Yesterday was quite the shocker as we saw the death of popular TV and music star Davy Jones who made his name in the TV show The Monkees.
Davy has always been a household name for me for as long as I can remember.
Watching the TV show on Sun evening with mum and dad whilst growing up my dad would always regale us with tales of ‘’I used to know him’’ etc. etc… yawn.
This was due to the fact that Manchester born Davy and my dad along with many other young people born in the 1940s found the love for rock n’ roll.
Manchester was happening back then also, with famed club the Twisted Wheel, this club was where the Beatles and Stones would hang when they were in town.
When other clubs closed their doors the Twisted Wheel carried on serving drinks by hostess and playing the best and latest sounds straight from the US.
The bizarre element of Davy in the Monkees is still quite a surreal one to this day. In England he was a stage school kid appearing soap operas and straddling the sporting world as a jockey training with Basil Foster.
If it wasn’t for his training with him, Davy would have never got cast in the theatre production Oliver as the Artful Dodger, from here he went on to perform in the Broadway production and it was here that Davy Jones was found to be the perfect cast member for the TV show .
And that’s how we all got know him…
Bringing classic northern music hall with a cheeky grin and good boy mop top charms to American teens to swoon over…
Crazy with an upper case C for sure!!
Whether it was the producers of the show or Davy himself? he never appeared to sell himself out.
He loved the sap, the uncool; he was hangin’ with the likes of Zappa but never did abandon those traditional Mancunian and Northern roots.
In 2004 I got to see Davy play a social club, in Ashton- Under- Lyne, it was a sit down doo full of 50 plus year old women swooning away over this orange skinned, greying haired Monkee with the pearliest blinding set of teeth I’d ever seen… this sure was Hollywood does Manchester.
He sang Day Dream Believer but that was only nod he gave.
This was show tunes all the way baby!!
I remember looking around the hall at all the smiling faces and that knasher filled mouth twinkling back at them… as much as I wanted to disapprove I couldn’t resist but sit there and grin like a love sick puppy just like the rest of them...
This pint sized star knew how to work the ladies for sure, talking and flirting in-between songs.
Granted it’s not at the top of my list for coolest gigs, but it’s certainly up there with one of the most charming.
As the news of Davys death has sunk in overnight, I’ve been listening to the albums and took it upon myself to get the A to Z out and head up to Openshaw and see if 20 Leamington Street was still around, disappointingly it wasn’t.
The whole area is undergoing redevelopment and they are building a new school where the terrace houses once stood.
But just like everything and everyone….
There comes a time where you have to bow out, but when that time comes make sure you’re like Davy… where you will forever be remembered, watched, listened, and loved by the millions, you’ll forever leave your mark in this realm to carry on to even greater things within the next.
So… so long Davy!
I’m sure that twinkliest star that’s in our skies, are your teeth!!
R.I.P
Davys' backings make this song, and this is my all time faveourite Monkees song!
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