Ray Davies
Background information
Birth name	Raymond Douglas Davies
Born	June 21, 1944 (1944-06-21) (age 63)
Origin	Fortis Green, London England
Genre(s)	Rock, Rock 'n' Roll
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter
Years active	1963 - present
Associated acts	The Kinks

Raymond Douglas Davies, CBE (born June 21, 1944 in Fortis Green, London) is an influential English rock musician, best known as lead singer-songwriter for The Kinks - one of the most influential, prolific and long-lived British Invasion bands - which he led with his younger brother, Dave. He has also acted, directed and produced shows for theatre and television.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Work 3 Awards 4 References 5 External links

Biography

Ray Davies (pronounced DAY-vis ) was born and raised in the North London area of Muswell Hill. He is the seventh of eight children, including six older sisters and his younger brother, Dave. He has been married three times, and has 4 daughters - Louisa, Victoria, Natalie Rae and Eva.

The musically inclined Davies was an art student at Hornsey College of Art in London in 1962–1963, when the Kinks developed into a professional performing band. After the Kinks obtained a recording contract in early 1964, Davies emerged as the chief songwriter and de facto leader of the band, especially after the band's breakthrough success of his composition "You Really Got Me." Davies led the Kinks through a period of musical experimentation between 1966 and 1976, with notable artistic achievements and commercial success. Between 1977 and their breakup in 1996, Davies and the group reverted to their earlier mainstream rock format and enjoyed a second peak of success.

In 1990, Davies was inducted, with the Kinks, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and, in 2005, into the UK Music Hall of Fame. Davies has performed solo since the mid 1990s.

Davies has had a tempestuous, 'love-hate' relationship with younger brother and Kinks guitarist Dave Davies that dominated the Kinks' career as a band. His compositions and talent as a performer are universally hailed within the music industry, but he has maintained a career-long reputation for being fiercely independent and iconoclastic, resulting in a decades-long pattern of conflict and alienation within the industry. In 1973, a fed-up Ray attempted to announce the breakup of the band onstage (the microphone had been turned off though) and then attempted suicide by gobbling down handfuls of prescription drugs and washing them down with liquor.

He was quoted in 1967: "If I had to do my life over, I would change every single thing I have done."

In 1983, Davies had a daughter, Natalie Rae, with then-girlfriend Chrissie Hynde (of The Pretenders).

On January 4, 2004, Davies was wounded when he was shot in the leg while chasing thieves, who had snatched the purse of his companion as they walked in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. Coming less than a week after being named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, the shooting was memorialized by Bay-Area singer-songwriter Jim Bruno in the song Ray Took a Slug in the Leg.

Work

Main article: The Kinks

Davies' compositions over his lengthy career have been an astonishing study in contrasts, from the influential proto-heavy metal, powerchord rock and roll of the early Kinks hits in 1964–1966 (most prominently "You Really Got Me" and " All Day and All of the Night"); followed a few years later by more sensitive, compassionate songs ("Waterloo Sunset", "Shangri-La", "Big Sky"); and still later by anthems ("Lola", "Celluloid Heroes"); neo-Romantic pastiches of English culture ("Autumn Almanac"); true Music Hall-style musical theatre (the Preservation albums); and commercial rock which combined elements of all of these ("Come Dancing", "Do it Again").

Davies' songwriting has often been acclaimed as more mature, sophisticated, and subtle than that of many of his peers among American and British rock musicians and he has been called the "greatest humanist in rock". While his lyrics were often deceptively simple, focused on time-honoured rock themes such as love, sexual attraction and partying, they often contained elements of satire, examples including "A Well-Respected Man", which ridiculed conservative suburban values, and "Dandy", which mocked the superficiality of the mod subculture. In addition, his later work showed signs of social conscience, examples being "God's Children" and songs on the album Muswell Hillbillies, which denounced commercialism in favour of living simply, and "Dead End Street", which portrayed pockets of poverty in the thriving British economy of the mid 1960s.

Davies' songs on the 1968 Kinks album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society embraced nostalgia and preservation as themes long before they became fashionable. Many of his best songs focus on the small-scale, poignant dramas of everyday people ("Waterloo Sunset", "Two Sisters", "Till Death Us Do Part"), commonly told as wistful mini-stories.

