Thank You for the Days: Celebrating Ray Davies' 70th Birthday ... and the Kinks

It's been a rather note-worthy few days for celebrating birthdays of some of rock 'n roll's greatest living songwriters.

On June 18, Paul McCartney turned 72, and Brian Wilson did likewise on June 20.

Today, June 21, another of my all-time favorites--Ray Davies, chief songwriter and singer of The Kinks--turns 70.

(BTW, though I have invariably called him Ray 'Day-veez' over the years, multiple sources in recent years corroborate that 'Day-viz' is more accurate.)

I hope he celebrates by further rekindling his relationship with brother Dave--the band's lead guitarist--and finally reuniting the Kinks after years of publicly longing to (with the caveat that original bassist Pete Quaife passed in 2010).

On April 9, 1983, a show by the Kinks at Chicago's UIC Pavilion was just the second concert I attended without a parent (Sammy Hagar was the first, about a month prior).

I would see the Kinks twice more, in 1987 and 1993, and since 2006 have seen Ray in concert five times, all featuring a heavy dose of Kinks Klassics.

Though I can't precisely cite what first got me into the Kinks in the early '80s--I was born in 1968--I'm pretty sure it wasn't Van Halen's cover of "You Really Got Me" even if it may have made chronological sense. The first Kinks record I owned was the double-live album, One for the Road.

I must have gotten this not long after its 1980 release, as I know I had it before 1981's Give the People What They Want.

AllMusic.com, which rates nine Kinks albums 5 or 4-1/2 stars (out of 5) only gives One for the Road 2-1/2.

Yet, while I have long since come to appreciate the depths of the Kinks' greatness far exceeds that live set, One for the Road was undoubtedly one of the cornerstone albums of my music-loving life.

Sure, I loved the early classics that album included--"You Really Got Me," "All Day and All of the Night," "Where Have All the Good Times Gone," "Till the End of the Day," "David Watts"--and, of course, "Lola," but I also relished such relatively recent (at the time) gems like "The Hard Way," "Catch Me Now I'm Falling," "Low Budget," "Wish I Could Fly Like Superman" and "Misfits."

Perhaps most of all, I loved--and still do--the ode to Golden Age Hollywood, "Celluloid Heroes," from which I first learned of Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Rudolph Valentino and Bela Lugosi.

Whether in the late '60s when they released four straight 5-star (per AllMusic) masterpieces yet were banned from touring the U.S., to 1983 when even with Top 10 single "Come Dancing" they played a 9,000-seat arena in Chicago, to recent years when Ray Davies has repeatedly played but failed to fill the 3,880-seat Chicago Theatre, the Kinks have never enjoyed popularity like their fellow British invasion icons The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who.

Paul McCartney and the Stones regularly fill outdoor stadiums around the world, and with just Townshend and Daltrey representing the original Who, their tours still sell out basketball arenas.

Though I would definitely attend a Kinks reunion show anywhere near me--besides seeing Ray, last year I saw a Dave Davies solo show--my suspicion is that if the Kinks did a U.S. reunion tour, they would be lucky to fill the UIC Pavilion again. And perhaps even if they brought along a reunited Jam, Smiths and Blur, the United Center arena might be about as big a place as they could sell out (and that's in Chicago; packing arenas in places like Louisville and Charlotte would be considerably harder).

Nonetheless, anyone I know who appreciates good music likes the Kinks. And most who like the Kinks love the Kinks. Though I own almost all of their albums on CD--including largely forgettable late career works like Think Visual and UK Jive--I would be considered a middling Kink-o-phile compared to some of my friends, and conceivably many among the KindaKinks.net online community.

Yet while they deserve the hardcore devotion of the truly Kinky, the band can be considered great on so many levels, even to relative neophytes.

Any overview of the Kinks usually begins with "You Really Got Me," one of the cornerstones of the British Invasion and often cited as the song that begat hard (power chord-driven) rock and even heavy metal. It was soon followed by the similar "All Day and All of the Night."

