The Kinks

The Kinks were an English rock ^{rock music} band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray ^{Ray Davies} and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorized in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognized as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a wide range of genres, including rhythm and blues, British music hall, folk ^{Folk music} , and country ^{country music} . Ray Davies (lead vocals, rhythm guitar) and Dave Davies (lead guitar, vocals) remained members throughout the group's 32-year run. Original members Pete Quaife (bass guitar, vocals) and Mick Avory (drums and percussion) were replaced by John Dalton ^{John Dalton (musician)} in 1969 and Bob Henrit in 1984, respectively. Dalton was in turn replaced by Jim Rodford in 1978. Keyboardist Nicky Hopkins accompanied the band during studio sessions in the mid-1960s. Later, various keyboardists, including John Gosling and Ian Gibbons, were full-time members. It became an international hit, topping the charts in the United Kingdom and reaching the Top 10 in the United States. Between the mid-1960s and early 1970s, the group released a string of commercially and critically successful singles and LPs, and gained a reputation for songs and concept albums reflecting English culture and lifestyle, fuelled by Ray Davies' observational writing style. The Kinks' subsequent theatrical concept albums met with less success, but the band experienced a revival during the New Wave ^{New Wave music} era—groups such as The Jam, The Knack, and The Pretenders covered their songs, helping to boost The Kinks' record sales. In the 1990s, Britpop acts such as Blur ^{Blur (band)} and Oasis ^{Oasis (band)} cited the band as a major influence.

The Kinks had five Top 10 singles on the US Billboard ^{Billboard (magazine)} chart. Nine of their albums charted in the Top 40. Four of their albums have been certified gold ^{gold record} by the RIAA. Among numerous honours, they received the Ivor Novello Award for "Outstanding Service to British Music". In 1990, their first year of eligibility, the original four members of The Kinks were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, as well as the UK Music Hall of Fame in November 2005.

 
Formation (1962–1963)


The Davies brothers were born in suburban North London on Huntingdon Road, East Finchley, the youngest and only boys among their family's eight children. Their parents, Frederick and Annie Davies, soon moved the family to 6 Denmark Terrace, Fortis Green Road, in the neighbouring suburb of Muswell Hill. At home they were immersed in a world of varied musical styles, from the music hall of their parents' generation to the jazz and early rock and roll that their older sisters enjoyed. Both Ray and his brother Dave, younger by almost three years, learned to play guitar, and they played skiffle and rock and roll together. another student at William Grimshaw, who performed with the group at least once in early 1962. He soon formed his own group, Rod Stewart and the Moonrakers, which became a local rival to the Ray Davies Quartet. Davies soon quit school and returned to Muswell Hill, where the brothers and Quaife re-formed their old group,

The fledgling group hired two managers, Grenville Collins and Robert Wace, and in late 1963 former pop singer Larry Page ^{Larry Page (British singer and manager)} signed on as their third. American record producer Shel Talmy began working with the band, and The Beatles' promoter, Arthur Howes, was retained to schedule The Ravens' live shows. The group unsuccessfully auditioned for various record labels until early 1964, when Talmy secured them a contract with Pye Records. During this period they had acquired a new drummer, Mickey Willet; however, Willet left the band shortly before they signed to Pye. Avory had a background in jazz drumming, and had played one gig with the fledgling Rolling Stones. Manager Robert Wace related his side of the story: "I had a friend. ... He thought the group was rather fun. If my memory is correct, he came up with the name just as an idea, as a good way of getting publicity. ... When we went to [the band members] with the name, they were ... absolutely horrified. They said, 'We're not going to be called kinky! Pye Records threatened to annul the group's contract unless their third single was successful.

