Getting Davy Jones: A Conversation with Davy Jones

It’s not every day that pop culture icons roll through my town, so you could imagine my surprise, and delight, when I learned that Davy Jones was to be playing in our little city. Davy Jones will always be best remembered as the heartthrob of the musical quartet, The Monkees, who hit it big in the late 1960s; and became one of the greatest teen idols in pop culture history.   Nearly immediately after hearing that Davy was coming to town I began to make attempts to contact his people but to no avail. However, after I’d all but given up I received a call from Verne who, only hours before the concert, had managed to get us a pre-show audience with the famed entertainer and former heartthrob. I already had tickets to the show, but Verne was told that he and I were to make our way backstage on the concert grounds, hook up with Davy’s people and then from there we’d meet Davy and discuss an interview time for the next day. Within hours Verne and I made our way to the concert grounds and fought our way through fans, volunteers, and eventually came upon pretty much every major dignitary in the city – all waiting for Davy’s arrival. The Mayor was there. The newspaper editor was there. Anchormen and radio announcers and politicians and pretty much everybody deemed important was waiting for Davy to arrive. Eventually a white stretch limo appeared and out came Davy Jones himself. Davy smiled and took pictures, signed autographs, and was led into a private trailer guarded by an armed police officer. In the hubbub and sea of ego two people got left behind – Verne and I. It was looking pretty hopeless and seemed that, although we were expected by Davy, we were not going to get into that trailer because nobody was taking us seriously. However, we finally got set up with Davy’s bassist, Mark Clarke, who was also the man who was clearly running things. Eventually Mark lead me and Verne to where the mayor and the newspaper guys and TV anchors and local politicians weren’t going to go. We were lead into Davy Jones’ private trailer. As we entered the small trailer, Davy sat on a bench facing the door and greeted us warmly and beckoned us to sit down. I sat down next to the singer while Verne sat nearby on a bed. In the trailer with Davy was his keyboardist, John Blair, and the multi-talented Aviva Maloney who is not only a close friend of Davy’s but plays a dozen different instruments in his band. Introductions were made and immediately Davy wanted to know if we had watched any of the World Cup game that had been played that day. Thankfully I had watched some World Cup earlier in the week and could carry on a half intelligent conversation. We were reminded by Mark that we only had fifteen minutes before Davy had to go on stage so Verne started the tape and recorded what would be our first of two very personal encounters with a pop culture legend. We may have only had fifteen minutes, but we managed to pack a lot of stuff into our first meeting. Get ready to listen to Davy talk about Broadway, The Beatles, Charles Manson, Don Kirshner and Monkee strife as

CONFESSIONS OF A POP CULTURE ADDICT PROUDLY PRESENTS

GETTING DAVY JONES:

A CONVERSATION WITH DAVY JONES

PART I

Sam: I really want to tell you Davy, that it’s really exciting that your playing in town today. It’s not very often that we get pop icons like you in this city. I also want to thank you for agreeing to meet with us today.

Davy Jones: Well this is all like taking your life in your hands. You got to hold on. You’ve got to have the rhythm and that’s what the business is about. You’ve got to know when to move into certain areas. You’ve got to know how to speak to people. When to speak to people. Y’know. Y’know. Change the way you look at things and the way that things change. You’ve really got to be very sensible and you’ve got to realize that I don’t feel like it’s any different than the school play. I mean, as far as I’m concerned… The Monkees… Oliver… everything else… has the same level of importance to me. Y’know… the same level of importance discussing things with you as with the Washington Times. That’s the difference. It’s reaching the people. And our philosophy when we play is we don’t care if there’s a hundred people or, y’know, last week we played in Vegas and we played to twenty thousand people. Now that may seem strange but y’know, there’s a connection there. We also did an e-bay convention and they happen to be using “Daydream Believer” right now.

Sam: So I found a clip of you playing the Artful Dodger on the Ed Sullivan stage on the computer recently and…

Davy: Oh. That’s scary!

Sam: No. It was fun! Actually, the girl that was playing Nancy! Wow! She was gorgeous!

Davy: Georgia Brown. Yeah. We had a thing, her and I. We never did the naughties but I used to hang out with her… and I have a book and it’s interesting because I write like I’m talking to you. Over the kitchen table. But I was in New York… well… I first came to Toronto in 1962 and I did my first performance of Oliver on this side of the world at the O’Keefe Centre which is now called the Hummingbird Center.

Sam: I still call it the O’Keefe Centre.

Davy: I still call it the O’Keefe Centre too. But I like to go across the street to that marketplace with all the food. You’ve been there?

Sam: I’ve been there.

