Davy Jones dead, Monkees singer was 66

Davy Jones -- forever young and forever beloved by fans the last 50 years -- has died, according to Reuters. Age: 66. The cause of death was apparently a heart attack.

Jones and his band the Monkees were in a brief moment and time very nearly as popular as the Beatles -- whom they so gently satirized and idolized in that long ago NBC hit. ("The Monkees," by the way, bowed Sept. 13, 1966 -- five days after "Star Trek" launched.) 

Critics of course slammed 'em -- a Don Kirshner "Pre-Fab Four" gimmick whose four members couldn't sing or write their own songs or really even act. And of course critics totally missed the point: They certainly could sing (and had music careers before this came along) and in time learned to act pretty well, too. Jones was the impish, irrepressible "cute one" with the flop mop and "Manc" accent (he was from Manchester) that evoked the real Fab Four.

He was also -- even more than Peter Tork -- the one a generation of pre-teen girls fell deeply and irreversibly in love with (and one Marcia Brady, in particular).

The Monkees didn't survive television -- they WERE  a television stunt after all -- but there are few sweeter or more utterly indelible memories of '60s TV than this show, and the wonderful sweet guy who banged away on the tambourine and sang "Daydream Believer" -- his signature all these long years (in the video below, Micky D does the tambourine.)