Thursday, March 01, 2012

Davy Jones

Davy Jones & Frank Zappa
Davy Jones, actor, singer, member of The Monkees.
The Monkees TV show was aimed at a slightly younger audience than me. I thought it was good show whenever I had a chance to watch it. I really liked them as a comedy team.  But I wasn't hanging around the house much evenings. Probably watched it most often at girlfriend Karen's, who had younger sisters susceptible to Davy Jones' charms. You could say The Beatles were the  Monkees for my age group, the model, & the industry looked for the "next Beatles" for decades afterward.  By Sept. 1966, The Beatles were a mature group with very little teenybopper appeal. Although the idea of a manufactured Beatlesque band didn't appeal much to me, "Last Train to Clarksville" was an outstanding debut single.*  It was difficult to think of it as The Monkees rather than Mickey Dolenz & studio musicians. But the British music invasion had brought silly groups like Gerry & The Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits, & Freddy & the Dreamers. The initial image of the Beatles with those collarless suits & neat haircuts was manufactured.

The Monkees did a great service by exposing the fact that many bands routinely used studio musicians, by choice or ordered to do so by the record label to save time & money & make records better. It was more cost effective to hire an expensive group of studio cats like The Wrecking Crew for a few hours or days than to let inexperienced bands diddle around in the studio for weeks. The weakness of The Monkees was that the four members had almost nothing in common musically & never would have formed a band independently (How many albums did Blind Faith record?). They were glued together only when they were united in fighting for more control over their recordings. Once they got it, they  began squabbling over what to do with the control.

Michael Nesmith was a polished musician & competent songwriter. But more to the reality of The Monkees, only Davy Jones saw himself as an "entertainer," meaning he knew he was in show business & would do whatever it required. Oddly, this gave him more in common with James Brown than with Buffalo Springfield & The Byrds. When the four Monkees were cast, Davy most fit the need. He had the acting experience & the singing experience. He was a really good front man because he knew how to play the part, knew it was a part.  Reminded me of Eddie Brigati in The Rascals.

* Strangely, my 19 tear old sister bought the first Monkees LP. I don't think she had purchased an album since The  Beach Boys Today in 1965. Someone bought the great Beach Boys lp & it wasn't me. I viewed her very much as a pre-Beatles,  American Bandstand in Philly sort of person. But she'd had a definite weakness for Teen Idols at age 13, apparently she still had it.

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