The bass guitar spot in the group would see plenty of modulation from this current lineup with Pete Quaife. Keyboardist Jon Lord, future organ maestro for Deep Purple, also was on hand as was drummer Bobby Graham. Page wasn’t the only session man on the album that would break out later on. Yet the two remain brothers before bandmates, and when it was suggested that the guitar solo on “All Day And All Of The Night” must have been from the album’s session player, one Jimmy Page before his years with The Yardbirds, Ray has firmly defended Dave. Authorship would be a massive point of contention between Ray and brother Dave in subsequent years, leading to legendary anecdotes of their familial squabbling on this and almost every other subject. A footnote: perhaps Ray’s prodigious rise as lyricist came from the critical drubbing Talmy’s compositions provoked. The band was shepherded by producer Shel Talmy, who also provided a couple of songs for the band, “Bald Headed Woman” and “I’ve Been Driving On Bald Mountain” (a curious, almost Freudian thematic thread there), but it would not be long before Ray Davies was firmly commanding the lyrical direction of the group. Another single, recorded around the same time, “All Day And All Of The Night” virtually notarizes the assertion with an imprint seal. The undeniably big hit from the record, “You Really Got Me” has more than a little R&B in it, but it also presages punk. That’s a difficult claim to make when surveying the Kinks debut album released October 1964, with sturdy covers of tunes from Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and others. Ray and Dave Davies, and the men who served their years in the group always had a firm sense of Britishness about them whereas the Stones, God bless them, idolized American R&B. On better days, The Kinks beat the Stones too. Depending on the day, The Kinks are far more influential to me than The Who, which may be an act of rock sacrilege. Although history has seemed to devalue the legacy of The Kinks, I can’t go along with it. However I find this an impossible strategy. The top three bands of the British Invasion are: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and…tied for third, The Who and The Kinks? In articles like these where you are supposed to project a voice of authority, you’re not supposed to speak in subjective, first person terms.
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