A look back at "Davy Jones" on Bell Records

8/16/2018

In October 1971, Bell Records released Davy Jones' second solo album. The eponymous effort arrived during a challenging period in Davy's career. The Monkees last LP, Changes, had failed to chart a year before, and the group's television series (despite being a hit in syndication in the early 1970s), had been canceled in 1968. With a considerably lower profile, Davy struggled to find an audience in the immediate post-Monkees years.

Produced by Jackie Mills and arranged by Al Capps, the album yielded a couple of singles (and two more additional non-LP singles would follow on Bell). "Rainy Jane" was issued in May 1971 and backed with "Welcome to My Love." The lead single ended up achieving moderate success, peaking at #52 on Billboard, #32 on Cash Box, and #31 on Record World.

The second single taken from the album, "I Really Love You"/"Sitting In The Apple Tree," was less successful, peaking at #107 on Billboard, #96 on Cash Box, and #106 on Record World. The B-side was written by Doug Trevor of The Cherokees, the group that opened for The Monkees in Australia in 1968.

Outside of Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield's "Rainy Jane," the album featured songs written by largely unknown songwriters, an exception being the brooding "Look at Me," composed by David Gates of the 1970s band Bread. (Gates also wrote "Saturday's Child" for The Monkees in 1966.)

Davy Jones album Bell Records back cover

The back cover (Click to enlarge)

The opening track, "Road to Love," easily qualifies as a highlight from the album. It was later selected as the B-side of the non-LP single "I'll Believe In You," released by Bell in early 1972. The single failed to chart.

It's well known that Davy did not enjoy his association with Bell Records. He often vocalized his disdain for the Bell experience, claiming his talents were misused and that he was never given the opportunity to grow as an artist while under their auspices. He ultimately left Bell and later recorded for MGM Records throughout 1972.

In Davy's 1987 autobiography, They Made a Monkee Out of Me, he says next to nothing about the Davy Jones album, leaving co-author Alan Green to discuss this era of Davy's career. After assessing Changes (another effort Davy always publicly disowned), Green summarized the 1971 Bell album this way:

"Davy still had one more disaster to go before he finally broke with Screen Gems in 1971. They got him a deal to do one album on Bell, with Screen Gems publishing. He was teamed up with Jackie Mills, Bobby Sherman's producer, who still saw Davy as a bubblegum singer. He wouldn't allow him to break out of that mold into something a little more challenging, in the way that he was attempting to do with his live shows. The result was one more unoriginal piece of vinyl, from which four singles were released. Only the first, 'Rainy Jane,' made any impression on the charts.

"Davy was very upset with the way the whole thing was handled. He didn't have a manager at the time and was therefore at the mercy of the record company executives. He asked for just his picture and name to be on the cover, but he obviously didn't ask loudly enough. They put out a cheap-looking thing that had the song titles and company logo on the front cover. Davy complained, but to no avail."

The Davy Jones Bell album was eclipsed in time by Davy's iconic appearance later in 1971 on The Brady Bunch, where he sang the song "Girl." Despite being promoted by Davy's guest spot and in the movie The Star-Spangled Girl, as a single it failed to chart. But the song's legend has grown to iconic status through the years thanks to countless reruns of the "Getting Davy Jones" episode and its inclusion in Monkees concert set lists in the 1990s and early 2000s. Davy also appeared in the 1995 cinematic version of The Brady Bunch where he sang "Girl," albeit in a new, grunge-like version.

In 2012, Friday Music released The Bell Recordings on compact disc, which collected the original 1971 Bell album and the singles recorded during that era. It is currently available to download on iTunes and can be streamed on Apple Music.

Thank you very much to Ben Belmares for the scans of Davy's Bell album!

(Above and below: vinyl labels for the "Davy Jones" Bell album)

16 Comments

David Cox

8/16/2018 21:45:18

Monkee-date: October 1971
_____

Taking the excruciatingly long escalator ride, down to the record department, in the basement of the May Company Department Store in North Olmsted, Ohio (Cleveland)
As always, I go directly to "M" for Monkees...start the usual, slow, album by album flip...got it... got it... got it... holy cow!... What's this?
The shrewd manager broke the alphabet wall and put Jones under "M" for Monkee. WhoHoo! But, Mom and Dad both agreed... No, not today.
_____

Monkee-date: November 24, 1971 (My birthday)

Painfully slow (and over-cooked) birthday dinner. Then, yep, time for the presents! I only got one that year but it's all I wanted, The Davy Jones new solo album. Into my bedroom and onto the platter of my General Electric Wildcat phonograph it went. One song in and Mom knocks on the door, steps in and says, "We're all going bowling for your birthday!" Reluctantly, I lifted the tone arm and set it to rest. I remember her saying "You'll have all Thanksgiving Vacation to listen to it" And that's exactly what I did!
_____

Thank you Mom and Dad for that wonderful birthday Monkee memory.

