The Kinks

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.

[3] The Davies brothers, Ray and Dave, were born in suburban North London on Huntingdon Road, East Finchley, the youngest and the only boys among their family's eight children.

American record producer Shel Talmy began working with the band, and the Beatles' promoter, Arthur Howes, was retained to schedule the Ravens' live shows.

Graham would continue to occasionally substitute for Avory in the studio and he played on several of the Kinks' early singles, including the hits "You Really Got Me", "All Day and All of the Night" and "Tired of Waiting for You".

[32][33] Hastily imported by the American label Reprise Records, where the band was signed by legendary executive Mo Ostin,[34] "You Really Got Me" also made the Top 10 in the United States.

[40][41] Following a mid-year tour of the US, the American Federation of Musicians refused permits for the group to appear in concerts there for the next four years, effectively cutting them off from the main market for rock music at the height of the British Invasion.

[53] 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.

[54] 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.

[62] Both "Dead End Street" and its B-side "Big Black Smoke" were recorded with John Dalton on bass, though Quaife had returned by the time the single was released, and appeared in the promotional music video.

"[78] Nick Jones of Melody Maker asked, "Is it time that Ray stopped writing about grey suburbanites going about their fairly unemotional daily business?

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.

[88][89] Although a commercial disappointment, Village Green (the project's original name was adopted as a shorthand for the long album title) was embraced by the new underground rock press when it was released in January 1969 in the US, where the Kinks began to acquire a reputation as a cult band.

[93] 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.

[111][112] In conjunction with the Preservation project, the Kinks' line-up was expanded to include a horn section and female backup singers, essentially reconfiguring the group as a theatrical troupe.

[118] Ray recovered from his illness as well as his depression, but throughout the remainder of the Kinks' theatrical incarnation the band's output remained uneven, and their already fading popularity declined even more.

Driven by session drummer Henry Spinetti's drumming and Dave Davies' heavy guitar, the song "Father Christmas" has become a classic seasonal favourite on mainstream radio.

[citation needed] Beginning in the late 1970s, bands such as the Jam ("David Watts"), the Pretenders ("Stop Your Sobbing", "I Go to Sleep"), the Romantics ("She's Got Everything"), and the Knack ("The Hard Way") recorded covers of Kinks songs, which helped bring attention to the group's new releases.

[6] The Kinks' second wave of popularity remained at a peak with State of Confusion, but that success began to fade, a trend that also affected their British rock contemporaries the Rolling Stones and the Who.

[137][139][140] 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.

A compilation from the MCA Records period, Lost & Found (1986–1989), was released in 1991 to fulfil contractual obligations, marking the official end of the group's relationship with the label.

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.

[157] Seeing the programming potential of his music/dialogue/reminiscence format, the American music television network VH1 launched a series of similar projects featuring established rock artists titled VH1 Storytellers.

[40] 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.

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.

'"[115] 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.

[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.

"[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.

[128] 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".

"[183] Jon Savage wrote that the Kinks were an influence on late 1960s American psychedelic rock groups "like the Doors, Love and Jefferson Airplane".

A brown brick building. Visible is a door at left, with a bowfront window at right.
6 Denmark Terrace, the childhood home of the Davies brothers. The front room is where the family's frequent Saturday night parties were held.
The Kinks in their red jackets , near Tower Bridge , London, August 1964
On a bench in a park sit five men, two seated and three standing behind the bench. Clockwise from left is a man in a black suit with Khaki pants; a man in a black suit with black pants; a man wearing a brown coat with Khaki pants and raising his arm jokingly as if to stab the sleeping man below him; a man, wearing a grey/light green coat and Khaki pants and holding out a hat above the sleeping man's head. The sleeping man is wearing green.
Publicity photo taken during a Swedish tour in 1965
Promotional photograph taken in June 1965 during the band's first US tour
Four members of the band the Kinks stand onstage, during a television appearance. From left to right is Ray Davies, wearing a leather suit and long black pants. He is strumming an acoustic guitar and preparing to sing into a microphone placed in front of him. Next is Mick Avory, seated and playing the drums. He is wearing a brightly coloured long-sleeved shirt and dark pants. After him is bassist Pete Quaife, playing his instrument and wearing a set of clothes similar to Avory's. Last is Dave Davies, wearing what appears to be a leather suit with a short tie, black pants and high-heeled loafers. He plays an elaborate v-shaped electric guitar and is standing behind a microphone.
Ray Davies playing a Fender acoustic , Dave Davies a prototype Gibson Flying V , on the Dutch TV programme Fenklup , 29 April 1967 [ 75 ]
Five smiling men in a row, diagonal to camera angle. The man on the left (farthest to the back) has very long hair and a full beard; he wears a white T-shirt and tie-dyed pants. Next to him, Dave Davies, also with very long hair, wears reflective sunglasses, a black short-sleeved shirt and jeans. In the middle, Mick Avory wears an unbuttoned leather vest and white pants. The man to his right wears a heavy, probably brown leather jacket with a design that is possibly Native American. On the far right, in front, Ray Davies wears a giant paisley kerchief knotted like a tie over a white jacket.
The Kinks, c. 1971 . From left: John Gosling, Dave Davies, Mick Avory, John Dalton, Ray Davies (the band's line-up from 1970 to 1976).
A grinning man stands with his arms spread wide. He bends his elbows and folds them towards his body, creating a shrug expression. He is wearing an abstract, patchwork, bathrobe-like coat with black pants and shoes. He holds a cigar in his right hand and wears a straw hat.
Ray Davies in character as Mr Flash, the anti-hero of the Preservation series
A man stands onstage with a guitar strapped across his chest. It hangs limp and unused as he focuses on singing into a microphone directly in front of him, which he grasps with his left hand. He wears a black-and-white, vertically striped suit.
Ray Davies in Brussels, 1985, as the group's popularity began to dwindle
A man, wearing blue, plays an electric guitar and gazes down on the ground.
Dave Davies at the Dakota Creek Roadhouse, 2002