Conversations With Great British Songwriters
More than twenty of the UK’s finest musicians discuss the magic and reveal the secrets behind their art in a rare collection of conversations about fifty years of classic British songwriting.
As a boy in post-War England, legendary Kinks singer/songwriter Ray Davies fell in love with America - its movies and music, its culture of freedom all fed his imagination. Then, as part of the British Invasion, he toured the US with the Kinks during one of the most tumultuous eras in American history - until the group was banned from performing there from 1965-69. Decades later, while living in New Orleans, he experienced a transformative event: the shooting (a result of a botched robbery) that nearly took his life. In Americana, Davies tries to make sense of his long love-hate relationship with the country that both inspired and frustrated him. From his quintessentially English perspective as a Kink, Davies - with candour, humour, and wit - takes us on a very personal road trip through his life and storied career as a rock star, and reveals what music, fame and America really mean to him. Some of the most fascinating characters in recent pop culture make appearances, from the famous to the perhaps even more interesting behind-the-scenes players. The book also includes a photographic insert with images from Davies's own collection from the band's archive.
Who hasn't longed to learn the story of "Lola"? Or wanted to meet the "Dedicated Follower of Fashion"? Or to laze on a sunday afternoon? This collection of stories is an accompaniament to the songs that made The Kinks top of the pops in the sixties.
This subversively brilliant, one-of-a-kind rock autobiography ingeniously styled as a biography, is written by a nameless, faceless writer hired by an Orwellian entity called "the Corporation" to capture the essence of Ray Davies, lead singer and songwriter of The Kinks and one of the greatest rock and rollers of all time. The Kinks front man reveals his life and times to the young writer, often seemingly passing his stories directly into the writer's consciousness. Carnaby Street, "Top of the Pops," the Cavern Club, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and other fixtures of the times fade in and out of this compelling narrative. Part autobiography, part social history, part psychological thriller, this elusive and daring book exposes rock stardom as the heaven, hell, and purgatory it is.
The shocking and edgy memoirs of a dedicatedenemy of fashion and the lead singer of The Kinks.