"You Really Got Me" was released in August 1964, and, boosted by a performance on the television show Ready Steady Go!, quickly reached number one in the United Kingdom. Hastily imported by the American label Reprise Records, it also made the Top 10 in the United States. Extremely influential on the American garage rock scene, "You Really Got Me" is regarded as the first hard rock hit and the blueprint for related genres, such as heavy metal ^{Heavy metal music} . The group's fourth single, "All Day and All of the Night", another original hard rock tune, was released three weeks later, reaching number two in the United Kingdom, An intensive performing schedule saw them headline other package tours throughout the year with acts such as The Yardbirds and Mickey Finn ^{Mickey Finn (musician)} . Tensions began to emerge within the band, expressed in incidents such as the on-stage fight between Avory and Dave Davies at The Capitol Theatre, Cardiff, Wales on 19 May. To placate the police, Avory later claimed that it was part of a new act in which the band members would hurl their instruments at each other. Although neither The Kinks nor the union gave a specific reason for the ban, at the time it was widely attributed to their rowdy on-stage behaviour. This was an early example of crossover music and one of the first pop songs of the period to display the direct influence of traditional music from the Indian subcontinent. In a widely quoted statement by Barry Fantoni, 1960s celebrity and friend of The Kinks, The Beatles, and The Who, he recalled that it was also an influence on The Beatles: "I remember it vividly and still think it's a remarkable pop song. I was with The Beatles the evening that they actually sat around listening to it on a gramophone, saying 'You know this guitar thing sounds like a sitar. We must get one of those.

Recording began promptly on the group's next project, Kinda Kinks, starting the day after their return from the Asian tour. The LP—10 of whose 12 songs were originals—was completed and released within two weeks. According to Ray Davies, the band was not completely satisfied with the final cuts, These recordings exemplified the development of Davies' songwriting style, from hard-driving rock numbers toward songs rich in social commentary, observation, and idiosyncratic character study, all with a uniquely English flavour. Before the release of The Kink Kontroversy, Ray Davies suffered a nervous and physical breakdown, caused by the pressures of touring, writing, and ongoing legal squabbles. During his months of recuperation, he wrote several new songs and pondered the band's direction. though it reached only number 73 in the United States.


The Golden Age (1967–1972)

over and over again". However, the band's own opinion of the track was low—Pete Quaife later stated, "[I] hated it ... it was horrible." commented Andy Miller. The tour proved taxing and stressful—Pete Quaife recalled, "It was a chore, very dull, boring and straightforward. ... We only did twenty minutes, but it used to drive me absolutely frantic, standing on stage and playing three notes over and over again." "Days" reached number 12 in the United Kingdom and was a Top 20 hit in several other countries, but it did not chart in the United States.

Village Green eventually morphed into their next album, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, released in late 1968 in the UK. It was greeted with almost unanimously positive reviews from both UK and US rock critics, yet failed to sell strongly. Although only an estimated 100,000 copies sold worldwide, the album has since become The Kinks' best-selling original record. Several factors contributed to the album's initial commercial failure, in particular its deliberately understated production, which contrasted with the extravagant style then in vogue. Furthermore, it did not contain a popular single; "Starstruck" was released in North America and continental Europe, but charted only in the Netherlands, and the moderately successful "Days" was not included. Though a commercial disappointment, Village Green (the project's original name was adopted as shorthand for the long album title) was embraced by the new underground rock press on its release in January 1969, particularly in the United States, where The Kinks began to acquire a reputation as a cult band. In The Village Voice, a newly hired Robert Christgau called it "the best album of the year so far".


In early 1969, Quaife told the band he was leaving. The other members did not take his statement seriously, until an article appeared in New Musical Express on 4 April featuring Quaife's new band, Maple Oak, which he had formed without telling the rest of The Kinks. Ray Davies pleaded with him to return for the sessions for their upcoming album, but Quaife refused. Davies immediately called up John Dalton, who had filled in for Quaife in the past, as a replacement. Dalton remained with the group until 1977, when the album Sleepwalker ^{Sleepwalker (The Kinks album)} was released. The group's management quickly made plans for a North American tour, to help restore their standing in the US pop music scene. Before their return to the United States, The Kinks recorded another album, Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). As with the previous two albums, Arthur was grounded in characteristically English lyrical and musical hooks ^{Hook (music)} . The Kinks embarked on their tour of the US in October 1969.


