Used by permission.

Davy Jones is still the cute one. The difference is, now most of the girls gushing over him aren't pushing puberty. They're managing menopause. But these devoted daydream believers continue to jones for Jones.

The merry Mancunian Monkee still earns squeals as he croons such hits as "Daydream Believer," "I Wanna Be Free" and "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You."

For Jones, performing isn't just a job. It's a way of life. He began by doing radio bits, as a child, for Manchester BBC. TV appearances followed, including a stint on the famed soap opera "Coronation Street."

Greater acclaim came when Jones was featured in the London production of "Oliver!" He stole hearts as the impish Artful Dodger. Playing the role on Broadway, he performed a scene from the musical on the same "The Ed Sullivan Show" episode that introduced The Beatles to America. Little did he know that he would soon be sparking similar mania.

Signed to a Screen Gems contract, Jones had guest shots on "Ben Casey" and "The Farmer's Daughter." He released an album on Colpix Records. But it was landing a spot in "The Monkees" that rocketed him to the top of the charts.

In 1967, The Monkees outsold The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined! They put on terrific live concerts, packing arenas. But after the TV series ended, the band faded, becoming a trio, then a duo. They disappeared... briefly.

Jones played himself, to memorable effect, on "The Brady Bunch," "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "Sabrina The Teenage Witch."

In the '80s, MTV brought the band and the series to a new generation. A 20th anniversary tour was a huge success. On and off, The Monkees continue to perform together, usually Jones, Peter Tork and Micky Dolenz. Michael Nesmith joined them for concerts in England and at L.A.'s Greek Theatre.

Jones has his own excellent band and draws devoted fans, delighting them even without his fellow Monkees. He plays San Francisco's Rrazz Room at Hotel Nikko (222 Mason Street), October 8-10, Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday, 7 and 9:30 p.m., Sunday, 7 p.m. For tickets, $45-$47.50, phone Ticket Web 866-468-3399 or go online at www.therrazzroom.com. You'll never have the opportunity to enjoy Jones' charming entertainment style in a more intimate setting.

When he's not on the road, Jones and his wife divide their time between Florida and Pennsylvania. There the former jockey indulges in another of his great joys, raising and training racehorses.

Jones took time out from cutting hedges and baling hay to speak with Pop Culture Classics.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
So you've been busy with your horses?

DAVY JONES:
I've been in and out of the tack room, looking like I'm homeless half the time. And then, all of a sudden, I go into this other phase of my life, performing. And it becomes a comfortable place. It's where I started out.

PCC:
When you began as a performer, who were some of the singers you admired?

DAVY JONES:
Johnnie Ray, Matt Monro, Buddy Holly, Johnny Tillotson. In the early '60s, it was all one-guy singers. In England, we had Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Adam Faith. In America, they had Frankie Avalon, Bobby Vinton and all those kind of people. It happens all over the world. I guess they take each other's songs, too.

PCC:
You've been performing most of your life, haven't you?

DAVY JONES:
I'd done some TV and radio plays, from the age of 13, 14. Then I left home, at the end of the year, 1961, I went to Newmarket. I went into the stables to become a jockey. Then some owners and agents came to the stable and learned of my endeavors in Manchester, on BBC, and they said, 'Well, there's auditions going on right now for the part of the Artful Dodger in 'Oliver.' I come from the North of England. Don't talk like a Cockney. I went and they said, 'If you can learn the accent in six weeks, you've got the part. And I got it all together in six weeks and got the part.

Used by permission.

PCC:
'Oliver' was a big part of your life, first in London, then on Broadway.

DAVY JONES:
The greatest thing about 'Oliver,' in the late '80s, early '90s, I actually played Fagin. That was a dream for me. Okay, I can sing and dance and act a little bit. But to be able to pull that off, having seen people like Alec Guinness play the part...

I was in a bar on 72nd in New York City and a famous actor came up to me and said, 'I've got to apologize. I played Fagin on 'Masterpiece Theatre.' Did you see it?' I said, 'Yeah, I did.' He said, 'I was terrible. I know I didn't get the accent.' I said, 'It was great!' He said,' I've got to apologize. I saw you on Broadway.' It was George C. Scott. He said, 'I saw you on Broadway as the Dodger. But I suck as Fagin.' So I gave him my, 'Come 'ere, my dear, Oliver, over 'ere by the fire.' He said,' Oh, my God, that's it!' He was actually doing a play with Tony Danza. And it was lunchtime. And he was on the Grey Goose already. And he was going off to do this play. And my father-in-law and I just saw him in that movie 'Patton.'

