My dad just saw Dave again this week. The setlist looked fantastic (way better than last time I saw him with Too Much On My Mind, Wicked Anabella and Love Me Till The Sunshine being played which weren't last time I was there) and my dad said he was so much better than when we saw him 2 years ago. Can't confirm whether thats actually true or not (he always said the last time we saw him was great when I said unbiased it was fun but not a great show) but cool setlist to see. Kinda regret I wasn't able to go now.

Preview: Ray Davies' Americana

[cultura.elpais.com]

Man, he can still write!

But a long way home to Tarzana? Really? That's just the next town over from me.
Why not Encino, Woodland Hills or Calabasas?

Anyway, Ray has still got it!

Quote
Cristiano Radtke
Preview: Ray Davies' Americana

[cultura.elpais.com]

Thanks for posting this. Love it!
The whole album is also up on youtube now.
Very cool that he worked with the Jayhawks on this, for the real Americana sound!

Ray Davies' latter day transition in songwriting identity to that of a colonialphile is quite interesting, and there were hints of it in his previous solo album Working Man's Cafe (also a first rate work). Interesting, in that Davies always seemed so quintessentially English in his outlook and sensibilities. How amusing that just after being knighted he releases a work whose artistic instinct says "Go west, young man".

In Village Green he was writing about preserving something, but in Americana he writes about the search for something. And like anyone fascinated by a culture he is not native to, he is entranced by an image, a mythology, something that can never be truly found. Like an anglophile in search of that archetypal Englishness -- how and where does one find it, roast beef on Sundays or a plate of fish and chips or bangers and mash and peas on the Brighton Pier or even by sitting in a lawn chair on the beach in Blackpool for a holiday? Like the colonialphile searching for that elusive and mythological "Americana", for the anglophile in search of something definitively English it always seems just around the corner and yet at the same time always just out of reach.

So maybe it's better that he doesn't reunite the Kinks and keep them on a perpetual "forevermore until we drop" tour, like the Stones and Who of recent years. It means that Ray Davies as a songwriter continues to grow, finding ever new fields of inspiration to mine from as he continues to evolve as a person, rather than being walled into "You Really Got Me" forever and forced to restrict his creative talents accordingly.

In terms of quality, inspiration, and longevity, it's becoming increasingly clear that among those of his generation Raymond Douglas Davies stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Just finished listening to the whole album.
Really fantastic!
Ray's time spent in New Orleans and Nashville has definetly rubbed off on him.

Quote
BluzDude
Man, he can still write!

But a long way home to Tarzana? Really? That's just the next town over from me.
Why not Encino, Woodland Hills or Calabasas?

Anyway, Ray has still got it!

rotflmao.......

Nice feeling album from Ray, really love "A Place In Your Heart" and "Change for Change" .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-04-21 21:27 by Maindefender.

Quote
stonehearted
Ray Davies' latter day transition in songwriting identity to that of a colonialphile is quite interesting, and there were hints of it in his previous solo album Working Man's Cafe (also a first rate work). Interesting, in that Davies always seemed so quintessentially English in his outlook and sensibilities. How amusing that just after being knighted he releases a work whose artistic instinct says "Go west, young man".

In Village Green he was writing about preserving something, but in Americana he writes about the search for something. And like anyone fascinated by a culture he is not native to, he is entranced by an image, a mythology, something that can never be truly found. Like an anglophile in search of that archetypal Englishness -- how and where does one find it, roast beef on Sundays or a plate of fish and chips or bangers and mash and peas on the Brighton Pier or even by sitting in a lawn chair on the beach in Blackpool for a holiday? Like the colonialphile searching for that elusive and mythological "Americana", for the anglophile in search of something definitively English it always seems just around the corner and yet at the same time always just out of reach.

So maybe it's better that he doesn't reunite the Kinks and keep them on a perpetual "forevermore until we drop" tour, like the Stones and Who of recent years. It means that Ray Davies as a songwriter continues to grow, finding ever new fields of inspiration to mine from as he continues to evolve as a person, rather than being walled into "You Really Got Me" forever and forced to restrict his creative talents accordingly.

