Today it was released that Davey Jones of the Monkees had passed away due to a heart attack at the age of 66.
I was to be honest a tad shocked, I always thought that Davey kept himself in reasonably good shape and never took on the excesses of the day.

Now, I'm not inherently a Monkees fan, but this guy was pivotal to getting the whole Monkees thing away from being a US copy of the Beatles and he had stated in a later interview, that in the early times that he felt it was an insult that his fellow members had to mime playing instruments to satisfy the teeny-bopper market that they were sold to.

David was a well known actor in Manchester, UK before he ever found fame as a pop-star.
It was was him and Mike Nesmith that pushed to get the band out of their contract and start writing some REAL music.

The Monkees might have been the first boy-band, but they'd never have sold so many albums without the voice and persona of David Jones.