These songs definitely influenced Pete Townshend at the time (Chicago-born Shel Talmy was the producer of both the early Kinks and Who), and myriad others since.

Many people, perhaps around my age, quite likely came to know "Lola" as a staple of late '70s rock radio (though it was originally released in 1970) and paid attention to the band's subsequent singles and accompanying videos at the height of MTV: "Destroyer," "Come Dancing," "Do It Again," "Working at the Factory."

Those familiar with the amazing Kinks' 1966-1970 output may simply know some of the most prominent singles ("Sunny Afternoon," "A Well Respected Man," "Till the End of the Day," "Tired of Waiting For You"), those a bit deeper ("I'm Not Like Everybody Else," "Waterloo Sunset," "Apeman," "Dedicated Follower of Fashion"), even more so ("See My Friends," "Set Me Free," "David Watts," "Dead End Street," "Death of a Clown," the latter written by Dave), select full albums (perhaps Something Else and The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society) or, among the truly avid, every song on all of them.

Those who don't know the Kinks of the '60s are less likely to know their '70s oeuvre, but there are numerous gems like "20th Century Man," "Celluloid Heroes," "Sweet Lady Genevieve," "Juke Box Music," "Live Life," "Low Budget," "Catch Me Now I'm Falling," "Wish I Could Fly Like (Superman)" and undoubtedly several songs that I don't know or appreciate as much as I should.

The Kinks never had a #1 hit on the Billboard singles charts in the U.S., and only five songs in the Top 10. The highest any of their studio albums charted in America was 1979's Low Budget at #11.

So we can see it as though the Kinks were never as popular as they deserved to be--and therefore Ray Davies not as widely regarded as he merits as one rock's greatest geniuses--or that the band likely holds the highest fan reverence to mass popularity ratio of all-time, save for perhaps the Ramones (whose best-selling album hit #38).

While I won't dig for examples now, I've long seen the Kinks cited by bands and musicians as being among their foremost influences.

And even if there is some credence to the Kinks being both too Anglo and literate in the subject matter of their songs to become huge in America, a similar thread clearly ran through--and inspired--The Move, The Jam, The Smiths and Blur, who are also among my favorites though never substantively popular in America.

So I salute Ray Davies on his 70th birthday, not just because he is a great and (sadly, today, just somewhat) famous musician, whom I have loved for 3/4 of my life.

It is not hyperbole to say that very few musicians have enriched my existence to a similar extent.

So Happy Birthday, Ray.

And thank you for the "Days," Mr. Davies.

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Since the Kinks are strangely under-represented on Spotify, I have put together this YouTube playlist of 20 of my favorite Kinks songs. It should not be construed as a ranking, as I tried to select songs representative of the band's various periods. The video below runs through all 20 clips, but if you would like to see individual videos--or just the list of my selections--you can see the playlist contents here.

While I enjoy Ray's 2006/07 solo albums, Other People's Lives and Working Man's Cafe, I did not include any of the songs here, but the links will take you to the full albums on Spotify. Also worthwhile are the Kinks' duets and choral albums Ray put together in recent years. And while I have not yet delved into his 2013 autobiography Americana, one of the more remarkable aspects of his amazing life is his surviving being shot in New Orleans in early 2004.

Enjoy the songs below--and some rather historic videos, though a few are audio-only--and if you like what you hear, by all means, kontinue the exploration. 

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?: Despite Nice Renditions of Some Klassics, Dave Davies Shows He Could Use Ray's Help in Getting the Kinks Out -- Chicago Concert Review

Concert Review

Dave Davies

Taste of Lincoln Avenue, Chicago

July 27, 2013

@@@

With apologies to Geoff Edgers--producer and protagonist of the Do It Again documentary--and perhaps some members of the Kinda Kinks online community, I'm not convinced the world at large is clamoring for a Kinks reunion.

While I would most definitely be there, my assumption is that if the surviving Kinks brought a reunion tour through Chicago--even with a reunified Jam in tow--they'd be lucky to fill the 9,000-seat UIC Pavilion, where I first saw the band in 1983.

