When David Jones and I first met, I was confronted with a slick, accomplished young performer, vastly more experienced than I in the ways of show biz, and yes, I was intimidated. His experience dwarfed my entertainer’s life as a hippie, basket-passing folk singer on the Greenwich Village coffee house circuit. Through the years, I came to see a man of extraordinary heart.
We had just been selected as co-cast members and introduced to each other. Producers sent us out to the desert, a drive of a couple of hours, to film a commercial for Kellogg’s, which was sponsoring the show. We were almost entirely silent throughout the drive. We pulled into a diner, sat down and ordered. Micky Dolenz’s and my salads came first. He and I basically stuck our forks into the bowls, and put whatever came up into our mouths.
“You pigs!” David said. “Anyone would think you was raised in a bahn the ways you guys is eatin’!” Micky and I were shamefaced.
David’s salad came. He carefully cut the salad into one-inch strips, and cut the strips into one-inch squares. He doused it all with creamy dressing. Then, he reached into the bowl, grabbed a fistful of the salad and smashed it into his face.
I suppose he felt he’d overdone the manners maven thing and was making it up to us, but it was the style and willingness to go overboard that was so appealing, and more to the point, so very funny. I laugh to this day thinking about it.
The Monkees took a lot of flack for being “manufactured.” We did play as a group live on tour, including a concert in Osaka, Japan, in 1968. There, in the middle of a performance of Mike Nesmith’s “Sunny Girlfriend,” we hit the pocket. The beat fell into place, solid and grooving. Rock ‘n’ roll was happening there for us on stage. David came bouncing over to me and yelled above the volume, “WE’RE GONNA FORM A GROUP!”
David’s sympathy for my feelings about the criticism, his musical awareness and his sense of humor buoyed me that day about as much as getting into the groove. I hope these help to convey David Jones’ sympathy, humor and heart. He’s yukkin’ it up somewhere else, now.
Peter Tork, a former member of The Monkees, lives in Mansfield, Conn. He wrote this for The Hartford Courant.
