Tag: Ray Davies

Written for Glyn’s Mixed Music Bag Week #23
where the theme is ‘songs by a group or solo singer
beginning with the letter K or L’. Here’s my group.

Wickedly satirical, wryly observant and fiercely independent, the Kinks ran counter even to the counterculture! While other major 60s bands were on drug-fueled psychedelic jam sessions, the Kinks kept their focus close to home. They dissected England with witty, literate lyrics set to pop-rock that gained them a cult following that only grows.

While we could never be called cult-followers, Bill and I are huge Kinks fans and saw them perform in concert more times than any other group. The Kinks have left an unimpeachable legacy of classic songs, many of which formed the building blocks of popular music as we know it today.

Founded in 1964 in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies, the Kinks first gained prominence on the heels of the well-received and highly influential single “You Really Got Me”.  The group originally consisted of lead singer/guitarist Ray Davies, lead guitarist Dave Davies, bassist Pete Quaife and drummer Mick Avory. Quaife left [twice] in the late 1960s and Avory left in 1984 as the result of a long-running dispute with Dave Davies, leaving only Ray and Dave as the core of the original group.

With Ray’s songwriting skills, Dave’s impressive guitar work and  Mick Avory’s tight and steady drumming, the band became one of the best and most significant groups of British pop and the “British Invasion”, lasting longer than any of their peers, apart from the Rolling Stones. Their catalogue of songs has been covered by Van Halen, The Pretenders, The Black Keys, The Stranglers, Queens of the Stone Age and many more.

So, what about all those concerts we went to? Bill helped me with this list as I didn’t think I would have remembered all the dates …. and I didn’t! The 1^st time we saw the Kinks was in October, 1969, at our old stomping grounds, the Fillmore East. The 2^nd time was June, 1970, at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY; that was a great show which also featured Grand Funk Railroad and Mott The Hoople. In November, 1971, we saw the Kinks at Carnegie Hall and then again at Stony Brook University where they shared the stage with Yes. Our 5^th Kinks concert was again at Carnegie Hall in March, 1972, and later that year we saw them two more times …. once with the Beach Boys at the Nassau Coliseum (fun!) and again at the Felt Forum of Madison Square Garden. The 8^th time seeing the Kinks was with Argent in March of ’73 at St. John’s University. In 1974 we saw them for the 9^th time, again at the Felt Forum. Our 10^th and final Kinks concert took place at Hofstra University in May, 1977. I was pregnant with our first child and we decided it was time to settle down and act responsibly. That’s 10 performances in 8 years; not bad!

As you can imagine, it’s very difficult to choose one Kinks’ song as my all-time favorite …. so I won’t. Here are three songs I really like a lot so turn up the volume and settle in.

#1 – Ray Davies claimed that he was inspired to write “Lola” after Kinks manager Robert Wace spent a night in Paris dancing with a cross-dresser. The lyrics to this one are so deliciously clever and can be interpreted a couple of different ways. “Lola” reached #1 on the UK Singles Chart and #9 on the Billboard Hot 100. The track has since become one of the Kinks’ most popular songs and was ranked #386 on Rolling Stones’ 2021 edition of “The 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time”. This is ”Lola”:

#2 – There’s not a single thing wrong with this beautiful and melancholy tribute to the stars of Hollywood’s Silver Screen. Record World called “Celluloid Heroes” one of Ray Davies’ finest compositions, however it failed to chart. That doesn’t matter one bit to me; it still is a fabulous song! This is “Celluloid Heroes”:

#3 – Released in August, 1964, “You Really Got Me” went to #1 on the UK singles chart and later in the year to #7 on the US charts. The track is taken from the Kinks’ self-titled album The Kinks. This is “You Really Got Me”:

Big thanks to Glyn for hosting Mixed Music Bag every week.

Thanks for joining me today and spinning some tunes.

See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2024

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