But even in delivering consistently stellar solo shows--to adoring if modest crowds--head Kink Ray Davies has espoused a desire to get his band back together. In 2010, bassist Pete Quaife became the Kinks' first founding member to pass away, making a full reunion impossible, but reunification in any configuration has seemingly been scuttled by Ray's brother and Kinks lead guitarist Dave refusing to have anything more to do with him.

Based on having seen Dave Davies leading a 4-piece band in Chicago on Saturday night at the Taste of Lincoln Avenue--not an unenjoyable show, just unpolished and imperfect--I would strongly suggest he and Ray bury the hatchet and tour once more as the Kinks, perhaps with original drummer Mick Avory and longtime bassist Jim Rodford (the latter two both being members of the Kast Off Kinks).

As I noted above, this wouldn't be for huge commercial purposes, though they could probably make a good bit more than each does on their own. And while sibling harmony would appear prudent as the Davies boys approach their 70s, I say this more so because they still seem to need each other musically.

First of all, they're playing many of the same songs.

Dave's setlist from Saturday isn't posted to Setlist.fm, but it was similar to this recent show, with the addition of "She's Got Everything" and "Dead End Street."

So about half of Dave's set consisted of, albeit understandably, 8 of the same Kinks songs Ray recently played at a show in London's Hyde Park.

And while Ray isn't the guitarist that Dave is, Dave is neither the singer nor front man that his brother is.

This was apparent from song one at the Taste of Lincoln Avenue, "I'm Not Like Everybody Else," but became more pronounced later on in Dave's set.

Given my general aversion to standing-room-only events and Chicago's young-skewing Lincoln Park neighborhood, just my venturing out to see Dave Davies should denote not only an affinity for his Hall of Fame legacy, but a strong motivation for me to see him perform for the first time he had a stroke in 2004 (from which he had largely recovered by 2006, according to Wikipedia).

So I am far happier that he displayed no obvious ill effects than I am disappointed that his gig was somewhat middling.

And especially with just a $10 suggested donation to get in, I'm still glad I went. This is, after all, the man who changed rock 'n roll history with the "You Really Got Me" riff and solo, heard in the evening's final song.

Along with a good helping of Kinks klassics, Davies delivered solid renditions of a few songs from his just released new album--I Will Be Me--including "Little Green Amp," "The Healing Boy" and "Côte du Rhône (I Will Be Me)."

But he also spent a bit too much time mid-show on acoustic guitar playing ballads, likely to the boredom--and even dissipation--of those in the crowd that didn't come to the event specifically for him (and perhaps had no idea who he was).

Separately, "Death of a Clown," a song Dave originally co-wrote and sang, should have been a highlight, but after bringing a fan onstage to help him sing the first verse, the rendition became decidedly disjointed once the girl left Davies' side.

Dave also badly botched the first verse of "All Day and All of the Night"--a 1964 klassic he theoretically knows in his sleep--and for whatever reason, opened the encores with another full version of "I'm Not Like Everybody Else." Though I love the song enough not to rue hearing it twice, I would have preferred a single offering of "Susannah's Still Alive."

Returning to the positive--per my ratings scale, @@@ = good but not great--Davies' song choices gladly reinstated a few forgotten Kinks tunes into my eroded memory, including "She's Got Everything," "Strangers" and "Young and Innocent Days." And his performance of "Living on a Thin Line," from 1984's Word of Mouth, was really good.

So with my friend Dave alongside and a fence to lean against, it was rather pleasant to see Dave Davies onstage once again, even if his show wasn't entirely stellar. But I can't help surmise that a Davies family reunion would be even better all the way around.

But as for if a Kinks reunion will ever actually happen, well, you really got me.

--
I shot a good bit of video at the show. Below are full versions of "Dead End Street" and "You Really Got Me" and partial versions of the less successful "Death of a Clown" and "All Day and All of the Night."