The band added keyboardist John Gosling to their line-up in early 1970. The lyrics originally contained the word "Coca-Cola", and as a result the BBC refused to broadcast the song, considering it to be in violation of their policy against product placement. Part of the song was hastily re-recorded by Ray Davies, with the offending line changed to the generic "cherry cola". After the success of "Lola", the band went on to release Percy ^{Percy (soundtrack)} in 1971, a soundtrack album to a film of the same name ^{Percy (1971 film)} about a *** transplant. The majority of the album consisted of instrumentals, and did not receive positive reviews. Their debut for RCA, Muswell Hillbillies, was replete with country, bluegrass, and music hall influences. It is often hailed as their last great record, though it was not as successful as its predecessors. The record featured the ballad "Celluloid Heroes" and the Caribbean-themed "Supersonic Rocket Ship", their last UK Top 20 hit for more than a decade. The album was moderately successful in the United States, peaking at number 47 in Record World and number 70 in Billboard.
In 1973, Ray Davies dived headlong into the theatrical style, beginning with the rock opera Preservation, a sprawling chronicle of social revolution, and a more ambitious outgrowth of the earlier Village Green Preservation Society ethos. Davies went into a state of depression, culminating in a public outburst during a July gig at White City Stadium. According to a Melody Maker review of the concert, "Davies swore on stage. He stood at The White City and swore that he was 'F...... sick of the whole thing'. ... He was 'Sick up to here with it' ... and those that heard shook their heads. Mick just ventured a disbelieving smile, and drummed on through 'Waterloo Sunset. At the show's conclusion, as pretaped music played on the sound system, he declared that he was quitting. Dave Davies later commented in an interview about the incident:

God, that was horrible. That was when Ray tried to top himself. I thought he looked a bit weird after the show—I didn't know that he'd taken a whole bloody bottle of weird-looking psychiatric pills. It was a bad time. Ray suddenly announced that he was going to end it all—it was around that time that his first wife left him. ... She'd left him and taken the kids on his birthday, just to twist the blade in a little more. ... I think he took the pills before the show. I said to him towards the end that he was getting a bit crazy. I didn't know what happened—I suddenly got a phone call saying he was in the hospital. I remember going to the hospital after they'd pumped his stomach and it was bad.

Preservation Act 1 was released in late 1973 to generally poor reviews, and its sequel, Preservation Act 2, appeared in May 1974 to a similar reception. It was the first album recorded at Konk Studio; from this point forward, virtually every Kinks studio recording was produced by Ray Davies at Konk. The Kinks embarked on an ambitious US tour throughout late 1974, adapting the Preservation story for stage. Musicologist Eric Weisbard: "[Ray] Davies expanded the Kinks into a road troupe of perhaps a dozen costumed actors, singers, and horn players. ... Smoother and tighter than on record, Preservation live proved funnier as well."

Davies soon began another project for Granada Television, a musical called Starmaker. After a broadcast with Ray Davies in the starring role and The Kinks as both back-up band and ancillary characters, the project eventually morphed into the concept album The Kinks Present a Soap Opera ^{Soap Opera (album)} , released in May 1975, in which Ray Davies fantasized about what would happen if a rock star traded places with a "normal Norman" and took a 9–5 job. In August 1975, The Kinks recorded their final theatrical work, Schoolboys in Disgrace, a backstory biography of Preservation's capitalist overlord Mr. Flash. The record was a modest success, peaking at number 45 on the Billboard charts.


Return to commercial success (1977–1985)


John Dalton left the band before finishing the sessions for the debut Arista album. Andy Pyle was brought in to complete the sessions and to play on the subsequent tour. Soon after its release and the recording of its followup, Misfits ^{Misfits (The Kinks album)} , Andy Pyle and keyboardist John Gosling left the group to work together on a separate project. Dalton returned to complete the tour and ex-Pretty Things ^{The Pretty Things} keyboardist Gordon John Edwards joined the band.

The next Kinks album, Give the People What They Want, was released in late 1981 and reached number 15 in the US. The record attained gold status and featured the UK hit single "Better Things" as well as "Destroyer ^{Destroyer (The Kinks song)} ", a major Mainstream Rock hit for the group. The tour culminated with a performance at the US Festival in San Bernardino, California, for a crowd of 205,000. In spring 1983, the song "Come Dancing ^{Come Dancing (song)} " became their biggest American hit since "Tired of Waiting for You", peaking at number six. The accompanying album, State of Confusion, was another commercial success, reaching number 12 in the US, but, like all of the group's albums since 1967, it failed to chart in the UK. Another single released from the record, "Don't Forget to Dance", became a US top 30 hit, and minor UK chart entry. During the second half of 1983, Ray Davies started work on an ambitious solo film project, Return to Waterloo, about a London commuter who daydreams that he is a serial murderer. The film gave actor Tim Roth a significant early role. Another problem was the stormy end of the relationship between Ray Davies and Chrissie Hynde. The old feud between Dave Davies and drummer Mick Avory also re-ignited. Davies eventually refused to work with Avory, Many of the songs had already appeared as solo recordings on Ray Davies' Return to Waterloo soundtrack album. The Kinks: The Official Biography, by Jon Savage, drew on extensive interviews with members of the band. Ray Davies had even helped Savage and his agent set up the book deal. However, shortly before the publication date, he tried three times to halt its release. The Observer reported that "first was an objection to the text, even though the singer had approved it earlier. ... Then there came a threatened injunction ... because of objections to some of the photographs. Then there was a curious demand [for a] £50,000 permission fee for quoting some lyrics."


