I was on the internet when I first heard that Davy Jones died. I immediately emailed one of my friends and asked if he had heard this news. His response perfectly summed up mine: “No; that’s terrible!”
Davy Jones died on February 29, 2012 of a heart attack at age 66…pretty young by today’s standards. Now you might be thinking how silly it is to be affected by the death of a celebrity I never met. But I have to admit it did affect me. Weatherman Al Roker summed it up in his response to the news: “A little bit of my youth just died.”
It was more than a little bit for me. I have played guitar for 46 years, and The Monkees are the reason why. My Dad had tried to get me interested in guitar by playing Chet Atkins records. While I eventually became a big Chet Atkins fan, my initial response was to lay my Dad’s archtop guitar on my lap and beat on it like a bongo drum. (Dad wasn’t encouraged.)Read More