His work has an idiosyncratic quality that has appealed greatly to the Kinks' large cult following over the years. Throughout his career, he has also been considered the most singularly "English" of all major songwriters of his generation. He has consistently used an English (sometimes Cockney) accent, as opposed to the faux-American accent of some of his contemporaries.

Aside from the lengthy Kinks discography, Davies has released three solo albums, the 1985 release Return to Waterloo (which accompanied a television film he wrote and directed), and the 1998 release The Storyteller, followed by a full album Other People's Lives in early 2006. Since the Kinks ceased performing in 1996, Davies has toured independently (such as the Storyteller tours), and more recently with a backing band. In 2005, Davies released a four-song EP in the UK called The Tourist, and a five-song EP in the U.S. entitled Thanksgiving Day. I n the liner notes, Davies confesses he still does not know who he is and where his roots are. In the sing-along "Next Door Neighbour", he seems to be suggesting he is all 3 characters. The printed lyrics sheet contains some fascinating insights into the songwriting process.

Davies published his 'unauthorized autobiography',X-ray, in 1994, a romp through the Swinging Sixties, which settles burning issues ranging from which band produced the first concept album (not The Who), to whether or not his tour companion, Gene Pitney, had an affair with Marianne Faithfull. In 1997, he published a book of short stories entitled Waterloo Sunset, described as 'a concept album set on paper'. He has made two films, Return to Waterloo in 1985 and Weird Nightmare in 1991, a documentary about Charles Mingus.

A new album, working title "Music from the Big Weird", is scheduled for release in 2007. On October 3, 2006, Ray Davies told the BBC that he was planning to start work in November, 2006, on his second full-length solo studio album, and said that he was trying to track down his brother, Dave, saying, "Maybe he could guest on a few tracks". . As of May 2007, the album has been recorded in Nashville and produced by American producer Ray Kennedy.

Ray is currently touring the United Kingdom. The tour started on 2nd May, 2007 in Milton Keynes and will finish at Glastonbury Abbey on the 12th August. New songs performed have been provisionally entitled "No-One Listened to Me" and "The Imaginary Man". Davies stated during the tour that he hoped the album would 'be out this year'.

Awards

• On March 17, 2004, he collected a CBE from Queen Elizabeth II for "Services to Music."

• On June 22, 2004, Davies won the Mojo Songwriter Award, which recognises "An artist whose career has been defined by their ability to pen classic material on a consistent basis."

• Davies and the Kinks were the 3rd British band (along with The Who) to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, at which Davies was called "almost indisputably rock's most literate, witty and insightful songwriter." They were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005.

• On October 3, 2006, Davies was awarded the BMI Icon Award

References

1. A Solo Ray Davies Peers into 'Other People's Lives'. All Things Considered, April 3, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-05-24.
2. Kinks star shot in New Orleans. CNN.com, January 5, 2004. Retrieved on 2007-05-24.
3. Ray Davies fuels Kink reunion rumours. Retrieved on 2007-05-24.

• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

External links

• Dave Emlen's Unofficial Kinks Web Site
• Reviews and articles regarding Other People's Lives
• Fresh Air interview at National Public Radio website
• Ray Davies at BBC 6 Music
• Ray Davies Live at the Royal Albert Hall, photography by dz studios

The Kinks
Ray Davies – Dave Davies – Mick Avory
Pete Quaife – John Gosling – John Dalton – Ian Gibbons – Jim Rodford – Bob Henrit – Andy Pyle – Gordon Edwards
Discography
Albums: The Kinks (1964) - Kinda Kinks (1965) - The Kink Kontroversy (1965) - Face to Face (1966) - Something Else by the Kinks (1967) - The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968) - Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969) - Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One (1970) - Muswell Hillbillies (1971) - Everybody's in Show-Biz (1972) - Preservation: Act 1 (1973) - Preservation: Act 2 (1974) - Soap Opera (1975) - Schoolboys in Disgrace (1976) - Sleepwalker (1977) - Misfits (1978) - Low Budget (1979) - Give the People What They Want (1981) - State of Confusion (1983) - Word of Mouth (1984) - Think Visual (1986) - UK Jive (1989) - Phobia (1993)
Songs: "You Really Got Me" – "Waterloo Sunset" – "Sunny Afternoon" – "Lola" – "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" – "All Day and All of the Night" – "Celluloid Heroes"
Related: British Invasion - Argent