I Just Wanted To Be Davy Jones

Previously: Hey Everybody! Do The Freddie!

If you were a sixteen year old boy in 1966, chances are good you wanted to start your own rock band. I sure did. But like pretty much everybody I knew, that dream never materialized. I did know a kid named Kevin who had his own band.  Kevin's real claim to fame was that his older brother was already out of high school and had become a real-live hippie, long hair and everything.  None of us ever saw real hippies in Anaheim, California; and truth be told, I don't know anyone who ever saw Kevin's brother in the flesh either. I may even have my chronology wrong, because "hippies" didn't appear on the scene until the summer of 1967, so Kevin's brother may have been more the stuff of legend after 1966. 

At any rate, Kevin was the lead singer in an actual rock band that went by the name "The Plastic Bag," which at the time I thought was probably the grooviest band name of all time.  It didn't seem possible to me that anyone could come up with a better name for a band. All the other ideas were surely already taken.

The term "garage band" had not yet been coined, which is just as well, because the one time I sat in with The Plastic Bag they were practicing in Kevin's living room and kitchen. Needless to say, Kevin's parents were not home.

When I say I "sat in," I only mean I was present to watch them rehearse. I didn't play guitar. Not that I hadn't given it a try. Once. My friend Bruce Graham had let me hold his acoustic guitar and showed me where on the fret to hold my fingers to make a chord, but the steel strings hurt my finger tips. I quit guitar right then and there.  I don't think I've ever picked up a guitar since, although later in life I took up the baritone ukelele. That four-string instrument is harder than it looks, too. 

I desperately hoped Kevin would ask me to sing with his band, but he never did. Neither did anyone ever ask me to join any band at any time, probably because there was little call for french horn players in rock bands in those days.  I didn't know about the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds at the time because...well, because nobody was buying that album then.   I'm not even sure The Plastic Bag ever played a gig.  They were just four guys who rehearsed together and that was about it.

Anyway, what Kevin did do at one point was let me have the tambourine while he sang and
the band played.  The song was "You Can't Judge A Book By Looking At It's Cover," which I had never heard before so I assumed it was a Plastic Bag original. 

But Oh, the tambourine! That was an instrument I could play!

It had not been lost on me that every one of the Monkees except Davy Jones could play an instrument, but Davy was still front and center singing and playing tambourine.  Watching the Monkees play "Valerie," I knew I would never be able to pull off Mike Nesmith's impossible flamenco riff on the guitar, but I could sure as heck smack the tambourine as well as Davy Jones.  Maybe better. 

Which brings me to to some of my favorite songs of the swinging 60's that featured the tambourine. Let's start with Valerie. There are countless equally good examples I could have gleaned from the Monkees -Daydream believer comes immediately to mind.  But I've always liked the instrumental hook on Valerie, Mike's guitar intro, and Mickey's rolling tom-toms, and the hornsm, so this is the one I'm picking.

I recommend listening to all these clips with headphones because it's not always easy to hear the tambourine to full effect without them:

Next up we have the quintessential tambourine classic, "Green Tambourine." This was a monster hit, not least because it combines the tambourine with the sound of the then-unfamiliar sitar and generous use of the vibraslap.  Few people had ever heard any songs with this combination of unusual instruments before, and it stayed on the Billboard top 100 for a stunning 13 weeks.

You can watch the Lemon Pipers performing live here, but the sound is not as good as the album cut above.  The trade-off is that in the live video you get some boss green lighting to remind you that for some reason the tambourine -and everyone in the group- is bathed in the color green. And there's an echo effect when they say the word "play."

And in case you don't know what a vibraslap is, it's a percussion instrument that dates back to biblical times. It was originally made from the jawbone of an ass, but unfortunately for us purists, they are made of wood and metal today. So it's hard to find an original jawbone unless you're inclined to kill and skin a donkey just for the sake of your art.  I'm not, but hey, you do you. Either way, here's a video showing you what a modern day vibraslap looks like, as well as a plasticky-looking replica of the an ancient jawbone of an ass. And this cool cat here will show you how to slap either one of 'em:

And now, let's get back to playin' the hits!

When you think of groups making skilled use of the tambourine, Martha and the Vandellas probably don't come immediately to mind.  But the sound is crisp and bright in Nowhere to Run.  Oddly, no video clip I have found of the Vandellas performing live seems to feature any of them holding a tambourine, and you also don't hear it in those live performances.  The reason that's unusual is that normally when a group performs their hit on TV, they are lip-synching to the recording and, if they're musicians, fake-playing their instruments.  Since the tambourine is clearly heard on the Vandella's album and not in their live performances, I can only assume they are playing live in these televised appearances.  So why no tambourine? I don't know, but I'm guessing it was a studio musician who played it on the record. 

Here's the Vandellas from the album:
    

And here they are performing live on what looks to be Hullaballoo. You'll notice the decided lack of a certain sine qua non in this performance.  That's the missing tambourine.

For an apt comparison, here are the Crystals lip-synching to their hit "And Then He Kissed Me."  You can hear the tambourine on the recording they're lip-synching to, but none of the girls is holding a tambourine in the actual video.

