Saddened to learn of the death of Davy Jones aged 66. Peter Tork was my favourite Monkee but I always appreciated Davy as the sole Brit in the other Fab Four. They were quite a phenomenon at the time and while the TV shows look very dated now the goofy clean-cut commercial music still sounds pretty good.
Though they were created as a fictional band they proved they had minds and talent of their own so were able to transcend the plastic manufactured image. The psychedelic 1968 movie Head was their own Sergeant Pepper moment and the fact that it featured cameos from Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Frank Zappa illustrates that they were not the antithesis of cool some have claimed. Zappa can be seen at the end of this clip of Jones’ loveable song and dance routine telling him dryly how “the youth of America depends on you to show the way”.
