When I look back at this blog’s cov­er­age of influ­en­tial British rock bands of the six­ties, I see that the “big three” of The Bea­t­les, The Rolling Stones and The Who have all had their moment in the spot­light. There’s anoth­er band of the time, though, that arguably deserves to be count­ed in a “big four” and that is the band formed in Muswell Hill in 1964 by Ray and Dave Davies, name­ly The Kinks.

Unlike the afore­men­tioned bands who unar­guably achieved the sta­tus of inter­na­tion­al leg­ends of rock, the Kinks nev­er ful­ly cap­i­talised on their oppor­tu­ni­ties and tal­ents. For exam­ple, although the band emerged dur­ing the great British rhythm and blues and Mersey­beat scenes and joined those bands spear­head­ing the so-called British Inva­sion of the Unit­ed States, the con­stant fight­ing between the Davies broth­ers (a pop-cul­tur­al fore­run­ner of the Gal­lagher broth­ers, if ever there was one) led to a tour­ing ban in 1965.

As well as the volatile rela­tion­ship between the broth­ers, the song-writ­ing style of Ray Davies some­times took the band away from the expect­ed com­mer­cial music their con­tem­po­raries were striv­ing for. He sim­ply had too much wit and intel­li­gence and eclec­ti­cism, draw­ing on British music hall, folk and coun­try music to inform some of his out­put. Take 1968’s The Kinks Are the Vil­lage Green Preser­va­tion Soci­ety album: released the same week as the Bea­t­les’ White album, it con­tained a col­lec­tion of char­ac­ter stud­ies and med­i­ta­tions on a dis­ap­pear­ing Eng­lish way of life, all bril­liant­ly observed. Sad­ly, in a com­mer­cial world dom­i­nat­ed by psy­che­delia and effects ped­als and the Sum­mer of Love, The Kinks had turned down the dis­tor­tion on Dave’s gui­tar, and the album sunk with­out a trace (despite it lat­er becom­ing estab­lished crit­i­cal­ly as an all-time clas­sic).

Despite such occa­sion­al com­mer­cial fail­ures, the band remain one of the most influ­en­tial bands of all time, and you only have to look at the songs to know why. You Real­ly Got Me and All Day and All of the Night basi­cal­ly intro­duced the idea of the three-chord riff; and did much to turn rock ‘n’ roll into rock. Glo­ri­ous­ly melod­ic, sto­ry­telling songs abound: Sun­ny After­noon, Water­loo Sun­set, Ded­i­cat­ed Fol­low­er of Fash­ion, David Watts, Come Danc­ing, Lola. A host of future pop stars cit­ed their influ­ence and held them in high esteem (just ask Damon Albarn or Paul Weller).

A per­son­al favourite of mine is Autumn Almanac, a charm­ing vignette of Baroque pop released in 1967; here’s a Top of the Pops appear­ance to appre­ci­ate, and the lyrics below to remind us of just how Eng­lish-pas­toral-roman­tic Ray Davies could get.

From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly cater­pil­lar
When the dawn begins to crack, it’s all part of my autumn almanac
Breeze blows leaves of a musty-coloured yel­low
So I sweep them in my sack, yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac

Fri­day evenings, peo­ple get togeth­er
Hid­ing from the weath­er, tea and toast­ed
But­tered cur­rant buns, can’t com­pen­sate
For lack of sun because the summer’s all gone

La la la la, oh my poor rheumat­ic back
Yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac
La la la la, oh my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac

I like my foot­ball on a Sat­ur­day
Roast beef on Sun­days, all right
I go to Black­pool for my hol­i­days
Sit in the open sun­light

This is my street and I’m nev­er gonna to leave it
And I’m always gonna to stay here if I live to be nine­ty-nine
‘Cause all the peo­ple I meet, seem to come from my street
And I can’t get away because it’s call­ing me, come on home
Hear it call­ing me, come on home

La la la la, oh my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac
La la la la, oh my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
Bop bop bop bop bop, whoa
Bop bop bop bop bop, whoa