trite bubblegum, for better or worse, that’s some legacy.
“and while Keith Richards appears to have morphed into Treebeard at some point over the last decade,”
LOL. Great line, Ed.
Hoo Hom, lets not be hasty, now. I don’t look THAT bad!
Peter Tork got the Monkees job because his friend Stephen Stills turned down the offer for the part in the show.
According to “The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits”, Stills was rejected for the job because his hair and teeth weren’t perfect enough for the camera, and he encouraged Tork to go for it.
“Hooom! Hooom! Don’t be hasty now young man.”
I enjoyed the Monkees and the were a hoot to a certain extent, but Davey Jones did not change the world. They were a minor phenomenon in the scheme of things.
My first experience of anti-government sentiment emerged not from anything going on in Laos of Vietnam but when the word came down through AM radio, the Internet of the day, that the evil U.S. government was trying to DRAFT DAVY JONES!!!
Not to pick nits, but that is an extremely odd comment. Jones’ bio says that he was 19 years old before he ever came to the States, being obviously British as anyone who heard him speak more than three words would know. I can’t speak to whatever your memory was, but I hardly think the US government ever got it into it’s head to start drafting foreign citizens, and certainly never heard of it as an issue before. I don’t know if Davey Jones ever became a US citizen, but if he did, I hardly think he would have done so at age 19 or 20, given the very issue you speak of. Certainly the US had ways of expressing displeasure to foreign celebs who opposed the war, etc (re: John Lennon) but I don’t think drafting them was ever an issue.
Jus’ sayin’.
I have a Canadian friend who was living in the US during the Vietnam war, and her son, also a Canadian, was drafted because he lived in the US. It was a surprise to me, too.
As I understand it, it depends on your visa. “Green Card” holders are very much subject to the draft (in general, they’re de facto US citizens except that they can’t vote and can be deported).
To stay in the US for a long time Davy Jones might have had to get a Green Card.
When I was in the Regular Army in ’82-’84 there were a lot of foreign nationals in service with me and I was in a nuclear-capable missile unit, one of two systems designed to carry a neutron warhead, so security screening and clearances were required.
One of the best memories of my elementary school years were after school Monkees air guitar/lip-synching sessions in the living rooms of my latch-key kid friends back in 1967-68. My older sisters had the Beatles, but the Monkees were ours, at least until we morphed into Zeppelin/Black Sabbath/Creedence fans in the years that followed. Good times…RIP Davy.
You forgot “Man from UNCLE”. Boy, were Friday nights fun those days.
I tried to concentrate on shows that were later developed into movies. But yeah, Time Tunnel, Voyage and Man from Uncle were all great. Not to mention The Girl from Uncle, if only for an early look at Stephanie Powers. (Come to think of it, Barbara Feldon on Get Smart wasn’t too shabby, either.)
Don’t forget Lost In Space, that was made into a movie as well. Those 60′s shows were the best.
My favorite piece of dialog from the CBS drama “NCIS”
Kate: “I wonder what Ducky [played by actor David McCallum] looked like when he was young?”
Gibbs: “Ilya Kuryakin”
I laughed so hard at that line. Wonder how many heads it went completely over? I was one of the army of 14-year-old girls who were in love with Ilya Kuryakin in 1968. David McCallum may play a loveable grandfatherly type now, but he was HOT back in the day!
Mean Granny, I was 10 at the time and totally an Ilya girl! He was HOT before I knew what hot was. Big Davy Jones fan, too! He was my first musician crush! Take care!
Don’t forget the GREATEST show of 1966, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea! And there was was also “The Time Tunnel”
I’ve been watching some of the episodes with my niece, and I have to say it was an extremely cleverly written show (at its best), and the humor was *way* out there, anticipating Monty Python in places. There was an amazing courtroom dream sequence in an episode itself based on the endearingly loopy idea of contractually binding lifetime dance lessons..
C’mon, Ed. Comparing the Monkees to the Beatles is like comparing a grape jelly jar to Waterford crystal.