PCC:
A lot of Americans first saw you on 'The Ed Sullivan Show.'

DAVY JONES:
'The Ed Sullivan Show' was just part of the David Merrick ['Oliver' producer] publicity. He got Georgia Brown there. And she was starting to get around town at the time. Best friends with Judy Garland. We all used to hang out - Buddy Rich and Judy Garland and Georgia - at Birdland in New York. Buddy would get up and hit the drums. Or we'd be at Judy Garland's apartment or having lunch and the Russian Tea Room. It was an amazing time for me, when I was 16, 17 and 18 in New York.

I was treated so well. I was taken everywhere from merchants to hoteliers... it was unbelievable. It was before we had the English Invasion. But we had all these Limeys, the Brits.

The Broadway thing, there was Tony Newley, Dudley Moore, Richard Burton who was doing a traditional thing on stage with Elizabeth Taylor. All these amazing people. And we knew everybody. I'm sure it's still the same way. It's show biz.

PCC:
Your Ed Sullivan episode was also the first for The Beatles. Did you imagine you would one day receive the same sort of reaction?

DAVY JONES:
Bob Rafelson [Co-producer of 'The Monkees" TV series] took us to a concert, downtown, Shrine Auditorium, where The Stones were playing. Everyone was going mad. Bob turned to Micky, Peter and myself and said, 'That will be in six months.' We went, 'Yeah, sure.' Six months later, we were performing in Hawaii, everyone was screaming. And the rest is hysterectomy.

PCC:
Was stardom a big adjustment?

DAVY JONES:
You've got to be very sensitive to the end, because everything you do affects somebody else. You have to be very careful what you say. When you become a celebrity, all of a sudden you become some kind of authority that you're not. You'd better look more intelligent, more articulate, all of those things. It's a responsibility. Some people handle it. Some others don't.

PCC:
You seem just as at home in arenas as you do playing an intimate venue like The Rrazz Room.

DAVY JONES:
I just got back from Japan, where I played The Billboard Clubs in Tokyo and Osaka, intimate settings. Ten years ago, I played Budokan Hall, five nights in a row, five thousand people, because they'd released a Kodak commercial with 'Daydream Believer' or something.

We've all gotten a bit older. Ringo now sings, 'I get by with a little help from Depends.'

PCC:
You have a lot of Beatle connections. Didn't you have something to do with the wild friendship of Harry Nilsson and John Lennon?

DAVY JONES:
I am somewhat responsible for that attraction. In '66 or '67, Harry gave me 'Cuddly Toy' and he had some other things going on and I could see amazing material that he did. So I gave it to a friend of mine, a disc jockey in London, and said, 'Give this to John,' because he was always boasting, 'I see The Beatles all the time.' So I said, 'Give this to John, see what he says about that.' That was the end of that story. John discovered Harry.

And then you read the Yoko book about how she wanted John to go off and have a bit of fun. I thought, 'Jesus Christ, it's like another world. They're writing new rules.'

PCC:
A particularly unexpected pairing was The Monkees with Jimi Hendrix.

Used by permission.

DAVY JONES:
Jimi Hendrix, after seeing him in about 8 or 12 shows or whatever it was, it was like, 'Wow, what was this all about?!' He toured with us and we had a great time, socially. And then his record broke and off he went.

The Fifth Dimension were with The Monkees. We sang with Marilyn McCoo. Lulu came from England. And Lynn Randell from Australia. We sang with Tina Turner. We had all these different people coming, opening our shows. It was bizarre. Mike Nesmith probably was the influence for that.

PCC:
The Monkees psychedelic feature 'Head' has developed a cult following, hasn't it?

DAVY JONES:
The movie 'Head' is actually coming out again. Jack Nicholson and Co. have got 'Five Easy Pieces,' 'King of Marvin Gardens,' 'Easy Rider' and 'Head.' They're putting them out as movies Rafelson made and directed or whatever.

