The Monkees were a big part of my teen years. I already had early crushes, on Edd "Kookie" Byrnes of "77 Sunset Strip" (an old TV show, folks) and then, David McCallum of "The Man from UNCLE," now toiling as Ducky on NCIS. There were The Beatles, of course (George was my favorite) and Herman's Hermits (Peter Noone was and remains my all-time music crush, and he has nice things to say about Davy on his site). Davy Jones wasn't even my favorite Monkee. That label was reserved for Mickey Dolenz, who I'd watched on "Circus Boy" (another old TV show). But Davy was part of that thrown-together band and he had a sweet voice. I watched that night when Ed Sullivan hosted The Beatles for the first time on US TV. What a lot of people don't know or don't remember, Davy Jones was on that show, too, that very night, with the cast of Oliver!, the Broadway show for which he was nominated for a Tony award for playing the Artful Dodger. If you click the link for the YouTube video, you can hear that beautiful voice as it was meant to be heard, on a stage.
I'm lucky to have seen Davy perform in oldies concerts a few times, most recently, with Mickey and Peter Tork. He will be missed. Mickey spoke about his friend Davy in a phone interview on NY's WAXQ radio station this morning. And I just found this link for Mickey talking about Davy on The Today Show.
Feeling: sad
Beautiful tribute Shelly. I love that clip of him as the Artful Dodger—great find.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Chelly. It was fun watching it. It's been a lot of years.
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