They both had some great songs. To be fair, the Beatles did it all themselves, with the help of the illustrious George Martin. The Monkees had some of the very best L.A. session musician and New York songwriters crafting their material. But a good song is a good song, no matter how it’s recorded.
The Monkees were certainly less bogus than The Archies, for instance, or 1910 Fruitgum Company. And watching their show was a bit of a guilty pleasure back in the day. But to compare them to the Beatles is absurd.
“They both had some great songs.”
Ed, are you serious? The Monkees had “Daydream Believer” and a good song that Neil Diamond wrote, and not much else. The Beatles body of work is unsurpassed in rock and roll history. They haven’t sold a billion and a half records because they were cute and British.
A very good post. Best one on a very sad day.
I think that the concluding paragraph of the article must have been cut off – you know, the one that explains “how Davy Jones changed the world”.
If you’ve ever read Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, you’ll see how the Monkees brought you Easy Rider, which dramatically changed Hollywood — and damn near wrecked it until George Lucas and Steven Spielberg came along and showed it how to make money once again.
One other minor way Davy Bowie “changed the world” — or at least pop culture. There was another David Jones in the mid-1960s, an ambitious, though still little-known British singer. In order to avoid confusion with the star of the Monkees, he changed his last name — to Bowie.
No, I felt that I spent too much of my life on Easy Rider by watching it on the big screen when it was released. Interesting, though, as is the Bowie reference. Thanks so much – for those comments, not to mention your insightful column all the time.
Some interesting things about the Monkees.
Don Kirshner directed the music and most of the music and eearly hits. There were big issues between him and the band and they eventually split off.
Although often derided for using studio musicians the Monkees all played their own instruments on tour.
Glen Campell played guitar on some Monkees tracks
Stephen Stills was turned down when he auditioned. He recommended his friend Peter Tork. Stills played on some Monkees tracks.
Legendary drummer Hal Blaine recorded some Monkees tracks. ( famous drummer’s quote: I was 19 before I realized that 10 of my favorite drummers were Hal Blaine)
Michael Nesmiths mother invented Liquid Paper
Was it Liquid Paper or Wite Out that his mother invented? Anyway, Nesmith fancied himself a serious artist and also had a hit a few years later called “Joanne.” It began: “Her name was Joanne and she lived near a meadow by a pond.” The rest of the lyrics made no sense, but it got fairly high on the charts as I remember in 1970 or so.
Something else I found out.
The band originally had no drummer. Jones was the best at the drums but was too short to film well over the drumset so Dolenz was given the job. He never really liked the drums and preferred to play guitar as frontman.
Also, don’t forget that The Monkees were the headline on what is undoubtedly the most unlikely pairing in R&R history – for a few dates on The Monkees summer 1967 tour, Jimi Hendrix was their opening act.
Nice piece Ed. I had to just smile when I read your list of ’66 TV shows because I watched every single one of them. But then again, I only had four channels to choose from.
Michael Nesmith recently put out a solo album, ‘Rays’, which is some of the best music I’ve heard in a while. Do yourself a favor and listen to whatever cuts you can dig up on the Internet; the guy has a certain quirky genius. His older stuff holds up surprisingly well, too.
Another favorite show of mine from the 60′s, that hung around in pop culture forever, was Giligans Island.
Gilligan’s Island, Outer Limits and Lost in Space, ya bubble headed bobbie.
I have to thank The Monkees … they got me through one hellish summer when I was in college. It was 1981, at that point, the biggest recession since the Great Depression. I was on schedule to graduate from college in December and I was in summer school that summer. I had been unable to get a summer job. No jobs in sight anywhere, the Reagan Recovery was on its way, but it hadn’t quite kicked in yet … can you spell “depression?” I had class every morning, then was free the rest of the day. On the way home from class, I would swing by the package store and pick up a bottle of Smirnoff. Afternoons were spent studying, watching reruns of The Monkees, and medicating myself, in various combinations. May God bless them and may Mr. Jones RIP.
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