Decline in popularity and split (1986–1996)

In early 1986, the group signed with MCA Records in the United States and London Records in the UK. Songs like the ballad "Lost and Found" and "Working at the Factory" concerned blue-collar life on an assembly line, while the title track was an attack on the very MTV video culture from which the band had profited earlier in the decade. The Kinks followed Think Visual in 1987 with another live album, The Road, which was a mediocre commercial and critical performer.

In 1990, their first year of eligibility, The Kinks were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Following Mark Haley's departure after the band's sellout performance at the Royal Albert Hall, London, Gibbons rejoined The Kinks for a US tour. Two years later the band released a new, improved, live double CD set in the USA, which retained the same name and contained two new studio tracks, "Animal" and "To The Bone". The CD set also featured new treatments of many old Kinks hits. Despite such accolades, the group's commercial viability continued to decline. The Kinks gave their last public performance in mid-1996, and the group assembled for what would turn out to be their last time together at a party for Dave's 50th birthday. Kinks chronicler and historian Doug Hinman stated, "The symbolism of the event was impossible to overlook. The party was held at the site of the brothers' very first musical endeavour, the Clissold Arms pub, across the street from their childhood home on Fortis Green in North London."


Solo work and potential reunion (1997–present)


The band members subsequently focused on solo projects, and Ray and Dave released their own studio albums.

Ray Davies came out with the solo album Storyteller, a companion piece to X-Ray, in 1998. Originally written two years earlier as a cabaret-style show, it celebrated his old band and his estranged brother. Dave Davies spoke favourably of a Kinks reunion in spring 2003, and, as the 40th anniversary of the group's breakthrough neared, both of the Davies brothers expressed interest in working together again. However, hopes for a reunion were eliminated when in June 2004 Dave suffered a stroke while exiting an elevator, temporarily impairing his ability to speak and play guitar. Following Dave's recovery, The Kinks were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in November 2005, with all four of the original band members in attendance. The award was presented by The Who's guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend, a longtime Kinks fan and friend of Ray Davies. The induction helped fuel sales for the group; in August 2007, a re-entry of The Ultimate Collection ^{The Ultimate Collection (The Kinks album)} , a compilation of material spanning the band's career, reached number 32 on the UK Top 100 album chart and number one on the UK Indie album chart.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4 on 29 September 2008, Ray Davies said that the band could soon reunite. He declared that he wouldn't participate in a reunited Kinks that were a nostalgia act, and explained, "There is a desire to do it. The thing that would make me decide 'yes' or 'no' would be whether or not we could do new songs." He added that the main barrier to the band getting back together was his brother's condition following his stroke. Other members of the band, however, have expressed no desire for a reunion. Dave Davies stated in one interview that "it would be like a bad remake of Night of the Living Dead." He added that "Ray has been doing Karaoke Kinks shows since 1996." In June 2009, Ray Davies told the Independent that the group had rehearsed and even written new material together, but an official reunion was unlikely. He said, "I will continue to play with ex-band members like Mick Avory from time to time. With Dave, a lot of it is psychological. I’ll guide him in, and coerce and nurture him, and when the time is right I suppose I’ll even shout at him again." In December 2009, Ray Davies spoke again about the possibility of reuniting with his brother. "I suggested he do some low-key shows to see how well he can play. If we're going to play together again, we can't hit the road straight away with a big-time announcement. ... But, if Dave feels good about it and there's good new material that we can write, it'll happen."The Kinks are recognized as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the 1960s. The Clash, and The Jam, new wave ^{New Wave music} and heavy metal ^{Heavy metal music} acts like The Pretenders and Van Halen, and modern Britpop groups such as Oasis ^{Oasis (band)} , Blur ^{Blur (band)} , and Pulp ^{Pulp (band)} . Musicologist ^Musicology Joe Harrington too notes that The Kinks were influential in the development of hard rock and heavy metal music: You Really Got Me', 'All Day and All of the Night' and 'I Need You' were predecessors of the whole three-chord genre ... the Kinks did a lot to help turn rock 'n' roll (Jerry Lee Lewis) into rock (Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, the Stooges)."The Kinks had five Top 10 singles on the US Billboard chart. Nine of their albums charted in the Top 40. The group would not receive another gold record award until 1979's Low Budget; the 1980 live album One For The Road followed soon after, and was certified gold on 8 December 1980. Give The People What They Want, released in 1981, received its certification on 25 January 1982, for sales of 500,000 copies. ASCAP, the performing-rights ^{Performing rights} group, presented The Kinks with an award for "One Of The Most Played Songs Of 1983" for the hit single "Come Dancing".

