WHERE WERE YOU THE FIRST TIME YOU SAW THE MONKEES TV SHOW?
Hearing about the death of the Davy Jones of the Monkees from the 1966-1968 TV show fame struck me with a rush of memories yesterday. I imagine most of you old enough to remember the Monkees have similar memories watching the show, but my memories may be a little different, and I will admit I did really like the Monkees.
My memories are different and the reason I really really liked the Monkees probably had something to do with the fact the Monkees TV show was the only music I was exposed to in 1966-1967. The only music you may ask…well at that time I was a ten year old boy living in Ireland. I was born in the US, but my parents divorced and around 1963 my mother took me to Kilkenny Ireland where she had been born and raised. At the time when I arrived in Ireland electricity had just been made available in the area and so there was a few light bulbs in the house, but no bathrooms, refrigerator, running water, radio, and no TV except for the small black and white my mother had brought with her from the States. There was a fireplace and a barrel outside to catch rain water.
There seemed to be only one TV station which broadcast a few hours each evening, and so when the Monkees show came on one Friday evening, I was hooked. Besides the Monkees, there was some sort of Robin Hood show, but besides that, those are the only shows I remember seeing. I guess that equaled about an hour of TV a week…imagine that, only an hour a week. The only other TV memories I have from Ireland was the broadcast during the week President Kennedy had been assassinated and buried in November 1963. It was odd because I remember that week very well and all the people in the area making a point to tell me how sorry they were about losing my President. They all loved Kennedy because of the Irish Catholic connection, but since I was a Yank, they felt that I had even a closer connection.
So, the first time I saw the Monkees TV show I was a ten year old boy in Ireland in 1966. The next year in 1967 my mother took me with her back to the United States, New York city…now that was culture shock, but the Monkees were on TV for another year, as was Star Trek, Lost in Space and others, and hearing the radio, I fell in love with Petula Clark and her singing Downtown, somewhat ironic song and symbolic to a ten year old thrust into New York City, the Downtown and Broadway. Of course can’t forget Nancy Sinatra and those boots and the first time hearing the Rolling Stones.
