Now that Legacy Recordings has retained licensing rights to the Kinks catalog in the States for recordings made for RCA Records and Arista from 1971 to 1985, they have a number of special releases and reissues lined up to spring on the market. And just as they have done for others like Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, they have a lot of archival and previously unreleased material to sweeten the deal. With the Kinks 50th Anniversary looming, Legacy already has two releases in the can: The Essential Kinks and a Legacy Edition of the band’s 1971 album, Muswell Hillbillies.
The Essential Kinks features 48 of the band’s biggest hits and most beloved songs, from virtually every phase of their career on the Pye/Reprise, RCA, Arista and Columbia labels. Track through this collection, and you’ll be taken on a musical journey unlike any other. There’s early rockers like “You Really Got Me” and “All Day And All Of The Night” allotted alongside the more winsome tunes that sprang from Ray Davies’ vivid imagination like “A Well Respected Man,” “Dedicated Follower Of Fashion” and “Sunny Afternoon.” Listening to “Stop Your Sobbing,” “Tired Of Waiting For You” and “Set Me Free,” you get the feeling that love songs by the Kinks never have happy endings. It gets even more complicated in later years.
In the late 60s, when the Kinks couldn’t tour the States due to a union conflict, both Ray and Dave Davies became much more adventurous as songwriters. Dave’s “Death Of A Clown,” released in 1967 as a solo singl,e features Nicky Hopkins plucking out the intro and piano lines, as Ray and his wife sing the “la’s la’s.” Dave’s guitar also drives his brother’s jaunty ‘Waterloo Sunset” and the bluesy, sharp “Victoria.” Meanwhile, Ray’s “Picture Book” and “Celluloid Heroes” are two prime examples of how developed a songsmith he had become, certainly on par with Messrs Lennon, McCartney, Jagger, Richards and Townshend.
Live versions of “Till The End Of The Day,” “Lola” and “Where Have All The Good Times Gone” seem almost arbitrary when mixed in with the more solid material from the 70s and 80s. Changes were in the air. The horns, keys and flourishes of “Everybody’s A Star” gave way to “Sleepwalker,” the title track of the Kinks’ first album for Arista. The band’s stripped-down approach (along with renewed interest thanks to Van Halen) of the late 70s opened the floodgates for a new arena-size audience that would carry them comfortably into the 80s. “Life Goes On” and “Rock ‘N Roll Fantasy” fit the FM jello-mold to a tee (even though you don’t hear them that much on classic rock radio these days). Then MYV came along and made the Kinks video stars.
“Come Dancing,” “Don’t Forget To Dance” and “Do It Again” would come to represent the Kinks visually even as songs like “Living On A Thin Line” (one of Dave Davies’ brightest Kinks moments) held the writing to a higher standard. The Anthology 1964-1971, a five CD collection, obviously has the space to go much deeper, but across two CDs, The Essential Kinks lives very much up to its name.
On its heels is the expanded CD/DVD Legacy Edition of Muswell Hillbillies, the band’s RCA debut that explores the working class and the effects of gentrification on Muswell Hill, the borough of London where both Ray and Dave were born and raised. Ray likened his parents’ forced relocation to The Beverly Hillbillies loading up their truck, and somehow that lent itself to the album’s title. With that kind of inspiration, it’s no wonder the original 12 songs stretch every musical nuance imaginable to unparalleled lengths of wonderment.
Spread throughout are flavors of folk, country, vaudeville, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley and drunken shanties — some bleak, morose, raw; others pastoral, vivid and rich in imagery. Much like The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, the arrangements are intentionally smart and foppish, but not as ornate and flashy. You can’t talk about the working class with a high brow. New member John Gosling’s buoyant style on the piano adds an integral panache to songs like “Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues,” “Alcohol,” “Have A Cuppa Tea,” and “Oklahoma U.S.A.”
Amidst all the outside influences, there is something inherently rock and roll about Muswell Hillbillies. However dated the lyrics are to “20th Century Man,” the chugging guitars and splaying Hammond gives it legs to run and jump. Others like “Here Come The People In Grey” and “Muswell Hillbilly” help bring the record into focus, especially for those unimpressed with the squiggles outside the lines. Ah, but the extras that come with the Legacy Edition should impress anyone.
Along with the requisite alternates and outtakes, there’s songs like “Lavender Lane” and “Mountain Man,” which didn’t make the cut, but are hardly throwaway tunes. Once you’ve spun through those, including an old radio spot for the album, you’ll want to get into the DVD. Here, the band performs spirited versions of “Have A Cuppa Tea” and “Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues” during their January 4, 1972 appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Even better are the 11 songs (and some unique segues to interviews, conversations and movie intros) from Live At The Rainbow, filmed for BBC TV on July 21, 1972. If memory serves me correctly, this program was also shown in the 70s on American TV, either via In Concert or Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert.
Playing a fair share of Muswell Hillbillies, the Rainbow set is also peppered with oddballs like “The Moneygoround” from Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One and “She Bought A Hat Like Princess Marina” from Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire), all of which kept the extended band heavily engaged in backing Ray Davies. Book-ending everything with “Till The End Of The Day” and “You Really Got Me,” the band never strayed too far from their roots, even as they kept moving forward with material and concepts remotely unusual and inventive. That may well be the best thing about the Kinks and the legacy they’ve left us after 50 years.
~ Shawn Perry