In terms of quality, inspiration, and longevity, it's becoming increasingly clear that among those of his generation Raymond Douglas Davies stands head and shoulders above the rest.

What a great post & pleasure to read, thank you.

Thanks for the kind words, hopkins. I've placed my order for the new album, and I know it will be just as great as the single track I've heard thus far. Saw Ray Davies in concert in Boston in 2009 -- maybe the new album means I'll take in a another show soon.

To Ray Davies, America is a 'beautiful but dangerous' place
By Mark Savage
BBC Music reporter
[www.bbc.com]


"Sorry, I'm chewing gum," says Ray Davies five minutes into our interview, before extracting the offending substance from his mouth.
It's a fitting interruption. We're here to talk about his latest album, Americana, which charts his love-hate relationship with the US -
and there's nothing more American than chomping on a stick of Wrigley's.
Of course, our most recently-ennobled rock star is best known for his writing about England on songs like
Waterloo Sunset, Muswell Hillbilly, Sunny Afternoon, Dedicated Follower of Fashion, but his obsession with the States started early.

As a schoolboy, he was captivated by black and white cowboy movies and the be-bop records his older sisters would bring home.
After receiving a guitar for his 13th birthday, he devoured records by Muddy Waters and Slim Harpo.
His love affair with the blues was so strong that when he wrote The Kinks' first hit single, You Really Got Me he intended it to be "a blues song".
"Then it turned out to be a pop hit."
Somewhat disingenuously, he tells the BBC You Really Got Me was supposed to be The Kinks' only song (even though it was their third single).
"I wanted that to be a hit and then I was going to get out of town," he says.
"Unfortunately they asked me to write another one, and another one."

The Kinks' success meant Ray and his younger brother Dave could finally visit the Land of the Free - but things didn't go entirely to plan, as he describes on the new album.
"They called us The Invaders, as though we came from another world," he sings. "And the man from immigration shouted out, 'Hey punk, are you a boy or a girl?'"
The band could have overcome the prejudice if they weren't already in disarray - prone to fighting on stage, and let down by a promoter who refused to pay them in cash.
Things came to a head while taping Dick Clark's TV show Where The Action Is in 1965.
"Some guy who said he worked for the TV company walked up and accused us of being late," Davies wrote in his autobiography X-Ray.

"Then he started making anti-British comments. Things like 'Just because the Beatles did it, every mop-topped, spotty-faced
limey juvenile thinks he can come over here and make a career for himself.'"
A punch was thrown, and the American Federation of Musicians refused to issue the Kinks permits to perform in the US for the next four years.
"It was a terrible blow to our career," says Davies. "We couldn't tour. We couldn't play Woodstock.
"Being a bolshie 21-year-old, I said, 'Let's make records and tour the rest of the world'.
"But deep down I was really hurt, because America was the inspiration for much of our music."

When the band were finally allowed back, in 1970, they had to start from scratch, plying their trade in tiny clubs and high school gymnasiums.
"It was quite a humbling experience after being really successful before," Davies recalls.
Yet the US became the band's lifeline in the 1970s, providing adulation, success and financial reward as interest dwindled at home.
"We ended up playing Madison Square Garden in 1980, which is a sign you've made it back. So it was a 10-year programme.
It was hard work but, in a strange way, we built a loyal fanbase in that time."
So perhaps it's no surprise that Davies sings "I want to make my home/Where the buffalo roam" on the title track of his new album.
Near-death experience
Indeed, he moved to the US for several years, finding his spiritual home - and sanctuary - in New Orleans.

"I'm just another person there, which is really nice," he says. "And I fitted in with the music scene."

Living across the road from a church, he would frequently witness the city's brass band funerals,
which stretch through the streets in celebration of local musicians and dignitaries at the end of their life.
But his sojourn in the city ended badly one Sunday evening in January 2004.
Davies was strolling along an unusually deserted Burgundy Street with his girlfriend Suzanne Despies.
A car pulled up alongside them, a young man got out, and demanded Despies' purse.
She handed it over without any resistance, but Davies suddenly decided to give chase.
His assailant was armed, and shot Davies in the leg, breaking his femur.
"Why did I do it? That's the unanswerable question," he says.
"I've never really been the sort of person who would chase a man with a loaded gun. But I did. Foolishly, perhaps, and irresponsibly. But I did it.

