Sad news. Davy Jones has died.
Davy Jones, the lead singer of the pop group The Monkees, died Wednesday at the age of 66, his publicist confirmed to Fox News.
“The only thing we can do is confirm that he has died of a heart attack at Indiantown, Florida this morning,” his rep Helen Kensick told Fox News. “We will have more later.
I was a fan of the Monkees, even when being a fan of the Monkees was the ultimate in “not cool.” This story calls Davy Jones the “lead singer” but that’s not true, and I’m sure the rest of the Monkees aren’t too happy with that being stated. Jones was the lead on several songs, but the Monkees shared lead singer duties more freely than just about any band I can think of.
It is good that the Monkees finally began to receive critical praise a few decades ago, to the point that even this story first mentions the band’s hit singles before mentioning the television show.
I still love their music.
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThe thing with Davy Jones being called the lead singer seems more correct than not, though. Davy was the heart-throb for the girls, and he didn’t play any instruments other than tambourine.
The others did sign, and sometimes took lead, but Davy was the one most saw as the “voice” of the Monkees, even when he was just singing backup.
I think its because of his limited role in playing anything that he gets that kind of tag.
Sad. I remember him and the group/show well.
.. spelling… “The others did SING…” not sign (though I guess they did at some point sign a contract, lol).
They had some good songs that were very under appreciated by critics. The price of being made for TV “beatles”.
I read a Monkees history once and according to that Davy Jones was actually a pretty solid drummer, but the TV producers said he was too small to sit behind the drums, so they put him up front and put, I think, Nesmith, who had some guitar training, but no drums, on drums.
I thought it was Dolan who played the drums…
Sigh…make that Dolenz…
Dadman, after posting that I thought Dolenz was the drummer too. Memory goes as I age…
I find it a little difficult to think of Davy as a drummer as he was so bad with the tambourine. On a lot of the songs where he was using it, his timing was way off.
I could see TV not liking him behind a drum set though, he would have been lost back there.
I don’t really remember Mike Nesmith singing much. He was the guitar player that was more often the silent type.
The show was like a weekly “Help”.
By the way, I watched a bit of a Monkees biography last weekend and according to the folks interviewed Don Kirshner and the musical songwriting staff considered the Monkees to have two “lead singers.” They preferred the voice of Mickey Dolenz, which they considered a true rock/pop voice (as heard in such songs as “Last Train to Clarksville”) but they also considered Davey Jones to be “lead singer” material in part because of his Beatles-esque accent.
I think they got it right. Dolenz does have a great rock/pop voice in my opinion. Unique, a little rough around the edges, but very solid on key and able to swing from low to high notes smoothly and without straining. I have always considered “Last Train to Clarksville” to be one of the best songs of the 60s, just on its own merits. It’s a greatly underestimated song that was originally intended as a protest/folk song with the “And I don’t know if I’m ever coming back” being a deliberate reference to the draft and the Vietnam War. Had it been performed by just about any other band of the period, it would have been recognized as a great song. But it’s the Monkees….
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