I've had a couple of calls about showing it and talking about it. I'm like, 'I can't remember it. Are you kidding me?'

In the Monkee movie 'Head,' at the beginning, 'Hey we are The Monkees, you know we love to please. A manufactured image with no philosophies...' You know we did that whole little rap at the beginning of the movie. We were rapping!

PCC:
Did you view the project as being somewhat daring, revolutionary?

DAVY JONES:
[Laughs] No, it was just like an extended Monkees episode to me. It was like, 'What's all this about? I thought we were making a movie.' But hey, it was fun. And now people seem to think it was pretty exciting or pretty time-changing or whatever. Hey, it was just something we all did. We had fun with everything we always did. So just keep the fun going. I think that's the thing.

That movie was stuffed, because Jack Nicholson had that scene in it where the guy is shooting the guy in the head in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese guy getting shot in the head. And they wouldn't take it out of the movie. So it was not PG. It became something else. You had to be 16 to get into it. And most of our fans weren't 16.

We've had no contact with any of them [director Rafelson, screenwriter Nicholson] ever since. Even Jack. I mean, Micky might have run across him a few times at the Directors Guild or one of those. But I don't hang there. I don't do any of that. I don't do self-promotion. I talk to you and hopefully people read you and say, 'Oh, I think I'll go see Davy Jones. He sounds okay.'

I think it's the problem with a lot of people in show business, that they don't have another side to their lives

PCC:
It's difficult to reach an audience without any sort of promotion, isn't it?

DAVY JONES:
I had an album back in '65, with Colpix. Everyone was telling me what to sing. My dad said, 'Oh, sing this one!� I had a girlfriend that liked Bob Dylan, so I sang a Bob Dylan song. It was a bit naive, but I did it. That was interesting.

But you had to go out and plug it. And I did that. When we had The Monkees, we had these Monkee Maids that went around the radio stations, these good-looking girls, with short-skirts on, saying, ''The Monkees' is coming! 'The Monkees' is coming!' People would say, 'What's this about?' It went on for about three months before the show started.

And then, six weeks before the show started, 'Last Train To Clarksville' was the number one record in the country. That's before the show went on the air. We didn't have much to do with that. Micky Dolenz's lovely voice did that. Because he knew how to sing. He'd been playing with his band. He'd been a little child star before that. So he knew what the hell was going on. And he could sell it. So he and I were the two that were mostly delegated certain things, like the singing sometimes. And then we had all these lovely little songs, like [Sings] 'When love comes knocking at your door...' All this stuff that was very, very naive and very friendly. That's what 'The Monkees' was all about. Micky and I would sing those things. Mike didn't want to do them.

PCC:
When the band was on top, were you concerned about how long the phenomenon would last?

DAVY JONES:
You're only as good as your last fight, that's what they say in boxing. But you know, I never worried about that kind of thing. To me, appearing on television or on Broadway was the same as being in the school play. It was just something I did. I'd been doing it since I was 12 years old. Reading the morning story on the radio. Then acting on the BBC. It's kind of weird. I just walked in and played me. I spoke the words the way I would speak them when I was talking to anybody. Somehow, it went down all right.

We were pretty good together. We all enjoyed doing what we did. Everything we did was done collectively. But it was the personal side of the whole thing, where people were getting tired of maybe doing the same shtick. I was 20, 21. Peter's like three years older. So he's thinking, 'I don't want to be jumping around like a pork chop three years from now.' Those things end. There was disruption in the ranks, anyway.

PCC:
The Monkees have had a lot of successful reunions. Any chance you'll get together again?

Used by permission.

DAVY JONES:
We talked to Micky and Peter the other day and they're talking about maybe doing a tour next year, going to Australia and Japan and England, pick up some cash and just hang out for the summer. Everybody's doing it. I mean, The Eagles are traveling on separate planes, because they don't like each other. It all depends what kind of thing it;s going to be. But, come on. If you were 21, you would jump at it.

I'm thinking, 'Okay, we're going to England and then on to Australia, then Japan and then we're going to... Wow, that's going to be some kind of trip. I'd better start thinking about my suitcase here.' But, you know, the more you travel, the less you take these days. You think, 'What am I doing that for? I can just go out to a store and buy a clean, white shirt.' You can go crazy. The airports are so overwhelming, to be interrogated. My wife won't go through that little machine, where they show your pubes or whatever. I'd be sitting at that machine, going, 'Oh, my God! Look at that!'