"It was one of those heat of the moment situations, and I have no explanation other than that."

He ended up in hospital, heavily drugged and, for the first 24 hours, an anonymous "John Doe".
The experience informed a song - Mystery Room - in which the star faces his mortality for the first time: "My brain's hit a brick wall / My body's in free-fall."

It's partnered with another track, Rock 'N' Roll Cowboys, which equates ageing rock stars with gunslingers about to hang up their holsters.
"Rock and roll cowboys, where do you go now?" asks Davies.
"Do you give up the chase like an old retiree? Or do you stare in the face of new adversaries?"

It's a question that's flummoxed many of his 60s contemporaries. Has he ever contemplated giving up?
"Every writer who's written and toured for more than five years reaches a point where they think, 'Do I keep going?' or, 'Where do I go next?'" he says.
"Every day I wake up and say, 'I love writing songs but do I want to do this?' and the answer is I do.

"I love making records. I love playing in front of people."

For the new record, he sought the help of alt-country stalwarts The Jayhawks, whose deft arrangements provide a rich backdrop to Davies' wry and incisive lyrics.
Was it challenging, I wonder, for him to walk in and take charge of an already-established band?
"It was a diplomatic situation," he says... well, diplomatically.
"At first, they were trying to sound English in their backing vocals, but I deterred them from that.

"The reason I picked them is because they just play the songs. They don't embellish too much unless I ask them to, which is great."

The Americana sessions went so well that there are "another 20" songs waiting to be finished and released, all derived from Davie's 2013 book of the same name.

"It's a big work, but I hope it'll be put together for a deluxe record later on."
Is he tempted to write something more topical for that record, given the ongoing political turmoil in the US?
"Everyone who knows my work comes up to me and says: 'It's time to revive Preservation,'" he says,
referring to The Kinks' 1973 concept album and tour, in which a comedian becomes a dictator, funded by big business and using the media as a tool of control.

"It was a fun show but it had quite serious undertones," says Davies, "and I think that sums up America at the moment: it's a fun show with very serious undertones.

"I do hope America balances itself out. It's slightly off-kilter at the moment.
"He [Trump] has still got to face Congress, and it's still a democratic country. I think the will of the people will be heard, and America's constitution is strong.

"It's a difficult time of re-adjustment for them - but I think in time it'll balance itself out.
"It's a beautiful place but a dangerous place, as I found out."

Great BBC article. Thanks for posting.
Excited to hear the "another 20" songs they did for this album.
Would love to see a full tour with Ray and the Jayhawks!

Dave Davies: The Aquarium Drunkard interview:

[www.aquariumdrunkard.com]

I've listened all through from beging to ending several and many times since Chritiano linked it at first. It's funny to me because I don't do that with hardly LPs released these last very many years...esepcially this often.

I don't even have any critique or particular comments about individual songs. Yet anyway. Just to say there is a lot of beauty here; and I find it very compelling and emotive and it seems to get better and better and open up more each time I go through it.
It's A Long Drive Home To Tarzana playing right now. There is a LOT of little things going on all through this production, it is reall so beautiful. It's not 'rock and roll' per se, in the way that Village Green Preservation Society was not.
Of all the albums released by anyone in the last very, very man years...probably going back quite some long time, I mean a reall LONG time that I've listened to all at once as a 'piece," and things I kind of thought of as too derivative of his signature sound or occasionally other songs...do NOT seem that way as I get deeper into it, or more accurately, as it gets into me. For some reason I'm not ready to really cohesively critique coherently the LP yet, or even individual songs, tho some do stand out a bit more than others I suppose. I suppose...
...I also at first thought, well his voice has aged; and the purest part of the tenor, similarly to what is super obious with McCartney, had a little something taken off the clearest top end of it....but I don't feel that way about it in the slightest as I listen more and more....it's very expressive, beautiful and effective....Here comes The Invaders...which means it's almost over....I almost can't wait to start it over agian from the top.

