The Kinks, way back when
Update (November 12, 2016): Not so fast on that Kinks reunion. Just a few days after Ray Davies told a British newspaper that he and brother Dave were getting closer to reuniting the band, Dave quickly put things straight.
On his Facebook page, Dave posted, “ME AND RAY have not spoken about Kinks shows at all- although were TRYING TO WORK TOGETHER ON OTHER STUFF and have worked on music together. In the meantime we both have albums finished. My album Open Road (that) I did with my son Russ comes out in 2017! — Dave”
Ray Davies’ own Facebook page then posted, “Ray was misquoted at the recent Q awards. Both Ray and Dave have solo albums coming out next year and have no plans to re-unite in the immediate future.”
So don’t plan on hearing “Waterloo Sunset” any time soon, but you never know…
Our original news post…
Will The Kinks finally reunite in 2017? Maybe.
Then again…
The Kinks last performed together 20 years ago, and the band’s co-leaders, brothers Ray and Dave Davies, have long been involved in a feud for the ages: In 1997, Ray reportedly stomped on his brother’s 50th birthday cake and they still haven’t fully put their differences aside! So intense is their estrangement that it makes the news if they even speak to each other.
Even such traumatic incidents as the shooting of Ray in New Orleans during a street robbery (he was not seriously injured) and Dave’s stroke, both occurring in 2004, failed to produce a reconciliation. Talk of a possible Kinks reunion has popped up every so often—even after the death of original bassist Pete Quaife in 2010—but fans are still waiting, Dave Davies once saying, “You don’t need to see silly old men in wheelchairs singing ‘You Really Got Me.’” (Scroll down a few paragraphs for the sequel to that quote.)
Then, over the past few years, some glimmers of hope: First, in 2013, as filming began on a Julien Temple-directed Kinks biopic (supposedly arriving next year), Dave Davies said there was a 50 percent chance that the Kinks could reunite, adding that he still kept in touch with original Kinks drummer Mick Avory. In 2014, the same year that the musical Sunny Afternoon, based on the Kinks, premiered in London’s West End, Ray also fueled the fire, telling Rolling Stone that the possibility of a Kinks reunion existed.
Related: We’ve been down this road before. Read BCB’s earlier “Will the Kinks reunite?” piece
In September 2015, Dave Davies told the same publication that, yes, there was still an “outside shot.”
Then—finally—three months later, during a Dave gig at the Islington Assembly Hall in London, fans were shocked as Ray Davies walked out onstage, sauntered up to the microphone, spoke a few words to the audience, and sang “You Really Got Me,” the Kinks’ first hit from 1964, with Dave’s band.
Watch that one-song reunion: Ray and Dave Davies performing “You Really Got Me” in 2015
Not wanting to dash the hopes of fans, Ray subsequently said, “I’m still trying to live that down. I joined him onstage briefly but it would be overly romantic to think it was because of the show or to start talking about a reunion.”
All of which brings us to the present: Ray Davies reportedly told the British newspaper The Sun on Nov. 2, after picking up a Q magazine songwriting award, that this time they mean it: The Kinks—or at least he and Dave—will reunite in 2017. “Dave and I will definitely work together again,” Ray Davies was quoted as saying. “And we want to play live.” He added, “Maybe the Kinks could play Glastonbury,” referring to the major annual music festival in the U.K.
As of now, there has been no confirmation of same by Dave. Whether it will come to pass, and in what form (will Avory be involved?), remains to be seen, but the idea of Ray, now 72, and Dave, 69, making music together in any form, one final time, could be one of the big classic rock stories of 2017.
Related: That time when the Kinks were banned from the U.S.A.
Watch the Kinks perform “Lola” in 1970
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1 Comment so far
Jump into a conversationAs a sixties DJ and diehard Kinks fan I think it would be an absolute crime for the Muswell Hillbilles not to tour again. Both Ray and Dave have new material in the kitbag, I don’t know if they realize how many millions of people would flip their lids if the Kinks hit the road again.
Ernie the K,
Boston radio legend