PCC:
You've always seemed willing to embrace your Monkees past more than some of your bandmates.

DAVY JONES:
Their feelings change. My wife just showed me a video of Micky, on stage, not too long ago, singing 'Words,' an old Monkees song. He was singing with his sister, doing the hits, as well as some standard-y stuff. Interesting to see that. I dressed him up in a dress the last time we did a Monkees show. And he did the whole number in drag. So that was kind of cool [Chuckles].

Mike joined us at the Greek Theatre years ago, when we were having a reunion. It's the fatigue of travel. Mike's pretty well off. And Micky certainly is. And Peter's been a good investor. So it's an ego thing at that point. If we can go off and do some memorabilia Monkees hits and show some film and have something visual, fireworks. When we did it in the '80s, I designed the sets, had all scaffolding on it, door open, a bed, doing our whole sort of Monkees thing, had our nighties on. It was like a little bit of theatre.

I don't know if we can do any of that. Maybe we'll just be doing the music. But never count it out. Mike's been very busy with his personal life, his personal finances. We're now in our sixties. If you're The Stones and you've got lots of, lots of, lots of money and you're lonely. Or maybe they're not. Maybe they're egotists, like all entertainers seem to be. The show must go on. Keep doing it.

The guys have gone through changes over the years. But they've always come back. You can't get away from it. Once you're in, you're in. It's like the Mafia.

I find it baffling to see some of the people who are out there these days, making a living out of the business. It's strange. It's Ed McMahon's 'Star Search.' And they add little bits to it, when it's 'American Idol.'

PCC:
The Monkees' records still sound great. In the '60s, the band was generally dismissed by critics. Has more respect come retrospectively?

DAVY JONES:
It's always been sort of what it is to whomever. If people are starting to recognize the happiness it brought them or the memories they've had from it, that's it.

Buffy [Ford] Stewart has been calling me. She wants me to record 'Daydream Believer' with her. That's John Stewart's [the songwriter] widow. I thought maybe I'd do that. That girl from England, that rather strange-looking woman who was on one of those celebrity search programs [Susan Boyle], she recorded it and sold about nine million copies. So I guess Buffy's okay, with the publishing and all that.

That's how smart Nesmith was. He always had the B-side of our singles. So he always had a couple of songs on the albums. There's money in publishing.

PCC:
The Monkees had some great producers, like Boyce & Hart.

DAVY JONES:
Boyce & Hart, Chip Douglas and others, really knew producing. Mike's a pretty good producer. The only mistake we made, when we got together to do the album 'Justus,' [1996, marking the band's 30th anniversary] was that we should have really gotten a top-class producer. Mike is a good producer. But we should have gotten someone with a little more razzmatazz, so we could have built it up. We all had like three or four songs each. It was great to do that. But I think if we had gotten together at the time, with the right producer and the right songs... We all want our little songs out there. I don't think they wanted to go commercial. They wanted to go sort of legit. So that meant our own tunes. I wasn't going to miss out on that. I wasn't about to say, 'No, I'm not going to do that.'

I did that with 'That Was Then, This Is Now,' on the '86 tour. I refused to go into the studio. Clive Davis and that company, they sent three songs. One of them was 'Kicks.' Another was also a repeat of somebody else's song. And then a Bobby Hart song. And then they wanted to put that, with 'That Was Then, This Is Now' out and then use all old Monkee tracks on the album. I thought, 'What is this about? What kind of scheme is this?' So those guys made a little bit more money than I did, I guess.'

PCC:
Do you find it ironic that everyone from The Beach Boys to The Byrds used The Wrecking Crew on their albums, but The Monkees were the only ones who took flak for using session musicians on the first few records?

DAVY JONES:
I didn't care. I don't like standing on a stage, strumming a guitar. I like to be moving around. So I'm not stuck. I didn't care. If some other guy played, fine. I enjoy playing the guitar. I do it all the time, strumming and working at a new lyric or whatever. But I've never paid attention to that kind of criticism. It's not worth it.