It is has become so unusal for me to this with a 'recent' LP, meaning one far beyond even recent past....that I'm a little surpirsed, but altogether grateful for this. It hits home for me. It's still opening up for me. I don't want to just throw out a particular summation comment or particular critique; that's already been done spectacularly by others on this thread...
...but rather just to once again leave a general impression: I think it beautiful important album in most every way; and I'm way into it. I'm going to start it over again now. Thank you Sir Raymond Douglas Davies.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2017-04-29 10:34 by hopkins.

Fun online quiz for Kinks fans here: [quizforfan.com]
Pretty easy - got 95% correct (I knew the last answer but didn't click fast enough).

P.S. Very interesting & thoughtful posts, Hopkins & Stonehearted. I think Ray would appreciate them very much

Rasa Davies, Ray's first wife had a direct impact on more than a dozen of their recordings. I def know this list does NOT include all of them; even some really distinct ones, so it absolutely not a complete list but:

Stop Your Sobbing
Come On Now
I Need You
See My Friend
Till The End Of The Day
Sunny Afternoon
Waterloo Sunset
Death Of A Clown
Autumn Almanac
Days
The Village Green Preservation Society
Drivin'
Shangri-La
You Shouldn't Be Sad
___________________
I sort of became fascinated with this Lithuanian beauty. She added a definite and distinct element, a major one in many of them. Waterloo Sunset comes immediately to mind. She had both a masssively, beautifully ethereal sound, and also a very rocking one on some of them, such as "You Shouldn't Be Sad's" passionate call and response lines, where she really brings a lot of super energy and emotion to it.

She has a rather 'pedestrian' voice but that is NOT a dig; it's a compliment. Usually the female backup singers for bands are either black women's r&b soulful element, as w Merry Clayton or Lisa/Sasha w The Stones or The Sweet Inspirations w Elvis, or a hundred other artists; or if it's more a 'pop' sound, a much more polished and professional 'session' singer kind of power. Rasa sounds more like your girlfriend or cousin...or Aunt Mary baking in the kitchen while singing w the radio or something ....soulful and earnest but not 'pro' per se, which with The Kinks is more appropriate somehow, and just really perfect and unique imo.
'Charming' in the best sense of the word, might also be a description worthy of her. Not to suggest her natural instinctive talent is less worthy than trained vocalists,
who might never have been such an important element on a series of brilliant classics and important, sometimes groundbreaking original hits.

Here's a pic of her with Mick Avory from a 2006 Kast Offs Kinks gig where she also performed:
[www.kindakinks.net]

This also from that the show that night as she performs:
[www.kindakinks.net]

More about her pasted below. This writer's piece is from a website that did not give that credit but I did try find it:
___________________________________________________________

"Rasa was Ray's first wife, a woman that sang on many of The Kinks's singles up through 1968. A quick biography (with much thanks to, among others, Doug Himan's "All Day And All Of The Night"). Ray and Dave Davies were from North London (Arsenal fans, by the way). They first hit big in mid 1964 with You Really Got Me. The band was touring that single in July 1964, where they had a gig in Sheffield. In attendance that night was Rasa Didzpetris, a student from Lithuania via Bradford. Rasa met Ray and they exchanged addresses.

A week or two later, the pair met up in London, and pretty soon they were inseparable. Rasa became pregnant with their first daughter. They were married on December 12, 1964. On December 22-23, The Kinks were in the studio and recorded today's song, Come On Now, as well as Everybody's Gonna Be Happy. Rasa was there too. Come On Now is the first Kinks song that Rasa definitely sang on (it's unclear to me whether she sang on the studio versions of Tired Of Waiting For You or Set Me Free, which had been recorded back in August & September).

Before we get to the music, though, let's complete the biographical sketch. Ray had to leave his new wife and daughter for a tour of the U.S. in 1965. Ray's unhappiness about this (the Lithuanian-born Rasa had visa problems) has been at least partially blamed for Ray's bad behavior on the tour; after one encounter with a commie-baiting stage manager (keep in mind that back then marrying someone from behind the Iron Curtain was quite a political statement with some people, whether it was meant to be or not), The Kinks were actually banned from the U.S. for four years, which would dramatically inhibit The Kinks' popularity (and still a big reason why the band are relatively less well known than their contemporaries).

