Dave Davies

Dave Davies served as guitarist and intermittent frontman for the Kinks, driving the band’s early singles toward a harder, more contemporary sound by devising the power chord that powered “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night.” He supplied an animated foil to the drier perspective of his brother Ray, especially once the group turned toward pointed social observation and ironic vignettes in the late 1960s. At the same time Dave began writing his own material, most memorably the loose-limbed folk-rock number “Death of a Clown,” which the Kinks placed on the B-side of a 1967 single issued under his name alone; the track climbed to number three on the British charts. Brief attempts to position him as an independent artist followed before he settled back into the band, adding the occasional composition or lead vocal to later albums.

His independent recording career properly started with the hard-rocking AFL1-3603 in 1980, the first of three AOR albums released while the Kinks enjoyed renewed visibility on MTV. After the brothers’ final break in the mid-1990s, Dave concentrated on solo work, producing wide-ranging albums such as Bug in 2002 and I Will Be Me in 2013.

Born David Russell Gordon Davies on February 3, 1947, in London’s Muswell Hill district, he absorbed skiffle and early rock and roll before forming the Kinks in 1963 with bassist Pete Quaife. Ray Davies joined soon afterward, completing the original quartet when drummer Mick Avory came aboard. A Pye Records deal yielded two unsuccessful singles until August 1964, when Dave’s distorted guitar and muscular riff propelled “You Really Got Me” into the charts; that success inaugurated a run of influential 45s. Although Ray handled most of the songwriting, Dave contributed several lasting tracks of his own. Solo singles issued toward the end of the decade received favorable notices in Britain yet remained largely unknown in the United States. “Death of a Clown,” also featured on the album Something Else, reached number three in the U.K. in 1967, and the follow-up “Susannah’s Still Alive” performed nearly as well.

Plans for a full solo album were abandoned after additional singles failed to chart, though some unreleased recordings from the period later surfaced on the bootleg Good Luck Charm. Serious solo activity resumed with AFL1-3603 in 1980, followed by Glamour in 1981 and Chosen People in 1983; each received modest but generally positive reviews without major commercial impact. The 1987 compilation The Album That Never Was assembled his rare 1960s single sides into an approximation of a long-delayed solo debut, while Unfinished Business: Dave Davies Kronikles 1963-1998 later surveyed his output across several decades. After the Kinks announced their retirement in 1996, Bug arrived in 2002 as Dave’s first collection of new songs in nearly twenty years. A major stroke in 2004 led him to use songwriting and painting as part of an extended recovery; the track “God in My Brain,” included on the 2006 compilation Kinked, reflected that experience. His first complete post-stroke studio album, Fractured Mindz, appeared on the Koch label in 2007.

In 2011 BBC Four aired the documentary Dave Davies: Kinkdom Come, which included lengthy reflections on his years with the Kinks, his relationship with Ray, and the spiritual practices that sustained him through illness. June 2013 brought I Will Be Me, an album that juxtaposed aggressive rockers with quieter, introspective songs marked by nostalgia. Davies returned to the British stage in February 2014 for his first U.K. concert since 2001, then issued Rippin’ Up Time that autumn under the production of occasional Wondermints member David Nolte. A December 2015 performance at London’s Islington Assembly Hall unexpectedly featured Ray joining him for “You Really Got Me,” prompting brief reunion speculation that never materialized. Instead Dave collaborated with his son Russ Davies on the 2017 album Open Road and announced supporting U.S. dates. Decade, a collection of previously unreleased 1970s recordings, followed in 2018.

His second autobiography, Living on a Thin Line, was published in 2022 and accompanied by a compilation of the same name that highlighted later material.