Jeff

8/16/2018 22:05:52

Terrific story, thank you for sharing!

Monkees Live Almanac

8/17/2018 09:40:55

Great memories, David! Thank you for posting.

rob

8/18/2018 21:01:46

oohh man I loved reading your story David! .. brings back so many memories as a first gen fan growing up in Wheeling IL.

mary

8/27/2018 15:26:49

Enjoyed this 1st gen story, David. I got a copy of this 2nd Davy Jones LP much later. I only liked about half of the tracks on it overall. I really wish "Rainy Jane" did better in the charts, that was a superb single for Davy as a solo singer!

9/3/2018 16:20:54

Thanks for reading and for your thoughtful replies!

Being a first generation fan, leading up to and continuing on after 1970 was a rough road and a true test of allegiance.. After this album, the only record that remained in stock was the Bell Records re-issue Re-Focus in 1972. Four more mostly silent years would pass before the next glimmer of hope and validation would appear for Davy in the form of Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart. I realize now, thanks to the internet that there were other morsels to be had in-between but the records stores and radio stations in Northeast, Ohio had washed their hands clean of The Monkees, seemingly forever...

Frank L

8/17/2018 01:43:35

Actually, i liked the album. The standout was "Look At Me" and i already knew about "Rainy Jane" before getting the album (i picked up the single a couple of weeks before).
Road To Love was excellent and How About Me was fun.
I was a bit disappointed that i never saw another release since, until stumbling across the remainder of the singles on ebay beginning in 2003.

8/17/2018 09:38:44

I've always had a soft spot for it, too, Frank. I remember finding this LP after I had been a fan for a couple of years. I didn't know much about it as there wasn't much info on it in the few Monkees books that existed during the '80s resurgence. "Rainy Jane" should have been a bigger hit!

Louis

8/17/2018 10:43:11

Davy put three demos he recorded himself right before recording the Bell album, including his own take on Rainy Jane. It is easy to see why Davy was so annoyed. The demos he was recording were much better than the overproduced bubblegum that Bell wanted him to put out. Would it have made a big difference on the charts? Probably not. But Davy would have had an album he loved and promoted for years to come instead of a footnote he wanted forgotten.

8/17/2018 11:11:58

And here's that great "Rainy Jane" demo:

https://www.monkeeslivealmanac.com/blog/song-of-the-day-rainy-jane-demo

8/17/2018 17:11:17

Even tho' it was produced by Jackie Mills, I always felt it sounded like a Wes Farrell, Partridge Family album. Were the background vocals provided by The Ron Hicklin Singers as on the Partridge records?

Mark Yurkiw

8/17/2018 17:29:17

The demo version of "Rainy Jane" (produced by Chip Douglas) blows the Bell version out of the water!

leeb

8/18/2018 14:52:11

Never cared for this album. Sounds like the Partridge Family. The Partridge Family is fine, but Davy Jones is not the Partridge Family. I guess i'd be more sympathetic if Davy himself liked it. THe Brady Bunch later recorded Road to Love, btw. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuVoJEPlhAQ

Gilbert Matthews link

8/19/2018 05:30:57

And speaking of The Partridge Family, "Say It Again" would later be performed in one of their episodes by The Williams Brothers, who had a near top 40 hit in the early 90's with the harmony-enriched "Can't Cry Hard Enough." "Say It Again" was also released on a 45 by John Davidson roughly around the same time as Davy's Bell album. I prefer to listen to the album in its original version; some tracks on the CD reissue fade out a bit sooner than their vinyl counterparts.

Mark James Meli

1/6/2020 01:24:55

Time has really changed my evaluation of this album. I was seven years old when it came out, and my only thought of it was why couldn't have sounded more like a Monkees' album?? I really liked the album, but I was expecting something that sounded like a blend of HEADQUARTERS through INSTANT REPLAY Monkees' type music. But now, I see it as a good transitional album. It sounds as though Davy had a fair amount of control over the music. I had seen him do guest spots on talk / variety shows in the day, and he was already doing this type of music, sort of modern cabaret tunes. The haunting standout is "Look At Me." That song has stuck in my head forever, just because it is so dark. It''s almost as though it doesn't belong there, or in the David Gates book of composition at all.

1/6/2020 03:24:34

Actually Davy was always upset about not having enough control over this album. The 3 demos he released on one of his "Just for the Record" series represented how he wanted it to sound, which was closer to a Paul McCartney album, not bubblegum

A look back at "Davy Jones" on Bell Records

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