Editor’s note: This op-ed is by award-winning journalist Telly Halkias. It first appeared in the Bennington Banner.
Last week, when I heard Davy Jones was gone at age 66 of a heart attack, I walked out to my truck, unearthed the Monkees CD from the bottom of the storage bin, popped it in the player and went for a drive.
Jones, the charismatic, bubbly and pint-sized Brit who anchored so many of the Monkees hits in the late 1960s, might just have been the last band member any of us expected to go first. Jones was quick with a smile and had a quip always at the ready.
Over the speakers came the familiar theme: “Hey, hey we’re the Monkees,/People say we monkey around,/But we’re too busy singing,/To put anybody down.”
Of course, the irony of the Monkees is that they were never meant to be a music act per se. Capitalizing on the popularity of the Beatles, they were manufactured for American television in response to the British group’s then-recently released movie, “A Hard Day’s Night.”
Their potential was limitless: The show was a semi-spoof, a collection of goofy storylines of a garage band in the most unlikely situations being chased hither and yon by malcontents, and ending up OK in the end. The group was originally chosen for their acting ability and character fit, though all had experience as musicians or vocalists. Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones took the country and the world by storm when their show ran between 1966 and 1968.
Even the Beatles were on the record as fans, if not of the music, most definitely of the show’s brand of humor.
The highlight of the half-hour episodes were the cuts of a few songs interspersed throughout the plot. The band would play and inevitably be targeted bad guys, all with their latest Top 40 hit in the background. Those same tunes came pouring out of my SUV’s sound system as I found an back road and dreamed of summer with the sunroof open and the windows down: “Last Train to Clarksville,” “Daydream Believer,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” and many more.
My older sisters brought Monkees fever home, and of course, I was hooked. Back then, everything the group did became a fad. During recess and lunch hour at school, my friends and I would try to re-enact the latest episodes, all while singing songs working their way to the top of the charts.
Everyone had their favorite character. I liked Mike; he was tall and different with the Texas drawl, but most of all he always wore that green ski cap with the pom-pom on top. I drove my mother nuts until she finally relented one Saturday and took me downtown to buy that exact hat. For the rest of the school year, regardless of the weather, I donned Mike’s green cover.
The Monkees, of course, weren’t without issues, and a short column won’t fit their intricate history. Realizing how popular they had become, the guys fought for musical recording independence separate from the TV show. They were mostly limited to vocals and faking their musical prowess, all as session players and tapes played the melodies while they provided the vocals.
But after 65 million album sales, and with the show canceled in 1968, by 1970 it was all over. What begun, however, was the Monkees as legend and near-cult. Sure, all the other “serious” bands of the era brooded their way into psychedelic history. But the Monkees remained the upbeat figment of everyone’s imagination, a foot-tapping sunny-day troupe that seemed like every mother’s son out having fun.
Which is why fans and some critics to this day can’t fathom the Monkees aren’t yet enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Their flame may have burned briefly, but when lit it was nuclear. And the TV show was revolutionary, a precursor to the huge spectacle of music video brought to the fore by MTV and VH-1, a decade after the Monkees split. To this day it remains a de rigueur staple for success in the recording industry. If that isn’t enough right there, then nothing ever will be.
I pulled back in my driveway after the brief retrospective, to the strains of Davy Jones crooning for his legion of fans. I felt a few years younger than before my ride. In the end, that’s what the Monkees were all about.
Davy, here’s to a smooth ride and warm welcome from the station master, when you finally get off the last train to Clarksville.