Davy: It’s absolutely excellent – y’know? So anyways, yeah, I did that and I was at the O’Keefe and then we went down to New York and just to give you an example of show business and the tricks that one plays: It’s like a mine field to start and if you go the distance then, y’know, I think that’s important. I’ve said that a few times over the last couple of months because you don’t realize what it entails to do what we do. It’s not just coming in and setting up and then singing and taking money and going. I mean – it’s traveling which is the hardest thing to do these days. But when we got to New York in 1962… Christmastime… I had my sixteenth birthday in New York actually… so I got there and the papers were on strike and there was a very important guy named David Merrick who was a big producer and because the papers were on strike it was a very difficult thing to advertise the show and let people know the show was there and you couldn’t do anything – so he contacted… uh… he got the phone book and he looked through it. He looked at New Jersey. Clyde Barnes, New Jersey. Walter Winchell… you know… he did Rhode Island. He gave them dinner, comped them in, saw the show and then he’d put on the outside “Clyde Barnes said, ‘This is a Smash’” or “Walter Winchell says, ‘This is Wonderful’”. You know, that kind of stuff. So it’s not what you got, it’s what people think you got. You know, Jimi Hendrix. Kurt Cobain. That kind of stuff. You know, I mean, what can I say? I mean I worked with Hendrix. He was our opening act for The Monkees.

Sam: Right. Wasn’t he was booed off the stage?

Davy: Well, not all the time. It’s just like Charlie Manson auditioning for The Monkees. No, he never did.

Sam: He didn’t?

Davy: No. Because somebody said, “Hey! Everybody but the kitchen sink!” So when it came down to that it wasn’t really true. It’s just like that old whispering game…

Sam: Well, if Charlie had joined The Monkees you’d be singing “Look at Your Game Girl” and Peter Tork would have started his own cult.

Davy: Well, he’s probably capable of that. I understand he joined a one man band but he gave it up because of musical differences. He’s very tricky. He’s a tricky kind of guy. I’d be very careful if you get a chance to do an interview with him. What you really should do is get all The Beatles.

Sam: Well you were on Sullivan the same night as the Beatles…

Davy: Yeah, well I was there before them… I was there in ’62, ’63.

Sam: So it was you who started the British Invasion.

Davy: Well not really. It was shows like “Stop the World I Want to Get Off”, “Oliver”, “Beckett”, “Beyond the Fringe” all these different shows…”Pickwick” and all that. That was the sort of things I did then. However, you know, they talk about The Monkees being manufactured and such. The Beatles were the first manufactured band! They wore the same suits. They wore the same shoes I’m wearing now. Composição, which is a dance show. They wore the same haircuts… almost. Y’know, and Brian Epstein fired Pete Best who I met a couple months ago. We did a show together and put somebody else in there who John liked or whatever the deal may be. I’m not quite sure. You know, they’re all variations on the theme that goes along as a band. Y’know, we’ve been together a long time, this band and as you go along you find that the elements of that particular idea don’t particularly gel anymore and people change their minds, much the same as what happened to The Monkees. The Monkees were fine for the first year but then all of a sudden they got out and were looking at the second album we did and that’s when it hit the fan.

Sam: That’s when Michael Nesmith hit the door.

Davy: Because we were dressed in JC Penny clothes – they were sponsors. And Tom McCann shoes. What does the post office have in common with Tom McCann? Fifty thousand pairs of loafers. I mean how ridiculous! That they have clothing on that doesn’t match their style when they leave the place. This was a promotion. They didn’t get that. They didn’t get the idea that this was about show business. This wasn’t about anything other than the music department which was run by Don Kirshner. Don Kirshner didn’t discover The Monkees. Don Kirshner wasn’t responsible for anything other than the musical side of it.

Sam: Why did Don Kirshner become the scapegoat?

Davy: Because Burt Schneider and Bob Rafelson wanted to move onto “Five Easy Pieces” and “The King of Marvin Gardens” and they were very familiar at the time with Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda came to Burt Schneider, who was the son of the president of Columbia Pictures – I wonder how he got a gig there – and he said, y’know, Don Kirshner is a pain in the ass and… a pain in the butt… a pain in the rear… any of the above three… and so that was it because Mike Nesmith didn’t want it. Mike Nesmith was given a Beverly Hills hotel, a check for two hundred and forty thousand dollars and he put his fist through the wall. Not as a complaint because of the check but because Don Kirshner was now claiming fame for The Monkees musical success. Well it was really Neil Diamond and Carol King and Harry Nilsson and Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart and Mike Nesmith…..who I think changed the face of pop music in a sense – if you look at all of the list of his songs on all The Monkees albums. He had a real country/rock feel going on and it was a transition. I think if Mike Nesmith had stayed with it he would be writing songs for Shania Twain.

Mark Clarke: Five Minutes.

Davy to Mark: Okay.

Sam: Is Mike Nesmith as angry as he seems?

Davy: I think he’s just getting old. He looks like a train driver from Tulsa.

Aviva Maloney: He looks like my grandfather.

Mark: Three minutes Davy.

At this point we turned off the camera and knew that if we stayed any longer we’d be overstaying our welcome. It was then that Davy told us that he would be willing to meet with us again the next morning. It looked like we had passed the screening process. It was agreed that we’d meet the next day at the restaurant of the hotel where Davy was staying and we would continue our conversation. We took our leave and went to find our seats to watch Davy’s show knowing that we would be meeting Davy again in a few hours for a second, and this time a more personal and longer, interview.

 THE NEXT DAY: CONTINUED ON PAGE 2