Singer/Songwriter

Local songwriter recalls Davy Jones

By JEFF HARRELL - South Bend Tribune - March 1, 2012

 

The cute Monkee turned teenage girls into moony-eyed throbbing hearts in the ’60s. But Davy Jones hardly turned Doug Cowen into a rich songwriter when the former Monkee performed one of Cowen’s tunes during live shows in the early 1990s. “I sent him a letter giving him permission to perform (the song) live, saying you don’t have to reimburse me for this,” Cowen said. Cowen was already rich with Jones’ friendship. When Cowen got word Wednesday that Jones had died, what had been a very happy day suddenly took a very sad turn. “It’s my birthday — I’m a leap year birthday,” Cowen, who turned 52, said by phone Wednesday night. “My wife and I went to the Four Winds Casino. We were playing ‘The Monkees’ slot machine. All day long it was a happy birthday. Then we’re coming home and I heard my wife on the phone with her sister. Everybody who knows me personally knows I’ve had this wonderful relationship with Davy Jones of The Monkees. It was just a weird turn of events. Jones, 66, died of an apparent heart attack near his home in Martin County, Fla. The British kid who began his show business career at 11 working on British television before creating the London stage role of the Artful Dodger in “Oliver!” wound up appearing with the musical’s Broadway cast on “The Ed Sullivan Show” the same night the Beatles made their American TV debut. Comparing Beatles music to The Monkees is like comparing Lear jets to paper airplanes, but when it came to teenage heartthrobs by the time Michael Nesmith, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork and Davy Jones stormed American TV screens in 1966, the Beatles’ Paul had nothing on The Monkees’ Davy. “I was a Monkees fanatic when I was a little kid,” Cowen said. Cowen grew up, learned guitar and began writing his own songs before forming his band, The Basics, in 1982 to record a self-released single, “Girls Come Out”/“I Wanna Love You.” He also made friends, one of whom wound up playing drums and touring with Davy Jones in the early ’90s. “At that time, I had a demo out with two up-tempo, ’60s-style rock songs,” Cowen said. “My friend gave a tape to Davy. He said, ‘Here’s a couple of songs you might like.’ “I got a call from my friend a few weeks later. He said, ‘Davy is just floored by these songs. He wants to record them.’ “I was floored,” Cowen said. Jones performed “Girls Come Out” in his live shows for nearly three years during the early ’90s, but the song never made it to CD. When The Monkees reunited for a 30-year anniversary tour, they decided to write their own songs for the reunion CD release. But that didn’t keep Jones from treating Cowen like a long-lost relative every time their paths crossed. “I wound up talking to Davy three or four times on the phone,” Cowen said. “He was as nice of a guy you could ever want to meet. I hung out with him at his concerts. When he’d see me, he would go out of his way to say I was a great songwriter.” When The Monkees hit the stage last summer at The Morris Performing Arts Center, Cowen was in the audience with his 17-year-old son. After the show, Cowen took his son backstage, not quite sure if Jones would remember him. “We walked up in line, and there’s Davy, talking to everybody and signing autographs,” Cowen said. “Davy is just the nicest guy in the world, the same guy you saw on TV.” Of course Davy remembered his songwriting pal. “He screamed out to everybody, ‘Hey, this is Doug Cowen. He’s a great songwriter,’ ” Cowen said. “That was my last run-in with Davy, and I walked out of there feeling great that he remembers me and that he put me up on a pedestal in front of my son. I was 51 years old last summer and I felt like a little kid again. “Davy was just that way.”