RAY DAVIES LOOKS BACK IN BEMUSEMENT AND
The band’s driving force and creative genius has done a lot of looking back recently as musical Sunny Afternoon, based on The Kinks, hits the stage.
And when the show comes to Scotland in autumn, there is every chance Ray will be in the audience – holding his head in his hands.
The singer, songwriter and frontman of the band is the heart of the show, which is based around his recollections of their ups and downs in the 1960s.
He wrote the music and lyrics of the soundtrack, which includes You Really Got Me, Waterloo Sunset, Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, All Day and All Of The Night, Lola and Sunny Afternoon.
It’s won critical acclaim, prestigious Olivier awards and is now embarking upon a UK tour.
But while the 72-year-old has enjoyed its success, he can’t help wincing when it comes to pivotal moments in the show like signing bad deals and being banned from America for four years at the height of the British invasion led by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
Ray said: “I go in occasionally when there’s a new member of cast and I can wat ch it and detach it from myself. If I didn’t detach myself, I would be crying all the time.
“We ha d a terrible time with rotten deals and being banned from America. It’s easy to wr ite down as a script what happened to us. But when it comes to where I sign a critical deal or we get told of the ban, I always go, ‘ Why?’
“I could rewrite the script but I can’t rewrite history. But it’s joyous as well because we fought and made it back. It’s a real triumph over adversity story.”
It’s also more than he ever expected. When he started the band, whose classic, long- term line- up was with younger brother Dave, bass player Pete Quaife and drummer Mick Avory, he wasn’t even supposed to be the singer. But his ability to double track, play along with his own pre-recorded performance, saw him step up to the mike.
Ray said: “I wrote songs for my brother. Dave looked prettier. But I got the vocal because I could do double tracking.”
The idea for a career was similarly surprising. When the London band broke through with You Really Got Me in 1964, its distinctive distorted guitar sound was created after Dave sliced the speaker of his amplifier with a razor blade.
They followed it up with All Day and All Of The Night, Tired Of Waiting For You and Set Me Free.
But Ray was making it up as he went along, working at breakneck pace with friction never far from the surface in his volatile relationship with his brother.
He said: “We didn’t know what we were doing. I just knew I had an idea for a song and one day said, ‘Let’s record it.’ There