Much has been made of Ray's subsequent domesticity once they all got back to Swinging London. Ray lived the quiet life in Muswell Hill while Dave (and the rest of the pop world) lived it up in Soho. Kinks songs became quieter and more anachronistic. Also, for a couple of years, Rasa sang on nearly every important Kinks song. At the time, The Kinks' visibility and popularity plummeted, never really to recover. But in the intervening years, this period has come to be considered Ray's and The Kinks's finest: from the "Face To Face" LP to "The Village Green Preservation Society" LP, with all the singles in between.

After that, Rasa disappeared from Kinks records. Sadly, also, the Davies marriage fell apart. Rasa left Ray in 1973, which precipitated a personal crisis for Ray, a suicide attempt, and a brief retirement from music. Fortunately, as best as I can tell Ray and Rasa both got on with things in the long run. Ray just had a bunch of singles on the latest Wes Anderson movie, and Rasa makes appearances with Kast Off Kinks, a kind of tribute band of former Kinks members and associates.

Most people think of Waterloo Sunset as the absolute high point of The Kinks, and one of the finest examples of British pop full stop. What qualities does Waterloo Sunset have? Its urban romanticism, its sense of isolation or detachment, its beauty, its obliqueness, its subtlety. A lot of ink has been spilled on describing this song, much better than I could ever do. But now listen to the song again, this time just focusing on those falsetto backing vocals. That's Rasa. I submit that every quality of Waterloo Sunset is available in microcosm in her backing vocals. They have a wistful, aching quality that works perfectly with the song. (Of course that's also a tribute to Ray's arrangement and recording, but the whole idea of "An Appreciation Of Rasa Davies" is also an oblique compliment to the band as a whole anyway).



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 2017-05-01 13:43 by hopkins.

Quote
stonehearted
Ray Davies' latter day transition in songwriting identity to that of a colonialphile is quite interesting, and there were hints of it in his previous solo album Working Man's Cafe (also a first rate work). Interesting, in that Davies always seemed so quintessentially English in his outlook and sensibilities. How amusing that just after being knighted he releases a work whose artistic instinct says "Go west, young man".

In Village Green he was writing about preserving something, but in Americana he writes about the search for something. And like anyone fascinated by a culture he is not native to, he is entranced by an image, a mythology, something that can never be truly found. Like an anglophile in search of that archetypal Englishness -- how and where does one find it, roast beef on Sundays or a plate of fish and chips or bangers and mash and peas on the Brighton Pier or even by sitting in a lawn chair on the beach in Blackpool for a holiday? Like the colonialphile searching for that elusive and mythological "Americana", for the anglophile in search of something definitively English it always seems just around the corner and yet at the same time always just out of reach.

So maybe it's better that he doesn't reunite the Kinks and keep them on a perpetual "forevermore until we drop" tour, like the Stones and Who of recent years. It means that Ray Davies as a songwriter continues to grow, finding ever new fields of inspiration to mine from as he continues to evolve as a person, rather than being walled into "You Really Got Me" forever and forced to restrict his creative talents accordingly.

In terms of quality, inspiration, and longevity, it's becoming increasingly clear that among those of his generation Raymond Douglas Davies stands head and shoulders above the rest.

How super is this? ^ ...that last graph "REALLY GOT ME NOW..."...the entire post actually.

