Happy birthday to Dave Davies, born in Fortis Green, London on this day in 1947.
Tea and toasted, buttered currant buns can't compensate for lack of sun.
I'm reorganizing what I have for Davies' solo career and the BBC. I had previously posted two BBC concerts he did, but I didn't mention that in the album titles. So those are getting renamed at the same time I'm posting this. Here are the links to those, with new cover art, mp3 tags, and such:
https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/09/ray-davies-sold-on-song-bbc-studios.html
https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/12/ray-davies-glastonbury-festival-worthy.html
I also just found a fourth one, from 2017, and I plan on posting that soon.
Getting to this concert, Davies put out a solo studio album earlier in the month, "Working Man's Cafe." He'd just put out another one the year before ("Other People's Lives"), so he was on a creative hot streak after not releasing any solo albums for ages. However, only five of the songs here were from those new albums.
Faced with this high-profile concert, and its BBC broadcast, he mostly stuck to performing Kinks classics. However, he mixed things up a bit by having Johnny Borrell share the singing of "Sunny Afternoon." Borrell is the lead singer of Razorlight, and they had a really big hit album in Britain in 2006, including a Number One song, "America." He also had the Crouch End Festival Chorus help out for four songs late in the set, giving those songs a different flavor than usual. He seemed to like that a lot, because he went on to do more with chorus groups over the next couple of years, including putting out a studio album in that style ("The Kinks Choral Collection").
This concert is an hour and 45 minutes long.
01 I'm Not like Everybody Else
02 Where Have All the Good Times Gone
03 talk
04 Till the End of the Day
05 talk
06 A Well Respected Man
07 talk
08 The Tourist
09 talk
10 Sunny Afternoon (Ray Davies & Johnny Borrell)
11 talk
12 Working Man's Cafe
13 talk
14 Morphine Song
15 talk
16 One More Time
17 talk
18 Come Dancing
19 talk
20 20th Century Man
21 talk
22 Celluloid Heroes
23 talk
24 Tired of Waiting for You
25 talk
26 All Day and All of the Night
27 talk
28 Dedicated Follower of Fashion (Ray Davies with the Crouch End Festival Chorus)
29 talk
30 Days (Ray Davies with the Crouch End Festival Chorus)
31 talk
32 Waterloo Sunset (Ray Davies with the Crouch End Festival Chorus)
33 talk
34 Shangri-La (Ray Davies with the Crouch End Festival Chorus)
35 talk
36 Lola
37 talk
38 Imaginary Man
39 You Really Got Me [Blues Version]
40 You Really Got Me
In memory of the late, great Shel Talmy.Sheldon Talmy (August 11, 1937 - November 13, 2024) was an American record producer, songwriter, and arranger, best known for his work in England in the 1960s with the Who, the Kinks, and many other artists.Talmy arranged and produced hits such as "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, "My Generation" by the Who, and "Friday on My Mind" by the Easybeats. He also played guitar or percussion on some of his productions.
"The Kinks’ third concept album was met with general disinterest and poor reviews. Listening to it now, I can see it probably worked better as Ray Davies originally intended, as live teleplay Starmaker. That said, it’s still the Kinks and has a few good songs, including this one, the final track on the LP."
They’ve called me a faggot, a spiv and a fake
Great message track and song from the ‘concept’ may have hidden this one from plain view but is Ray Davies and The Kinks ( and brother Dave on great lead guitar) at their very best
WATERLOO SUNSET!
THE KINKS
"Dedicated Follower of Fashion" is a song written by Ray Davies and performed by The Kinks. It reached #4 on the UK Singles Chart (released on ) and #36 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
"Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" lampoons the contemporary British fashion scene and mod culture in general. Originally released as a single, it has been included on many of the band's later albums. British record-buying public enjoyed the j
ab at "the whole Carnabetian army" enough to put the song into the top five. The lyrics won Ray Davies an Ivor Novello Award for songwriting in 1966.
Musically, it and "A Well Respected Man" marked the beginning of an expansion in the Kinks' inspirations, drawing as much from British music hall traditions as from American rhythm and blues, the inspiration for breakthrough Kinks songs like "You Really Got Me". While it was quite scornful toward them, many of the fashionistas the song mocks would later take its title to heart.
