The Kinks Choral Collection

Product Description

2009 release from legendary British Rock icon Ray Davies, who returns with all your favorite Kinks songs backed by the spectacular Crouch End Festival Chorus. Singer/songwriter Davies fronted The Kinks from their inception in the ’60s until their dissolution three decades later in the early ’90s (although there have been hints of a reunion in recent years). This must-have album includes brand new renditions of 15 Kinks klassics including ‘Waterloo Sunset’, ‘You Really Got Me’, ‘All Day and All of the Night, ‘Shangri-La’, ‘Victoria’ and many more phenomenal tunes. Decca.

From the Artist

“I think these songs fit together really well as a record,” Davies says. “I couldn’t re-record anything unless I could bring something new to it, and I think I certainly have.”

About the Artist

RAY DAVIES biography- The Kinks Choral Collection
It’s difficult to believe that it’s over 4 decades since The Kinks released their first chart-topping single, the Ray Davies composition “You Really Got Me”. It marked the beginning of one of the most eventful careers in pop music history, and as the decades have ticked past it has become increasingly clear that Davies has earned his place among the elite handful of rock’s greatest songwriters, up there with Lennon & McCartney, Jagger & Richards and the Ramones.
But resting on his laurels are the furthest things from his mind. He’s currently feeling energised by a fresh wave of inspiration, and is laying plans for a variety of new projects – a stage musical to follow up 2008’s Come Dancing, an album of collaborations with other artists, and perhaps a return to his 1998 choral composition, Flatlands, which he never finished to his own satisfaction.
“I’m a writer, and I want to write more,” Davies declared. “Being creative fires me up. I like to think that what I do with my song writing encourages other people to be creative, not to write songs that would please Simon Cowell.”
Now the curtain rises on his debut album for Decca, The Kinks Choral Collection, on which he has hand-picked a selection of songs from his compendious repertoire and arranged them for rock band and choir. And not just any old choir. Davies fans will be aware that, wherever else his career has taken him, he has always remained rooted in his native north London. Therefore the only logical choice for this Muswell Hillbilly boy’s new album was the Crouch End Festival Chorus.
“With a song like “Waterloo Sunset”, I feel as if the people I wrote it for are singing it, and that’s what’s interesting,” he says. “I know some of the singers in the choir, though not all, but as a group I imagine them all living in north London, and they are my subject matter as well as the people singing it. There’s some sort of symmetry there.”
The disc was recorded locally too, with the sessions divided between Davies’ own Konk studios in Crouch End and Air Lyndhurst in not-too-distant Hampstead.
“The choir was recorded in the big room at Air Lyndhurst, which everybody thought would be the best place,” he explains, pulling up a chair in one of Konk’s control rooms. “Perhaps we could have been more adventurous and found a church, but then you have to bring in all your own equipment and microphones. Anyway Lyndhurst is a lovely-sounding room, for the choir at least.”
Connoisseurs will relish the choice of material (though you don’t have to be a connoisseur to appreciate the disc’s timeless song writing and rich breadth of sound). The songs include several of Davies’ finest road-tested classics, including “Days”, “Waterloo Sunset”, “You Really Got Me” and “All Day And All Of The Night”, and also explore some of the more fascinating tributaries of his career. “Working Man’s Café” was the title track of his 2007 solo album, a potent reminder that unlike the long list of yesterday’s acts making a comeback, Davies has never been away. “Victoria” and “Shangri-La” originally appeared on The Kinks’ 1969 concept album Arthur, where Davie