My own songs get spread around to different fans, when we do a meet & greet or the fan club or that stuff. But when you've got so many hits, I'm not going to go do 'Oliver' and sing songs from 'Hello Dolly.' So I'm kind of stuck. I'm going to sing, 'I'm A Believer,' 'Daydream Believer,' 'Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You,' 'Pleasant Valley Sunday,' 'Last Train To Clarksville,' all the Monkees hits... and then you move to the B-sides. People want to hear what's familiar. It's freaky. And a lot of people's lives were touched by The Monkees.

PCC:
Including many rock artists.

DAVY JONES:
I've got musicians of great note who come to me and say, 'If it hadn't been for The Monkees, I wouldn't be doing this. First song I ever played, 'I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone.''I go, 'Wow, that's so cool.' I wish I'd written it, with Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. But, it doesn't matter, I still have a connection with it.

PCC:
These days, you play a lot of different types of venues.

DAVY JONES:
When I perform, when I play Disney World, I always have to be careful not to show my bum. That's not going to work. In Vegas, I might come out in my boxer shorts, just for a laugh, and say, 'The last time you saw legs like that, they were hanging out of the bottom of a nest.'

It's very difficult, going into a room full of strangers... who know you. It's a bit of singing, a bit of conversation, a bit of preaching, all to make people feel comfortable. A few little remarks like, 'Hey, I hope you're going to get some drinking tonight. This shows a lot better when you're drunk.' Whatever it takes to go out there and have the guy who's putting it on go, 'We'll have him back next year.'

PCC:
You've built quite a rapport with your fans.

DAVY JONES:
You hear horror stories about people in show business. It doesn't always have to be about dollars and cents. The performers are there to share an experience.

I've always been an impressionable person who likes to strike up a conversation. So I like having an audience to be able to put it across to.

I want people to see me perform and say, 'Just the way I remember him, just the way I hoped he'd be.'

I don't have hit records anymore. Paul McCartney's got something going on all the time. And he's got this amazing catalog. And he's Paul McCartney. So he's going to be doing a tour every five years. The Stones, it's the same thing.

Ringo Starr is out there. You've got to have a million dollars to reside in Monaco. You've got that covered for a start. So he goes out for six weeks every year in America. He's a nice guy, one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet. Very, very grounded. Unlike a lot unhappy of the people I've met over the last 40 years. I have thoughts of Jim Morrison, standing in Peter's pool, naked, with a bottle of bourbon and a couple of dames on either side of him, just free as a bird. I think Barry McGuire was standing next to him.

I still see all the entertainers of the day, Peter Noone, Gary Puckett, The Grass Roots, Rob Grill, Mark and Howie from The Turtles, a bunch of guys from The Association. Once in a while The Pointer Sisters. You meet these people over the years and, if you make an impression, or if you're cordial or responsive, then you become friends.

PCC:
Tell us a bit about the musical you're writing.

DAVY JONES:
It's not going to be just stomp your feet. It's going to be 'Showboat,' 'Hello Dolly,' 'The Music Man,' 'Oliver,' all those kinds of traditional ideas of what musicals are.

My friend Chris Andrews, in England, who was the Dodger after me, in fact, and then came over took over in America, I recommended him to the company and we've been friends ever since. We've adapted this book and also, he's written some friggin' amazing music. It's a proper musical. It's got songs. It's got a story. And it's going to be something.

It's set in the '30s, before the war, and the whole town is affected by the call-up and everything else that's happening. I'm looking forward to finishing this project. It's something that I've been working on for a couple of years. And hopefully it will get us off the road for a while and into the theatre.

PCC:
In the meantime, you still enjoy hitting the road for concerts?

DAVY JONES:
Life is good. You just have to keep yourself fit and make it enjoyable.

I look forward to getting together with Micky and Peter next year. It could be something that will enhance our personal careers. It also gives people another chance to have the memory. I do it really, for myself. And then, when I get out there, I like to play with the audience and give them whatever I can that's going to make them comfortable, give them something musical and a bit of fun.

There's no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

Who knows how long this will be something I can continue to do in good health or whether it will become a strain? I plan to enjoy it as long as I can.

To view the latest Davy Jones concert dates, visit davyjones.net.