Ray Davies: A Complicated Life - Hardcover

Rogan, Johnny

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847923178 ISBN 13: 9781847923172

Publisher: Bodley Head, 2015

Synopsis

The definitive biography of The Kinks' legendary frontman and one of the most tumultuous tales in Rock history.
     Ray Davies, legendary frontman of The Kinks, is one of the all-time greatest Rock and Roll musicians -- and also one of its most troubled.
     In the summer of 1964, aged twenty, Ray launched The Kinks into the whirlwind of drink, drugs and sex that was fame in the Swinging Sixties with his radical number one hit 'You Really Got Me'. Two weeks later they were playing with The Beatles and being supported by The Who, swamped by fans and fast becoming renowned for the rioting at their gigs. Over the next thirty years, Davies wrote a string of enduring classics -- 'All Day and All of the Night', 'Sunny Afternoon', 'Waterloo Sunset' -- and concept albums, such as The Village Green Preservation Society, whose influence can be heard directly in the music of Blur, Oasis, Pulp and Elastica in the 1990s.
     But Ray's journey from East End poverty to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame was tumultuous in the extreme, featuring psychiatric breakdowns, bitter lawsuits and spectacular punch-ups. He has been knocked unconscious mid-performance, arrested for fraudulently impersonating himself and shot through the leg in New Orleans. His relationship with his brother Dave, The Kinks' lead guitarist, is surely the most ferocious and abusive in music history. And yet this master of social observation and prolific writer of songs, albums, TV films and stage musicals is widely acknowledged as one of the handful of people to have redefined pop culture over the last fifty years.
     Based on hundreds of interviews conducted over several decades, this richly detailed, intimate and revelatory account promises to be the definitive account of this most fascinating and complicated life.

About this title

About the Author:

JOHNNY ROGAN has been called 'pop's most eccentric biographer, a fanatical searcher after truth'. He is the author of sixteen books, including books on the Byrds, Roxy Music, the Kinks, the Smiths, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and John Lennon. His work has been acclaimed endlessly in print and on radio and television.

Review:

"As definitive a view of the man as anyone could hope for" The Times "In the tradition of the most interesting biographies, a troubled subject makes for a gripping read" Evening Standard "Rogan is exceptionally good at painting a picture of the moment he is exploring ... engrossing ... you're left with a sympathetic understanding of [Davies'] ways and motives" New Statesman "It's [Ray Davies's] quirks that make him a worthy study, and Johnny Rogan is the man for the job, a writer renowned for going to extraordinary lengths to research his subjects ... a social history as well as character study. Rogan illuminates the labyrinth of Swinging Sixties record labels, managers, bookers and pluggers, and spares no blushes in his depiction of the young Kinks" Irish Times "Masterfully teases out the warring impulses wrestling in [Davies's] psyche ... [Rogan is] adept at relating the social history of the 1950s and 1960s to Davies's brooding character and lyric obsessions ... He uncovers psychological traumas everywhere and is fascinating on the bitchy rivalries between 1960s pop titans ... Such tales make this ... oceanically researched biography go with a swing" Sunday Times "Meticulously researched, crafted with a near-obsessive passion and boasts abundant original interviews ... the many fans of [Davies] have never been served this well; Rogan interviews major players and delves deep into the archives to emerge with the ultimate account of Davies' life, times and idiosyncrasies ... Rogan never loses sight of Davies' position as a quintessentially brilliant English songwriter and pop-culture commentator, resulting in his own personal masterpiece and another benchmark for music biographies" Record Collector "Definitive ... impressive ... Nary a character or event of even minor importance in the Davies story is left undisturbed by the author's flair for asking the right questions of the right people (including Ray himself) and plundering archives ... The wonder is that with so many facts and opinions to assemble, this tome remains so eminently readable" Mojo ***** "A terrific insight into one of Britain's greatest artists" Shortlist "Monumental ... shining through the violence, the personality clashes, the litigation with former management, the volatile relationship with women, even a mental breakdown, are the songs" Daily Mail "Rogan chooses to delve deep into the period that will most interest potential readers of this book ... defiantly non-sensationalist ... dogged, even-handed and punctilious in his research ... scrupulously fair in his assessments of his subject's work and character, while also conceding that, in several ways, Davies remains an enigma ... a valuable account of the working life of a complicated man" Spectator "Kinkophiles will enjoy the recreation of Sixties London and the accounts of sibling mayhem" Telegraph "Gripping and hugely readable ... teems with as much detail as a 19th-century novel ... whatever's been previously written about the band is rather overwhelmed by Rogan's book with its illuminating interviews with Ray and Dave Davies and an abundance of supplementary testimony" Uncut "The most in-depth biography to date of the head Kink and enduring pop genius" Choice "A vivid, heartfelt recreation" Classic Rock "One of the best rock biographers of his generation" Irish Independent "This richly detailed and revelatory biography presents the most frank and intimate portrait yet of Ray Davies" CGA Magazine "Rogan does an excellent job of trying to work out what makes The Kinks' enigmatic frontman tick whilst charting the tumultuous career of a band whose idiosyncratic but brilliant hits are currently enjoying a renaissance" Mail on Sunday "This book is a good, solid, factually based read throughout... I imagine nearing six decades of recording history to be squeezed into one book is a task beyond the scope of a lot of authors, but this has been done rather well by Johnny Rogan... Excellent and complex." -- Reg Seward Nudge

About this edition

• Publisher: Bodley Head
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1847923178
• ISBN 13: 9781847923172
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 768