A few years ago I read Ken Emerson's amazing account of the Brill Buliding era, "Always Magic in the Air". In fact, everyone even vaguely interested in the golden era (the early '60s) of American pop music should. Furthermore, for every ill-informed idiot who claims there wasn't a whole lot going on Stateside until the almighty Beatles first crossed the Atlantic in '64, this should be a required reading.
Focusing on the masters of song, such as Leiber & Stoller, Goffin & King, Pomus & Shuman, Greenwich & Barry, Mann & Weil, Bacharach & David, and Sedaka & Greenfield, Emerson's tale was obviously an inspiration for the good folks at U.K.'s Ace Records, who launched their still-ongoing CD "Songwriter series" around the time the book was first published, in the mid-'00s.
Apart from the aforementioned songwriter teams, said series have also featured the early works of Neil Diamond and Phil Spector (separately, of course :-), plus career overviews of Boyce & Hart, Randy Newman, Sloan & Barri, Lee Hazlewood, Bert Berns, Chip Taylor, and Jackie DeShannon - to name but a few.
Of course every serious music enthusiast owns, for instance, Bobby Vee's big hit version of Goffin & King's "Take Good Care of My Baby". But not everyone's aware of the fact that Dion recorded the original version of that little gem. Well, Ace's compilers take both matters into account and include Dion's scarcely heard interpretation rather than Bobby's more familiar - and, frankly, better - one on their Vol. 2 collection of Goffin & King's compositions.
There are numerous other similar examples of how these excellent Ace series both educate and entertain the listener.
Digging for dusty obscurities ripe for (re)discovery is also something the Ace people obviously see as an often rewarding challenge.
Apart from the obvious highlights of the series (Goffin & King Vol. 1, Mann & Weil, Greenwich & Barry), personally I was also pleasantly surprised by the Sloan & Barri CD, as well as the Penn & Oldham, Jackie DeShannon, and Chip Taylor collections. Previously something I thought were merely a few hit wonders, thanks to the Ace folks, I am now a proper fan.
It is always sad to hear of one of your musical heroes' passing. After all, in many cases you've grown up with their music; it has been a constant presence throughout your life.
Thus today, upon learning about Davy Jones' untimely death at 66 from a heart attack, one's thoughts inevitably turn to the past: to one's youth specifically. Music having been such a big part of my life for as long as I can recall, The Monkees' music has been there longer than most other.
I can very vaguely remember The Monkees' T.V. series being on in the late '60s, but being born in 1964, I was certainly way too young to acknowledge and appreciate them at the time.
As a teenager I dug feverishly into my older sisters' record collections when they weren't around...and usually without their knowledge. And I seem to recall a snowy winter's day in '77 or '78 when I came across The Monkees "Greatest Hits". And to make a long story short, I've been a fan ever since...
The Monkees were controversial from the very beginning - to say the least. People either loathed or loved them. Sure, they were "manufactured", but still recorded some of the most memorable pop songs of the '60s - many of which were written by some of the best songwriters of ANY era. Goffin/King, Neil Diamond, Harry Nilsson, Boyce/Hart, Paul Williams, etc. and so on.
Davy being the only Brit in the band, having been a star of stage and screen in his homeland from a very young age (he appeared on the same Ed Sullivan Show as The Beatles in 1964, as a member of the Broadway cast from "Oliver!" - he received a Tony nomination for his performance - which he had previously performed in London), he became instantly recognizable to American T.V. audiences due to his accent first and foremost, as well as his physical stature (He was short, which became a running gag throughout The Monkees' two years on the air).
The Monkees were an immediate hit and Davy, in particular, was the popular pin-up choice.
The Monkees' history is very well documented elsewhere, so I see no reason to dwelve any deeper into their remarkable history here.
Nonetheless, their mid-period albums such as "Headquarters" (1967 - The first album they were allowed to play their own instruments on), "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd." (1967), "The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees" (1968) as well as the soundtrack to their film "Head" (1968 - Co-written by one Jack Nicholson), are all certified late '60s pop classics.
But inevitably when the T.V. series went off the air their popularity waned and by 1970 the game was up.
Solo careers were launched all around and Davy's debut post-Monkees effort was 1971's "Davy Jones" on Bell Records.
A nice enough bubblegum album, "The Road to Love" is one of its strongest cuts.
But in spite of a memorable guest appearance on "The Brady Bunch", sales were disappointing and Davy's solo career never really took off.
During the '70s Monkees reunions and semi-reunions (Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart) were attempted, but with diminishing returns.
In the early '80s Davy returned to solo work and briefly became a big star in Japan.
During the mid-'80s The Monkees' old T.V. series started to enjoy a revival in re-runs on American cable stations, MTV in particular, and the old Monkee music was also up for a timely reappraisal and critical re-evaluation.
Thus the time for a reunion was ripe and in 1986 Arista Records issued a new compilation album on CD - then a new format - which also contained a couple of recently recorded Monkee tunes, including their version of the Mosquitos power pop classic "That Was Then, This is Now"...
For the past 25 years Monkees reunions (usually minus Michael Nesmith, though) have been a regular occurrence.
In between those Davy always returned solo work (his last show was a couple of weeks ago) as well as the occasional T.V. and film gig. His first love, horses (he was a jockey in his younger days), was never far from his heart and mind either.
Rest In Peace "Someday Man" - You will be missed!
A trivial footnote: Without Davy, there wouldn't have been a David Bowie. Bowie, initally known as David Jones, was forced to change his name to something else as soon as Davy Jones became a household name. Hmmm.