This "Americana" LP continues to inspire me. I still keep finding myself listening all through quite frequently, now over the course of some weeks.
It's also inspiring me to back to quite a lot of the entire Kinks discography; it's really unbeatable in so many ways on so many levels. And right from the very start it was crushing, beautiful and ground-breaking; right out of the gate...
...I'd overlooked to some extent "Preservation 2" double album but found myself going through the entire lyrics; I hadn't spent much time with it...I'd spent more time with Preservation 1, somewhat because of the great, great, but greatly overlooked "Sweet Genevieve..."
Their 24 or so studio albums pretty much equal in quantity The Stone's career, though they've been broken up for quite some time now...
...and imo very many of them easily warrant a credible matchup with any other Invasion band's output, year to year, album to album; I'd include The Beatles and 'our boys' as well, tho obviously and of course, each of them distinctly their own sound, stories and presentation. That entire four years they could not get back into the U.S. during the absolute hottest part of the entire huge 60's market might have indeed relegated them to 'cult' status here; not sure about UK but would love some feedback from Iorr'ers from there. I even google mapped Muswell Hills and got more of a sense of what that area looks like, and the general North London surburbs and etc...
...but they were never 'cult' for a certain segment of American kids. Never. Also their single were so strong that those kept charting even when they weren't allowed in...so their presence was still felt generally....but for me each and every release from the very first was important and worthwhile and a clear landmark. I guess in that way, Americana is pretty much the same old story with me going back to '64. I don't think Village Green Preservation Society or Arthur were even hits in their native land, and certainly pretty much ignored here in a general sense...

I've been listening A LOT to 64 through 70 with them. a big fat four years right in the middle of that, they could not even tour America and cash in as other talents, very much their lessers, could do; both native US and native UK....
...Oh the Ed Sullivan appearances that never were !

Just remarkable. It's not just that I remember Kinda Kinks, Face to Face, Something Else, Kontrovery & of course the first LP w You Really Got Me...(at that time they were all over American TV and were a revelation to me, as hot as any of them, I mean any of them). Pound for pound, track for track, release for release....just amazing; an amazing gift. And here he still is, THE genuine article, an anthropologist of the heart AND the culture....
"Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur" !!....every other band was exploding outward, responding to the revelatory cultural shifts and the excitement of a new era while Ray was yearning, longing, cataloging & 'preserving' values and a sense of elegance about the profound but simple elemental charm of the culture existing as it was in the previous decades...
...'fascinating' and 'brilliant' and a host of adjectives isn't gonna do the trick with him....and as a raw rocker too, I can never ignore or forget the immense power of The Kinks, that launched and influenced generations of bands in their wake...Van Halen's first radio hit and emergence for example...their very introduction as a band....and there are many others...

I guess he's a 'cult' act again, and has been for awhile. That's fine with me; I'm just so grateful. Something Better Beginning, I'm On An Island, (TWO Chuck Berry numbers on their very first album, including Side 1, Cut 1)...
..."Where Have All The Good Times Gone," "Rosie Won't You Please Come Home..."
these few for example, all in their first two years as a recording band....
And this small sampling not even including SEVERAL MAJOR HITS everyone is familiar with, nor is it anywhere near a comprehensive listing of what particularly stands out, imo anyway. This music has NEVER left me, NEVER out of rotation in my life to this day...just magnificent....and what was to follow with 68 to 72 would continue to be absolutely vital to me...and then even after that...astounding really.
...and with live shows that were dynamic, powerful and original always.
It's somehow in a wayward manner appropritate that the biggest general public pop-music buying public would ignore, or never be exposed to entire albums, or even entire periods of their majestic elegance and rip-roaring power....
imo you can count others of his generation of similar quantity, quality and still actively presently releasing stunning and wonderful, searching original songs...on half the fingers of one hand. When the dust settles and the smoke clears, and more decades pass, well I won't be around either, but Ray will be considered, if these cultures survive....as sharp as Mark Twain and Whitman combined...I was reading the lyrics of Money Talks....because I did not spent much time with Preservation 2. and....well...
"Picture Book," "People Take Pictures of Each Other" decades before selfies and satellite phones...more than wry, more than rare...Brother Dave, Mick, Pete and then Dalton and others...especially the four originals...starting with DAVE...well I'm not for a minute forgetting their contributions and impact. Dave is an amazing, amazing musician...

ha The Kinks 'Holiday' and The Sex Pistols "Holiday In The Sun" make the same point. It's just that You Really Got Me and several others are as powerful guitar/drums power-rock as "Anarchy in the UK' or "No Feelings" and etc...I guess you could call me a grateful fan.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2017-05-02 02:05 by hopkins.