In the mid-1960s fashion in Britain was becoming increasingly daring and outrageous, driven by the youth-oriented culture of Swinging London. Boutiques such as Biba, designers like Mary Quant, and the television personalities like Cathy McGowan who popularized them became celebrated as much as the entertainers who wore their mod clothes.
Fashion trends changed rapidly, and the Carnaby Street shops did a brisk business from those trying to avoid seeming out of step with the latest craze. Ray Davies saw all this and satirized the hypothetical extreme, a superficial dandy whose "clothes are loud but never square / It will make or break him so he's got to buy the best ... He thinks he is a flower to be looked at ... In matters of the cloth he is as fickle as can be."
Davies claims he wrote the song in one sitting, typing the lyrics out on a typewriter, with no later revision. It was performed with Davies mostly accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, with the rest of the band joining in on the "It will make or break him so he's got to buy the best 'cause..." and echoing the "Oh yes he is" lines in the refrain. The band attempted recording the song a number of times, playing with the arrangement, lyric diction, and guitar sounds. Davies was never totally satisfied with the release version, and was angered that the song's production and release were rushed by Kinks managers and Pye Records.
Despite its commercial success, the song actually began to trigger some of the identity crises that would later plague Davies' personal life. He wrote later:
"With 'A Dedicated Follower of Fashion' such a hit, people started coming up to me on the street and singing the chorus in my face: 'Oh yes he is, oh yes he is,' as if to say that I knew who I was. Unfortunately, my inner and somewhat distorted sense of reality told me that this was not who I wanted to be: I didn't know who I was."
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SONGFACTS
This Ray Davies composition can be interpreted either as a tribute to Carnaby Street and its ethos, or a gentle send-up of the contemporary British fashion scene. Recorded February 2, 1966, and running 3:05, it was released on the Pye label in the UK on February 25 backed by "Sittin' On My Sofa," and on Reprise in the United States on April 27. The band's 10th UK single, it was produced by Shel Talmy.
According to the online discography compiled by Kinks fan Dave Emlen, it was re-released in the US in August/September the following year, still on Reprise but backed by "Who'll Be The Next In Line."
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"Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" is one of the band's best-known songs, and has been included on a number of albums.
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Although Carnaby Street dates to the 17th century, like the Kings Road, Chelsea, it will be linked forever to the fashion explosion that happened particularly in Britain during the so-called Swinging '60s.
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In spite of its chart success, not everyone in the Davies camp was enamored with the song. After Kinks bass player Peter Quaife died in June 2010, his obituary in the London Independent quoted him on it thus: "an incredibly boring song to play, and I had to play it night after night."
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According to a 2011 NME interview with Ray Davies, despite its fey overtones, the song is actually a scathing attack on a fop who made fun of the singer's trousers.
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Producer Shel Talmy helped frame The Kinks' raucous guitar sound, and also had a great ear for a hit song. In a Songfacts interview with Talmy, he said: "Ray Davies was one of the more prolific songwriters I have ever worked with. He could literally write a dozen songs overnight if he felt the mood. We used to get together about once a month or once every week or two and go through the stuff he had. I would pick out the ones that I thought were real far along, and the ones that were not so far along, and the ones that would probably never be far along. 'Dedicated Follower Of Fashion' was one that stood out immediately."
#TheKinks #DedicatedFollowerOfFashion
Ray Davies, “Louisiana Sky,” Our Country: Americana Act 2 LP (Ray Davies Limited, 2018)
Ray Davies, “Louisiana Sky,” Our Country: Americana Act 2 LP (Ray Davies Limited, 2018)
Happy birthday to Dave Davies, born in Fortis Green, London on this day in 1947.
Tea and toasted, buttered currant buns can't compensate for lack of sun.
I found this on Facebook . . . . . . .
On this date in 1970, RAY DAVIES of THE KINKS travels round trip NY-London to change 1 word in LOLA ('Coca-Cola' to 'Cherry Cola') because of BBC commercial reference ban (Jun 3, 1970)
This song is about a chap who meets a woman (Lola) in a club who takes him home and rocks his world. The twist comes when we find out that Lola is a man.
As stated in The Kinks: The Official Biography, Ray Davies wrote the lyrics after their manager got drunk at a club and started dancing with what he thought was a woman. Toward the end of the night, his stubble started showing, but their manager was too drunk to notice.
Said Davies: "'Lola' was a love song, and the person they fall in love with is a transvestite. It's not their fault - they didn't know - but you know it's not going to last. It was based on a story about my manager."
