The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in London in 1963 by brothers Ray and Dave Davies. They are regarded as one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s.[3][4] The band emerged during the height of British rhythm and blues and Merseybeat, and were briefly part of the British Invasion of the United States until their touring ban in 1965. Their third single, the Ray Davies-penned "You Really Got Me",[4][5] became an international hit, topping the charts in the United Kingdom and reaching the Top 10 in the United States.[6]
For their eponymous album, see Kinks (album). For other uses, see Kink.
The Kinks
London, England
1963–1996
- Ray Davies
- Dave Davies
- Mick Avory
- Pete Quaife
- John Dalton
- John Gosling
- Andy Pyle
- Gordon John Edwards[1]
- Jim Rodford
- Ian Gibbons
- Bob Henrit
- Mark Haley[2]
The Kinks' music drew from a wide range of influences, including American R&B and rock and roll initially, and later adopting British music hall, folk, and country. The band gained a reputation for reflecting English culture and lifestyle, fuelled by Ray Davies' wittily observational and satirical writing style,[3][4][5][7] and made apparent in albums such as Face to Face (1966), Something Else (1967), The Village Green Preservation Society (1968), Arthur (1969), Lola Versus Powerman (1970), and Muswell Hillbillies (1971), along with their accompanying singles including the transatlantic hit "Lola" (1970). After a fallow period in the mid-1970s, the band experienced a revival with their albums Sleepwalker (1977), Misfits (1978), Low Budget (1979), Give the People What They Want (1981) and State of Confusion (1983), the last of which produced one of the band's most successful US hits, "Come Dancing". In addition, groups such as Van Halen, the Jam, the Knack, the Pretenders and the Romantics covered their songs, helping to boost the Kinks' record sales. In the 1990s, Britpop acts such as Blur and Oasis cited the band as a major influence.[3]
The original line-up comprised Ray Davies (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Dave Davies (lead guitar, vocals), Mick Avory (drums, percussion) and Pete Quaife (bass). The Davies brothers remained with the band throughout its history. Quaife briefly left the band during 1966 and was replaced by John Dalton, though Quaife returned by the end of that year before leaving permanently in 1969, once again being replaced by Dalton. Keyboardist John Gosling was added in 1970 (prior to this, session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins played on many of their recordings). After Dalton's 1976 departure, Andy Pyle briefly served as the band's bassist before being replaced by Argent bassist Jim Rodford in 1978. Gosling quit in 1978 and was first replaced by ex-Pretty Things member Gordon John Edwards, then more permanently by Ian Gibbons in 1979. Avory left the group in 1984 and was replaced by another Argent member, Bob Henrit. The band gave its last public performance in 1996 and broke up in 1997 as a result of creative tension between the Davies brothers.[8]
The Kinks have had five Top 10 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100. chart. Nine of their albums charted in the Top 40 of the Billboard 200.[9] In the UK, they have had seventeen Top 20 singles and five Top 10 albums.[10] Four Kinks albums have been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the band has sold over 50 million records worldwide. Among numerous honours, they received the Ivor Novello Award for "Outstanding Service to British Music".[11] In 1990, the original four members of the Kinks were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,[4][5] as well as the UK Music Hall of Fame in November 2005.
Live performances[edit]
The first live performance of the Ray Davies Quartet, the band that would become the Kinks, was at a dance for their school, William Grimshaw, in 1962. The band performed under several names between 1962 and 1963—the Pete Quaife Band, the Bo-Weevils, the Ramrods, and the Ravens—before settling on the Kinks in early 1964.[5][20] Ray has stated that a performance at Hornsey Town Hall on Valentine's Day 1963 was when the band were truly born.
The Kinks made their first tour of Australia and New Zealand in January 1965 as part of a "package" bill that included Manfred Mann and the Honeycombs.[40] They performed and toured relentlessly, headlining package tours throughout 1965 with performers such as the Yardbirds and Mickey Finn.[41] Tensions began to emerge within the band, expressed in incidents such as the on-stage fight between drummer Mick Avory and Dave Davies at The Capitol Theatre, Cardiff, Wales on 19 May.[41][42] After finishing the first song, "You Really Got Me", Davies insulted Avory and kicked over his drum set.[41][42] Avory responded by hitting Davies with his hi-hat stand, rendering him unconscious, before fleeing from the scene, fearing that he had killed his bandmate. Davies was taken to Cardiff Royal Infirmary, where he received 16 stitches to his head.[41][42] To placate police, Avory later claimed that it was part of a new act in which the band members would hurl their instruments at each other.[41][42] Following their summer 1965 American tour, the American Federation of Musicians refused permits for the group to appear in concerts in the US for the next four years,[3][43] possibly due to their rowdy on-stage behaviour.[170]
In April 1969 Davies helped negotiate an end to the American Federation of Musician ban on the group,[98] which allowed plans for a North American tour. However, over the next few years, Davies went into a state of depression, not helped by his collapsing marriage, culminating in his onstage announcement that he was "sick of it all" at a gig in White City Stadium, London in 1973.[114] A review of the concert published in Melody Maker stated: "Davies swore on stage. He stood at The White City and swore that he was 'F...... [sic] 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 drummer [sic] on through 'Waterloo Sunset.'"[116] Davies proceeded to try to announce that the Kinks were breaking up as the band were leaving the stage, but this attempt was foiled by the group's publicity management, who pulled the plug on the microphone system.[114][116]
Musical style[edit]
