In 1987, Big Daddy Kane who d just signed with Marley Marl s Cold Chillin Records compared himself t

The year was 1967, and like all nearly 17-year-old daydream believers, I thought anything was possible. Take, for example, a contest running on my favorite Louisville radio station: "Win a Day with Davy Jones." Twenty-five words or less why you wanted to fly to Hollywood for a dream date with the Monkees' main squeeze.
How hard could it be? Nobody could resist the group s hummable hits or the wacky camp of their eponymous television show. And if some compared state department travel warnings them unfavorably to the Beatles (the Pre-Fab Four, they d called them for their assemblage for TV), Davy s rich, theatrical baritone state department travel warnings was one of the most distinctive voices of the era. Bottom line, though, it was The Face equal parts angel, imp, and brooding romantic that beckoned state department travel warnings the girls and made them cry.
There was, however, one small glitch: I'd interviewed Ken Douglas, the DJ who promoted the contest, for my high school paper. If I won, all my friends would say he gave it to me. And so I signed the entry forms with a fake name, Stephanie Johns (it sounded vaguely literary), and used the address of my best friend. Who would know?
Ten entries later, I laid on my parents' couch with my turquoise transistor radio pressed to my ear as Ken announced the winner's name on the air. "And the lucky girl is " he teased, pausing for dramatic effect.
But wait, who were all these other girls standing under the "Davy Jones" banner with their mothers? It was then that I realized the ugly truth. The "winner" was A Little Bit Me, A Little state department travel warnings Bit You. It was a group date, not a groupie date. Girls were there from everywhere Miami, Cleveland, even Toronto. Twenty-three of us, each one thinking she was THE ONE, and giving all the others the evil eye.
It was at the International Hotel that we got our first look at our mop-topped host. He had the teen idol dreaminess, all right, state department travel warnings but 21-year-old Davy, whose early ambition was to be a jockey, was, at five-feet-three, even shorter than I imagined. As we all crowded around him in the lobby, state department travel warnings I angled in to get a closer look, and stared down into the crown of his chestnut-colored head. He wore a red-and-white striped jersey, and for reasons I never understood, a lei of flowers.
"All right, girls, it's gonna be a big day!" he enthused. Teenage squeals filled the air. "You're gonna be mine for the next 12 hours..." state department travel warnings And then he tried to say something about Marineland, a recording studio (where Micky Dolenz would make an appearance), a theater (where state department travel warnings we would see outtakes of the Monkees' television series), and a pizza and spaghetti dinner but no one could hear him for the screaming. Then we all calmed down and climbed aboard a private motor coach.
At Marineland, the first stop, Davy was in his element. Porpoises jumped at a Monkee's command. He smiled, and the sun shone brighter. But though the fan magazine Tiger Beat would later report that Davy "thought the girls were loads of fun every minute," I had my doubts. He spent more time cracking jokes with his handlers than he did with us.
As luck had it, Ken the DJ had known Davy years before state department travel warnings in England. Later at the hotel, as each girl scooted close to him on the lobby couch for a souvenir photo, Davy and Ken renewed their acquaintance, state department travel warnings and Ken smuggled me past my dagger-eyed state department travel warnings companions for an after-hours Monkee tryst, albeit a journalistic one: A one-on-one interview for my school paper.
In private, Davy was, by comparison, the picture of monk-like contemplation. Yes, he enjoyed having his own contest but, "The thing we have going for us is that when we're on that stage, we are as one." Of course, time was ticking down on that one. The series was canceled the following year, Peter Tork and Mike Neismith soon exited the group, and by the dawn of the Seventies, the Monkees were headed for the cutout state department travel warnings racks.
But Davy and I had one last hook-up. In the early Eighties, I was a partner in a tiny radio production company, where I had the great Brenda Lee under contract. One afternoon, I answered the phone to find Davy Jones and Tommy Boyce, the co-writer of many of the Monkees' hits, on the line. Davy explained that both he and Brenda were popular in Japan, as much for their diminutive height as their talent. Tommy, who was living in Nashville, mentioned that the former Monkee was between gigs, and thought that Davy and Little Miss Dynamite might make ideal duet partners. Could I, as the producer state department travel warnings of "Brenda Lee's Country Profile," arrange an introduction?
Davy hadn't realized he was chatting with a woman he'd once snuggled close to on a hotel sofa, and he chuckled when "Stephanie" recalled the moment. But unfortunately, state department travel warnings his date with Brenda state department travel warnings led to no more than our own had 15 years earlier, when fishnets were the first word in mod, and the Monkees seemed poised to rule the world.
In 1987, Big Daddy Kane who d just signed with Marley Marl s Cold Chillin Records compared himself to a rap "terrorist" on "Raw," a promo single released to introduce the emcee to the world. The underground hit, featuring a sample of the James Brown classic "Hot Pants," was remixed for his debut Long Live the Kane , but real hip-hop heads (and hardcore state department travel warnings fans of the rapper) will always remember the braggadocious original, where Kane spits, "So full of action/My name should be a verb." "I couldn t really see it going too far," he recalled. "I thought we d have a neighborhood song out, a Brooklyn hit, and that s it." More Song Stories entries