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The Kinks
The Kinks were one of the most influential
bands of the British Invasion. Like most bands of their era, the Kinks began as
an R&B/blues outfit. Within four years, the band had become the most
staunchly English of all their contemporaries, drawing heavily from British
music hall and traditional pop, as well as incorporating elements of country,
folk, and blues. Their style was always a little off the mainstream, sometimes
well ahead of its time and sometimes just out of fashion, as in the later
sixties. Throughout their long, varied career, the
core of the Kinks remained Ray and Dave Davies, who were born and raised in
Muswell Hill, London. In their teens, the brothers began playing Skiffle and
rock & roll. Soon, they recruited a schoolmate of Ray's, Peter Quaife, to
play with them; like the Davies brothers, Quaife played guitar, but he switched
to bass. By the summer of 1963, the group had decided to call itself the Ravens
and had recruited a new drummer, Mickey Willet. Eventually, their demo tape
reached Shel Talmy, an American record producer who was under contract to Pye
Records. Talmy helped the band land a contract with Pye in 1964. Before signing
to the label, the Ravens replaced drummer Willet with Mick Avory. The Ravens recorded their debut single, a
cover of Little Richard's Long Tall Sally,
in January 1964. Before the single was released, the group changed their name to
the Kinks. Long Tall Sally was
released in February of 1964 and it failed to chart, as did their second single,
You Still Want Me. The band's third
single, You Really Got Me, written by
Ray Davies, was much noisier and
dynamic, featuring a savage, fuzz-toned two-chord riff and a frenzied solo from
Dave Davies. You Really Got Me reached
number one within a month of its release; released on Reprise in the U.S., the
single climbed into the Top Ten. All Day
and All of the Night, the group's fourth single, was released late in 1964
and it rose all the way to number two; in America, it hit number seven. During
this time, the band also produced two full-length albums and several EPs. The Kinks became more tuneful and
reflective with Set Me Free, Tired
of Waiting for You, So Long and See My Friends. Ray also began to make his name as a satirist, in
hits like A Well Respected Man and Dedicated
Follower of Fashion. In
the album Face to Face, one of the great albums of the '60s, Davies
refines his obsessions into his own private world, with nostalgic music-hall
piano (Sunny Afternoon), brooding
acoustic ballads (Fancy, Rainy
Day in June,Too Much on My Mind), and swinging London rock
(Most Exclusive Residence for Sale. Something Else
went even further, with Davies' gentle compassion for his characters inspiring
his loveliest melodies. The climax of the album is Waterloo
Sunset, the ballad of a recluse living near a dreary London train station,
watching lovers from his window, making up names and stories for them. Their
tours in the sixties were famous for the very explosive exchanges between the
warring Davies brothers who frequently united to wage war on their drummer Mick
Avory. Their violent offstage
behaviour became very public on an eventful night at the Capitol Cinema,
Cardiff, on 19 May 1965. Following
the opening number, Dave Davies walked across to Avory for an exchange of
insults, and then directed a well-aimed kick at the drum kick dismantling around
the unfortunate drummer. Avory grabbed the nearest sharp object from the
battered drum kit and gashed Dave across the side of the head before fleeing
from the theatre. Despite
frequent rumours of splits, The Kicks continued to tour
extensively until mid-1996.
For more than a decade now band members have focused on their own solo
projects with Ray and Dave releasing acclaimed studio albums.
In the autumn of 2005, The Kinks were inducted into the "UK Music
Hall of Fame", at which time all of the original band members were present
again. See the Kinks at: http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=F4DV-5d6a5g&feature=related
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