The group received the Ivor Novello Award for "Outstanding Service to British Music", and in 1990, their first year of eligibility, the original four members of The Kinks were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Kinks were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in November 2005.The Kinks initially stayed within the boundaries of genres such as R&B and blues, but soon began experimenting with louder rock ^{rock music} and hard rock sounds—due to their pioneering of the field, they have often been labeled as "the original punks ^{Punk rock} ". Dave Davies became bored with the traditonal "clean" guitar style of the period; in search of a louder, more biting sound, he famously split the speaker cone of his Elpico amplifier (nicknamed "the little green amp"): "I started to get really frustrated [with the amp's sound], and I said, 'I know! I'll fix you!' I got a single-sided Gillette razorblade and cut ... [from the centre to the edge of the] cone ^{Speaker cone} ... so it was all shredded but still on there, still intact. I played and I thought it was amazing." The jagged sound of the amplifier was replicated in the studio; the Elpico was plugged into a larger Vox AC30, and the resulting effect became a mainstay in The Kinks' early recordings—most notably on "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night". The Kinks' allegiance to English styles was strengthened by the ban placed on them by the American Federation of Musicians. The ban cut them off from the American record buying public, the world's largest musical market, forcing them to focus on Britain and mainland Europe. The Kinks expanded on their English sound throughout the remainder of the 1960s, fusing music hall and folk, and creating some of the most influential and important music of the period.

Beginning with Everybody's In Show-biz (1972), Ray Davies began exploring theatrical concepts on the group's albums; these themes became manifest on the 1973 album Preservation Act 1 and continued through Schoolboys In Disgrace (1976). The Kinks found little success with these conceptual works, and reverted to a traditional rock format throughout the remainder of the 1970s. Sleepwalker (1977), which heralded their return to commercial success, featured a mainstream, relatively slick production style that would become their norm. The band returned to hard rock for Low Budget (1979), and continued to record within the genre throughout the remainder of their career.Unlike contemporaries such as The Beatles, whose recording legacies are well-preserved, almost no studio documentation of The Kinks' recording history from the 1960s survives. Ray Davies is known to have kept a diary, but he has yet to allow public scrutiny of it.;Studio albums

*Kinks ^{Kinks (album)} (1964)
*Kinda Kinks (1965)
*The Kink Kontroversy (1965)
*Face to Face ^{Face to Face (The Kinks album)} (1966)
*Something Else by The Kinks (1967)
*The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968)
*Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969)
*Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One (1970)
*Muswell Hillbillies (1971)
*Everybody's in Show-Biz (1972)
*Preservation Act 1 (1973)
*Preservation Act 2 (1974)
*Soap Opera ^{Soap Opera (album)} (1975)
*Schoolboys in Disgrace (1976)
*Sleepwalker ^{Sleepwalker (The Kinks album)} (1977)
*Misfits ^{Misfits (The Kinks album)} (1978)
*Low Budget ^{Low Budget (album)} (1979)
*Give the People What They Want (1981)
*State of Confusion (1983)
*Word of Mouth ^{Word of Mouth (The Kinks album)} (1984)
*Think Visual (1986)
*UK Jive (1989)
*Phobia ^{Phobia (The Kinks album)} (1993)