Ray Davies revealed to Q magazine in a 2016 interview: "The song came out of an experience in a club in Paris. I was dancing with this beautiful blonde, then we went out into the daylight and I saw her stubble. "
He added; "So I drew on that but coloured it in, made it more interesting lyrically."
The Kinks came up with the riff after messing around with open strings on guitars. The group's guitarist, Dave Davies, contended that he deserved a songwriting credit on the track, leading to additional friction with his brother Ray, who got the sole composer credit.
"Lola" revived The Kinks in America, where they hadn't had a Top 40 hit since "Sunny Afternoon" in 1966.
Their first American tour in 1965 did not go well - they clashed with their promoter, drew sparse crowds, and often played short sets. The group was so petulant, the American Federation of Musicians refused to issue them permits, effectively banning them from the country until 1969.
By the time "Lola" was released, most Americans hadn't heard from the Kinks in years, but the song proved very popular and this time, the band could promote it.
The line "You drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry cola" was recorded as "it tastes just like Coca-Cola." The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) refused to play it because of the commercial reference, so Ray Davies flew from New York to London to change the lyric and get the song on the air.
There was speculation, fueled by a 2004 piece in Rolling Stone magazine, that this song was inspired by the famous transgender actress Candy Darling, who Kinks lead singer Ray Davies allegedly dated for a brief time.
This is the same Candy mentioned in Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side" ("Candy came from out on the island, in the backroom she was everybody's darling").
Ray Davies, who wrote this song, told Rolling Stone in 2014 why this song didn't cause more of an uproar considering its storyline. "The subject matter was concealed," he said. "It's a crafty way of writing. I say, 'She woke up next to me,' and people think it's a woman. The story unfolds better than if the song were called 'I Dated a Drag Queen.'"
Kinks fans were not the types who would relate to a cross-dresser, but they loved this song. It opened the door for artists like Lou Reed and David Bowie to explore gender fluidity in songs that appealed to rock fans of all stripes.
Ray Davies used his National Steel resonator guitar for the first time on this song. He recalled to Uncut: "On 'Lola' I wanted an intro similar to what we used on Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, which was two Fender acoustic guitars and Dave's electric guitar so I went down to Shaftesbury Avenue and bought a Martin guitar, and this National guitar that I got for £80, then double-tracked the Martin, and double-tracked the National – that's what got that sound."
Ray Davies told Daniel Rachel (The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters) that he didn't initially show the lyrics to the band. "We just rehearsed it with the la-la la-la Lo-la chorus which came first. I had a one-year-old daughter at the time and she was singing along to it."
Ray Davies knew how to craft a hook, and he found a good one here. He said: "I wrote 'Lola' to be a great record, not a great song. Something that people could recognize in the first five seconds. Even the chorus, my two-year-old daughter sang it back to me. I thought, 'This must catch on.'"
The Kinks - Autumn Almanac (1967)
I'm allowed two . . . . . because I'm aloud too!
Thanks to Guess I'm Dumb because I am . . . . . and thanks for the reminder!
As Route would have it . . . . . . . .
"A very happy birthday to Ray Davies, born in Fortis Hill, London on the longest day of 1944. Every day he looks at the world from his window."
Many Happy Returns to one of our most distinctive and best songwriters Britain has ever produced!
Do You Remember Walter? || The Kinks - The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968)
Well it's Summer and a bright and breezy day so it must be time for some Village Green Preservation Society !?
Cold Turkey - Nobody’s Fool (1972)
Here’s a fun one for Kinks fans. Ray Davies wrote it and recorded a demo, but the Kinks never recorded it. Or did they? Is this the Kinks recording under another name? It was used as the theme song to a 1971-72 British TV series Budgie starring Adam Faith with the delightful Georgina Hale on whom I had the maddest young boy crush and a favourite actor Ian Cuthbertson who was one of the only people I felt like mimicking perhaps only second to Peter Lorre (you had to be there!). It also regularly featured Brit film legends Margaret 'Carry On' Goldfinger' Nolan, Jack Shepherd and the soon to go stellar James Bolam and many other guest stars of the staple stars of British acting of the period . While opinions are divided, I think it sounds like someone imitating Ray’s vocals.
with thanks to Guess I'm Dumb
Sunny Afternoon original broadcast video
