Heading in the direction of the weekend with a 1965 session from The Kinks. Another band that shaped the future of Rock in the 1960s with some of the most memorable and influential songs of the British Invasion period (and well into the 70s with the iconic Lola), The Kinks exemplified the craft of excellent song writing, and were one of the primary forces turning Rock n’ Roll into music with a head on its shoulders.
This session, recorded by the BBC on December 13, 1965 turned out three numbers; A Well Respected Man, Till The End Of The Day and Where Have All The Good Times Gone. All three songs part of the endless run of hits the group had during the early period.
And like most of the material in the Kinks catalog, it’s maintained a timeless quality, in all these almost 55 years.
The Kinks opened 1965 with their first tour of Australia and New Zealand, with Manfred Mann and the Honeycombs. An intensive performing schedule saw them headline other package tours throughout the year with acts such as the Yardbirds and Mickey Finn. Tensions began to emerge within the band, expressed in incidents such as the on-stage fight between Avory and Dave Davies at the Capitol Theatre, Cardiff, Wales, on 19 May. After finishing the first song, “You Really Got Me”, Davies insulted Avory and kicked over his drum set. Avory responded by hitting Davies with his hi-hat stand, rendering him unconscious, before fleeing from the scene, fearing that he had killed his bandmate. Davies was taken to Cardiff Royal Infirmary, where he received 16 stitches to his head. To placate the police, Avory later claimed that it was part of a new act in which the band members would hurl their instruments at each other.
Following a mid-year tour of the United States, the American Federation of Musicians refused permits for the group to appear in concerts there for the next four years, effectively cutting off the Kinks from the main market for rock music at the height of the British Invasion. Although neither the Kinks nor the union revealed a specific reason for the ban, at the time it was widely attributed to their rowdy on-stage behavior. It had been reported that an incident when the band were taping Dick Clark’s TV show Where the Action Is in 1965 led to the ban. Ray Davies recalls in his autobiography, “Some guy who said he worked for the TV company walked up and accused us of being late. Then he started making anti-British comments. Things like “Just because the Beatles did it, every mop-topped, spotty-faced limey juvenile thinks he can come over here and make a career for himself.”; subsequently a punch was thrown and the AFM banned them. Ah, history.
If you’ve never heard them before – pretend they just got together.
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