I'm not nitpicking here, because of course we also don't see Phil Spector's Wall of Sound orchestra anywhere on stage either. Nevertheless, this isn't the best version of the song to hear the tambourine on. When you listen to the Crystal's album cut, the tambourine is as crisp and bright as the tambourine on the Vandella's album. To hear a better version of the Crystal's song, click here. This is a great example of what made Phil Spector so indispensable: in spite of the fat sound of the horns and the full strings and woodwinds, you can still hear the tambourine above the fray.  That there is some good sound engineering.

I almost wasn't going to count "Hey, Mr Tambourine Man" by the Byrds, because even though it is about a tambourine (or at least a guy with a tambourine), the sound of that instrument can barely be heard

 -not in the live performance, and nowhere on the record, either. It would have been better if the guy playing the tambourine (I don't know his name; I've never spent that much time with the Byrds) would have held the tambourine up to the microphone when he struck it.  It's a shame that the most well-known song about a tambourine is so pooly enginered that the listener can't even hear the instrument that the song is about. Needless to say, Bob Dylan, who wrote "Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man" didn't play a tambourine when he sang it, either.   

Anyway, if I don't include the Byrds in this list I'll probably hear from some irate Byrds fans, so here you go. Prove me wrong:

Now let's get back to some serious partying!  Here's the First Family of Funk with one of the best dance numbers of all time.  The white guy in the back has to set aside his sax now and then in order to pick up the tambourine, but playing the tambourine in a funk band is what the Good Lord put us white guys on earth for. 

I've always worried about Cynthia ruining her voice with all that screaming: "All the squares go home!!"

Was it worth it, Cynthia?  Seriously, was it?

That was the mono version, which was good enough for radio play and 45s.  But if you really want to hear that song wail, listen to the stereo version here (and make sure you're still wearing heaphones:

 

 The Four Tops get credit for some hard jangling tambourine interludes, even though none of them played the tambourine on stage (that was done in the studio). Also there's a nice counterpoint with that galloping wood block. This has the determined feel of Edwin Starr's "25 Miles." If you have somewhere to go that requires a lot of walking at a brisk pace, this would be excellent to march to. You don't need a coach yelling in your ear with the Four Tops on hand.

Mark Volman of the Turtles gets kudos for handling the tambourine like a boss. Too bad you can't hear any of it at all in this video.  Again, Mark, that tambourine is not a mere prop. It's not a toy. It is a serious musical instrument that deserves your respect.  Generations of people died so you would have the right to perform a parody song with that tambourine, so the least you could do is hold it up so we can all hear what you're doing with it. Put that jangly thing next to the microphone when you hit it! Please!

Is nobody even listening to me?!

No tambourine is detectable in the album cut on Elenore, either, although the Turtles get points for being one of the first pop groups to use the Moog Synthesizer.  Some people think that's a theramin they're hearing, but it isn't. It's a moog.  Jump HERE to minute 1:06 to hear it on the album cut.

No list would be complete without at least one number from the Beatles.  Like the Monkees, there are plenty of songs to choose from that feature the tambourine. "Hey Jude" comes to mind, but the tambourine is way too subtle for a song that begs to be rocked out with. I love "Hey Jude" for Paul's use of the piano, but I prefer the tambourine on "Daytripper" because it's a happy song. We also get to hear that distinctive rattlesnake jangle rather than just the standard strike, strike, strike rhythm.  We can tell this song is a cut from a studio recording because, although the tambourine is prominently heard, none of the boys have a free hand with which to use it.  From the scafolding and the dancers, I'm guessing this performance was taped for NBC's Hullaballoo.

  

Poor Stephanie Crough. She had one job as a member of the Partridge Family: just stay quietly in the back and hit the tambourine in time to the music.  Instead she's too quiet, staring off into space in a near-catotonic state while seeming to forget she's supposed to be performing.  The only thing the producers of that show needed to do was call me and I would have stepped in and taken over in a New York minute.  Cast me as the long-lost weird hippie Uncle; I wouldn't have cared. Just let me have that juicy gig.

This brings us to The Cowsills. The Partridge Family was originally intended to be a show about the Cowsills, starring the Cowsills themselves as the Cowsills. Unfortunately, the Cowsills were too busy being the Cowsills -making records, touring the country, and getting rich- to take time out to make a TV show.  So instead of Susan Cowsill, who not only had scads of personality, but could actually play the tambourine like a ninja master, we got...Stephanie Crough. I hate to speak ill of the dead (Stephanie left the planet six years ago at the age of 52), but good heavens! Wasn't anybody in charge of that show?

And now, for the penultimate offering, I give you that one-hit wonder, "Game of Love" by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, featuring a crisp, clean tambourine complimented by a clear, deep, thumping bass, perfect drumming, and some surf guitar licks thrown in for free. This song smells like 1965.

And finally, if you didn't know Elvis Presley was a tambourine virtuoso -well, you don't know The King as well as you think you do, me bucko:

Extra Bonus Clip:
There is no tambourine visible in this Manfred Mann version of "Do Wah Diddy Diddy," but Paul Jones is shaking two maracas in each hand, and I say that's close enough to qualify. I'm adding this song to the list because it makes me happy.

Whoo-eee! After listening to these incredible tracks I think I'll go dig my tambourine out of storage, crank up the living room stereo, and get back to busting those sweet tambourine moves I was once so proficient at. I could use the exercise, and if Sly and the Family Stone ever come up to Northern Idaho for a reunion tour, I'll be ready to spell that other white guy so he can devote his full attention to playing the sax.

You feel me, Sly? I'll be waiting for your call.