Quote
Plink
Fun online quiz for Kinks fans here: [quizforfan.com]
Pretty easy - got 95% correct (I knew the last answer but didn't click fast enough).

P.S. Very interesting & thoughtful posts, Hopkins & Stonehearted. I think Ray would appreciate them very much

missed one

Quote
black n blue

Quote
Plink
Fun online quiz for Kinks fans here: [quizforfan.com]
Pretty easy - got 95% correct (I knew the last answer but didn't click fast enough).

P.S. Very interesting & thoughtful posts, Hopkins & Stonehearted. I think Ray would appreciate them very much

missed one

100% with 8 seconds to spare.

I just heard Preservation Act 1 today. Underrated, often forgotten album. Second one goes a little all over the place, but Act 1 is pretty fantastic. Had forgotten most of those songs.

"Sweet Lady Genevieve" is the true gem. I had the pleasure of seeing Ray do that one on his "X-Ray" acoustic tour (before it was called "Storyteller") 20 years ago.

The Kinks' Ray Davies will headline BBC Proms in the Park on September 9.
The Kinks frontman, who released 'Americana' last month, will be joined at London's Hyde Park by Bryn Terfel, Elaine Paige, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Steps, Texas and a performance from the cast of Five Guys Named Moe.
The event will be presented by Michael Ball and Tony Blackburn.
Tickets are on sale now, priced at £44.00 plus fees.
[www.stereoboard.com]

The new ray album is fantastic

BBC PROMS IN THE PARK 2017 TICKETS NOW ON SALE

Legendary singer-songwriter Sir Ray Davies comes to the Hyde Park stage to headline the 2017 BBC Proms in the Park. 50 years since the release of 'Waterloo Sunset', and having recently released a new solo album, Americana, his first for a decade, Sir Ray remains a true British icon.

Gates open 3.00pm.

Entertainment on stage starts 5.15pm approximately.

[www.seetickets.com]

Great new album; haven't listened in a while; but about thirty times when it first came out. Really worked for me. Went to the vids for the little bitz of footage at Konk with these excellent American players so rooted and fine. Ray's still in ab top form imo; granted changes, many of them, in dynamics, and suitably so, this isn't a rawkin' Kinks album, tho I don't doubt that guy has the easy capability to go pretty much wherever he wants to stylistically; he plays great, thinks great, arranges, writes and produces great. He still has his voice; yes a lot of this wistful and hazy, but in the best way; it's also sharp and pointed in the best way, subject to his advanced lyricism. He's truly like some Oscar Wilde cat or something; just an array of ability; can do more with a simple line that a million hack novelists with moments of clarity and epiphany nonwithstanding. Another balding skinny old bent fart comin' to bat, hitting another one cleanly over the fence first pitch and kinda half-jogging around the plate he's crossed so many times before.

Well said, hopkins.

The Kinks -- 1990 HOF Induction Speech.
Twenty Eight Years Ago Tonight Ray made this wonderful speech...
[www.youtube.com]

Nice to see Pete Quaife back there too! (RIP)

"Rock and Roll has become respectable. What a bummer."
Ray Davies

Every time the thread is bumped I think reunion lol.

Great HOF though. Amazing they got it when they should have which was right at the beginning of the Hall's construction.

Quote
RollingFreak
Every time the thread is bumped I think reunion lol.

Great HOF though. Amazing they got it when they should have which was right at the beginning of the Hall's construction.

same here

I love the Kinks. Even worked promoting a show in 1979-80. Like Ray's previous solo efforts a lot. But Americana is just a terrible record.

Ray should stick to what he is master of: songs based on life in the UK. He took me to Waterloo for Sunset, a club in old Soho, dance halls with his sister and all the urban renewal that occurred since, introduced me to appearances being questionable with David Watts and A Well Respected Man. The conflict between preserving the old and the new on the Village Green. Though many things in common with parts of America, the Kinks were unapologetically British and I loved them for it. They took me places. It likely hurt their popularity in America that they were 'too British' and had themes outside the standard girls and drugs rock of the time.

Americana just does not fit him.