The Kinks started out playing the then popular R&B and blues styles; then, under the influence of the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" recording, developed louder rock and hard rock sounds. Due to their pioneering contribution to the field, they have often been labelled as "the original punks".[171][172] Dave Davies was "really bored with this guitar sound—or lack of an interesting sound" so he purchased "a little green amplifier ... an Elpico" from a radio spares shop in Muswell Hill,[173] and "twiddled around with it", including "taking the wires going to the speaker and putting a jack plug on there and plugging it straight into my AC30" (a larger amplifier), but didn't get the sound he wanted until he got frustrated and "got a single-sided Gillette razorblade and cut round the cone [from the centre to the edge] ... so it was all shredded but still on there, still intact. I played and I thought it was amazing."[174] The jagged sound of the amplifier was replicated in the studio; the Elpico was plugged into the 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".[3]
From 1966 onwards,[3] the Kinks came to be known for their adherence to traditions of English music and culture, during a period when many other British bands dismissed their heritage in favour of American blues, R&B and pop styles.[3] Ray Davies recalled that at a distinct moment in 1965 he decided to break away from the American scene, and write more introspective and intelligent songs. "I decided I was going to use words more, and say things. I wrote 'A Well Respected Man'. That was the first real word-oriented song I wrote ... [I also] abandoned any attempt to Americanise my accent."[175] 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,[3] forcing them to focus on Britain and mainland Europe. The Kinks expanded on their English sound throughout the remainder of the 1960s, incorporating elements of music hall, folk, and baroque music through use of harpsichord, acoustic guitar, mellotron, and horns, in albums such as Face to Face, Something Else by the Kinks, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), creating some of the most influential and important music of the period.[3]
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).[3] The Kinks were less commercially successful with these conceptual works, and were dropped by RCA which had signed them in 1971. In 1977 they moved to Arista Records, who insisted on a more traditional rock format. Sleepwalker (1977), which heralded their return to commercial success, featured a mainstream, relatively slick production style that would become their norm.[129] The band returned to hard rock for Low Budget (1979), and continued to record within the genre throughout the remainder of their career,[3] combining this with pop music in the 1980s with albums such as Give the People What They Want and songs such as "Better Things".[176]
Legacy[edit]
The Kinks are regarded as one of the most influential rock acts of the 1960s and early 1970s.[3][4] Stephen Thomas Erlewine called them "one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion".[3] They were ranked 65th on Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" list.[177]
Artists influenced by the Kinks include punk rock groups such as the Ramones,[178] the Clash,[179] Blondie,[180] and the Jam,[181] heavy metal acts including Van Halen and Britpop groups such as Oasis, Blur and Pulp.[3] Craig Nicholls, singer and guitarist of the Vines, described the Kinks as "great songwriters, so underrated".[182] Pete Townshend, guitarist with the Kinks' contemporaries the Who, credited Ray Davies with inventing "a new kind of poetry and a new kind of language for pop writing that influenced me from the very, very, very beginning."[183] Jon Savage wrote that the Kinks were an influence on late 1960s American psychedelic rock groups "like the Doors, Love and Jefferson Airplane".[65] Music writers and other musicians have acknowledged the influence of the Kinks on the development of hard rock and heavy metal. Musicologist Joe Harrington stated: "'You Really Got Me', 'All Day and All of the Night' and 'I Need You' were predecessors of the whole three-chord genre ... [T]he Kinks did a lot to help turn rock 'n' roll (Jerry Lee Lewis) into rock."[178] Queen guitarist Brian May credited the band with planting "the seed which grew into riff-based music."[184]
They have two albums, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (No. 384),[185] and Something Else by the Kinks (No. 478)[186] on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. They have three songs on the same magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list as updated in September 2021: "Waterloo Sunset" (No. 14),[187] "You Really Got Me" (No. 176),[188] and "Lola" (No. 386).[189] A musical, Sunny Afternoon, based on the early life of Ray Davies and the formation of the Kinks, opened at the Hampstead Theatre in April 2014.[190][191] The musical's name came from the band's 1966 hit single "Sunny Afternoon"[192] and features songs from the band's back catalogue.[193]
In 2015, it was reported that Julien Temple would direct a biopic of the Kinks titled You Really Got Me, but as of 2021 nothing had come of the project.[194] Temple previously released a documentary about Ray Davies titled Imaginary Man.[195]
Past members
Major album contributors
The Kinks were active for more than three decades, between 1963 and 1996, releasing twenty-four studio albums and four live albums.[198] The first two albums were released in different formats in the UK and US, partly because of the contrast in popularity of the extended play format—the UK market liked EPs, the US market did not, so US albums had the EP releases bundled onto them—and also because the US albums included the hit singles, while the UK albums did not; after The Kink Kontroversy in 1965, the UK/US album releases were the same.[199] There have been somewhere between 100 and 200 compilation albums released worldwide.[200][201][202] The hit singles included three UK number ones, starting in 1964 with "You Really Got Me"; plus eighteen Top 40 singles in the 1960s alone, and additional Top 40 hits in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Kinks had five Top 10 singles on the US Billboard chart and nine Top 40 albums.[9] In the UK, the group had seventeen Top 20 singles and five Top 10 albums.[10] The RIAA has certified four of the Kinks' albums as gold records. Released in 1965, The Kinks Greatest Hits! was certified gold for sales of 1,000,000 on 28 November 1968—this was six days after the release of The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, which failed to chart worldwide.[88] The group did not receive another gold record award until 1979's Low Budget. The 1980 live album One For The Road 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.[203] Despite not selling at the time of its release,Village Green was awarded a gold disc in the UK in 2018 for selling more than 100,000 copies.[204] For the hit single "Come Dancing", the performing rights organisation ASCAP presented the Kinks with an award for "One of the Most Played Songs of 1983".[147]
Studio albums
Live albums