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 Thursday, August 23, 2007 10:46 AM CDT |
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Hey, hey it's a Monkee!
Former Monkee opens his locker for interview timed to this weekend's New Lafayette Club show
Here he comes, wobblin' down the street. Davy Jones, that is. But hey, hey, it has nothing to do with the age or infirmity of a former Monkee. It's that bloody heavy TV set that he's just lugged from his car to his new apartment just "a stone's throw" from the ocean in Hallandale Beach, Fla. The one that's also just a 10-minute trot from the Gulfstream Park Race Track, where his grand equestrian passions can now be played out with the greatest of ease (a famous track man from way back, Jones has several of his prized horses stabled at the park). Yes, it's moving day for the former Monkees heartthrob, who'll be performing an up-close-and-personal career retrospective Friday night at Bloomington's New Lafayette Club (7:30 p.m., with opening act The Turks). "Finally, my dream has come true," the 61-year-old Jones enthuses, while trying to catch his breath after getting the unwieldy TV set stowed in its place. "It's something I've always imagined in my life. And I've got the best of both worlds now: I can train my horses to win, while staying healthy and fit (at the beach)." Twice-divorced, Jones is a single man now with four grown kids, two grandkids and a 29-year-old girlfriend who wasn't even born yet when The Monkees were at the peak of their mid-to-late-'60s fame. And he's loving the time he's finally found for himself, that "balance" that, he says, can only come with age, experience and a dose of good, old-fashioned instant karma. "At 61, I thought I'd be retired and living off in a little village of England," he muses. Instead, the former pin-up idol seems to just be getting his second -- or is it third, or fourth? -- wind. And not from just lugging the TV set up the steps. Besides racing his horses (a legacy of being groomed by his dad as a jockey when he was just a lad in Manchester, England), Jones is back on the performing trail with his solo show. "I've been very, very quiet the last couple years, and I don't think I've done more than 25 to 30 concerts over the last five years," he estimates. But all of that is about to change. In addition to ramping up his performance schedule, he's recording a new album, performing in live theater (his show business roots, in fact), periodically putting in nostalgia time on TV, working on children's books and still searching for what he calls that "Jack Nicholson-'Easy Rider' role," which will allow him prove his thespian chops before the world. "I have to do that and prove I'm not just the starry-eyed little boy who falls in love with the girl; I'm a character actor interested in doing something that's not Davy Jones." The strategic beach pad is just one of several dreams he's been wanting to see come true lately. Among the others: his bid to become American citizen after years of effort (just a few scraps of red tape remaining, he says) and getting The Monkees inducted into the recalcitrant Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. The last time Jones passed our way here in Bloomington-Normal was 11 years ago, when he, along with Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork, brought The Monkees' 30th anniversary tour to Illinois State University. It was the successful encore to the group's wildly successful 1986 20th anniversary reunion tour, which put the group (with fourth member Mike Nesmith only a part-time participant) into heavy MTV rotation and gave them their first radio hit, "That Was Then, This is Now," in nearly two decades. Perhaps tellingly, there was no 40th anniversary tour last year. "I like to tell the story that I went to visit Peter at the Actors' Home in Hollywood, and I said, 'You know who I am?' and he said, 'Ask the nurse.'" The story, of course, is spurious. But it's an amusing way to take stock of reality: the former band-mates -- assembled by producers for the sake of a TV series, not a concert tour -- aren't getting any younger. At the same time, he admits, "It's very rare when all the original members of a ('60s) band are still alive." And Jones, Dolenz, Tork and the reluctant Nesmith are still very much alive. But there are personality quirks that he admits present hurdles when the idea of any kind of a reunion tour is bandied about. Asked to explain those quirks, Jones delivers the following diagnosis: "Mike is very controlling and calculating, and needs a good hug," he theorizes. "Mickey's a great performer, but he's always looking for the next job and a little self-centered. And Peter is not in touch with his inner celebrity -- he doesn't accept the fact that he's successful but wants to express himself musically by playing too much. And I feel sometimes his timing is off." Though personality quirks and differences can spark creativity in some cases, Jones feels "I can't be responsible for Peter or Mickey or Mike's behavior, and I refuse to take another chance again with what has already blown up in my face a number of times." Then again, he's not just a daydream believer (to quote a Monkees hit), but a confirmed believer that the band deserves its niche in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. And any kind of recognition there, he agrees, would necessitate a reunion for at least one big night. So, he agrees, "It's not over until it's over." The Hall of Fame nod would be the culmination of a success story that began for Jones as a teen star of the original London and Broadway productions of "Oliver!," in which he played the precocious Artful Dodger (as an adult, he has switched sides and played Fagin in several productions, including 1993 staging at the The Muny in St. Louis). As the legend goes, The Monkees were cast for the NBC TV series from among 400 applicants who responded to a 1966 trade ad for "a new TV show about a rock 'n' roll band." Along the way, series creators Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider would be offering up their own mini-"A Hard Day's Night" on a weekly basis, complete with surreal humor, off-the-wall filmmaking techniques and a couple songs on the soundtrack, staged like newborn MTV videos -- before MTV was even a gleam in some producer's eye. A string of upbeat pop hits by able songwriters (Neil Diamond, Carole King, etc.) filled the airways for the next three years, including "I'm a Believer," "Daydream Believer" and "Last Train to Clarksville." Jones was the "cute" Monkee who caught the brunt of the Monkees mania during the band's short but intense burst of fame, fortune and fanatical fandom. For the show, no one was required to have any major musical talent, but Jones was a veteran Broadway show tune belter, a credit his many critics rarely noted. "We were never looked at as a threat to anyone," Jones recalls. "It was unabashed fun, so there was no big, big sort of image to keep up; you just had to carry on, that was the only thing." And carry on Jones has, onward and upward through young manhood and middle age, into his 60s, with no desire at looking, or turning, back. "You have to live the whole circle of life," he enthuses, as he prepares to complete the big move into his beachfront dream come true. E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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