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Davy Jones’s New York

By MICHAEL WILSON



Davy Jones performing “I’d Do Anything” with the cast of “Oliver!” on the Ed Sullivan show in 1963.

“The four young men were finally unveiled here, on the stage of the Forest Hills Stadium,” The New York Times reported on July 17, 1967. “The setting on Saturday night was almost perfect. The rain had stopped and almost all of the 14,000 seats were filled, mainly with girls in their early teens.”

The four young men were the Monkees, and one of them was Davy Jones, who died on Wednesday at the age of 66. The article was mistaken on one count: Mr. Jones had already been unveiled here.

In 1963, at age 17, he played the Artful Dodger in the Broadway production of the musical “Oliver!” at the Imperial Theater on 45th Street. “The Jones lad has played this role in London,” The Times had noted in anticipation of its arrival, apparently mistaking his age for 14.

The newspaper’s unenthusiastic review of the show — “easy laughs,” “facile” — nonetheless praised the Jones lad’s “impudent and genial” reading of his character. He was nominated for a Tony award.

Mr. Jones and his colleagues also performed on the “Ed Sullivan Show” at CBS’s TV Studio 50 on Broadway at 53rd Street now known, of course, as the Ed Sullivan Theater.

A lot changed in four years, by the time of that rainless evening in Forest Hills. An indication of how huge the Monkees had become can be seen in its opening act, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. This legendary mismatch lasted for several concerts that year and ended abruptly in Forest Hills as Mr. Hendrix, sick of the bedsheets hanging from the stands reading “Monkee Power” and hearing those teenage girls scream for the act to follow, left the stage with an obscene gesture for them.

The Monkees played three nights in the stadium during that festival. On July 15, the middle night, they took the stage at 9:15 p.m. and played for an hour. Those in attendance seemed to take this on faith, however, as the screams drowned out much of the playing. The Times sent the great reporter Murray Schumach to cover the show, but by then he was in his mid-50s, and his impatience with the wacky youngsters showed in his copy.

“They had enormous energy as they jumped up and down like human pogo sticks or threw themselves in amusing dance steps that allowed their collar-length hair to flap like wings,” the review stated. “The Monkees spoofed the audience, taking pictures of one another in weird poses, waving, jumping and feigning screams of ecstasy.”

A ticket to the show cost $6.50. Ticket stubs have appeared on eBay from time to time, fetching far more for these rare mementos from a wild weekend in Queens.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ness-new-york/