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by Seth Rogovoy
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Sept. 26, 1996 -- Although Ray Davies has written and sung some of the most classic and memorable songs of the rock era -- "You Really Got Me" and "Lola" among them -- the founder and leader of the Kinks sees himself and his group as anything but mainstream.
"I think the Kinks and my music have always been difficult," said Davies, whose one-man show, "The Storyteller: An Evening With a 20th- Century Man," opened last night at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge. The program continues tonight and runs nightly through Sunday, Sept. 29. Call 298-5576 for tickets and information.
Speaking by phone recently from Southern Ireland, where he was finishing up work on a recording project for a friend, Davies spoke about the genesis of his theatrical show and how it relates to his work with the Kinks, the seminal British Invasion rock group he founded with his brother, Dave, in 1964.
"The Storyteller" is an outgrowth of Davies' book, "X-Ray," which was first published in the U.S. last year and is about to be released in paperback by The Overlook Press.
The book, which Davies impishly subtitles "The Unauthorized Biography," is the craftily disguised story of the author's lifelong battle against the Establishment -- which in the book is referred to as "the Corporation" -- in its various guises as misguided teachers, dictatorial bandleaders, money-grubbing managers, deceitful publishers, scheming record company executives and the faceless bureaucrats responsible for the general climate of decay and decline Davies witnessed around him while growing up in suburban, post-war England.
Davies doesn't merely kiss and tell his life story. As anyone familiar with such weighty social critiques disguised as pop songs such as "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" and "A Well Respected Man" might expect, Davies constructs an elaborate framework in which a young investigator working for the Corporation interviews the 75-year-old "R.D." about his life story, which bears an uncanny resemblance to Davies' own.
"I like the concept of the young me going through this journey and confronting me as an old man," said Davies, 52. "That was the only way I could really get my creative juices flowing and be interested in doing this. Otherwise I think I would have gotten some ghost-writer to write it."
The book is a gripping, edgy account of Davies' life, including his youth, recounting the Kinks' rise to chart-topping fame in the 1960s and concluding in the early-'70s, by which time the band had eased into its longstanding status as a cult act. In the course of the telling, which includes the requisite amount of sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll backstabbing, Davies is perhaps most critical of himself.
"I think I had, not an easy time, but nobody ever does," he said. "You just learn through life and you get an edge to you. I learned mine the hard way, going through and learning these things, and very early in my life, when I was nineteen or twenty years old.
"I think in the end we get what we deserve. A lot of those things were out of my control when I was still young, but I think everything worked out not too badly. Obviously there are things I would change about me, but then I wouldn't be me, and that wouldn't be the same, now, would it?"
After "X-Ray" was first published in England two years ago, like any book author Davies began doing readings in bookstores.
"It occurred to me that it would be nice for the people coming to these events -- it would be good to have a few songs in them, just to highlight the moments from the book that I was reading," said Davies.
So Davies began matching up the appropriate songs with the appropriate passages from the book -- for example, he would play "You Really Got Me" and read the part of the text that describes the recording of that landmark song that had such a great influence on both heavy-metal and punk-rock.
The readings-with-music turned into showcase performances, and Davies went on to perform a full-fledged, one-man theatrical show at the famed arts festival in Edinburgh. The show was a success and Davies took it on tour throughout England, and then to these shores last fall, when it touched down in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. It also wound up on the VH-1 cable network, where it kicked off a new series, "Storytellers," from which it borrowed its current name.
It was a first for Davies, who had never before performed or even recorded as a solo artist. "I always had members of the band with me," he said. The difference between performing solo and playing with the Kinks is enormous. "You can't even compare them," said Davies. "This is much more exhausting mentally. You use a lot more mental energy. And also I can't take as many rests as I can between songs or when Dave's doing a solo or something. So there's less for me to be relieved from.
"Also, when I come off and things haven't gone well, there's nobody for me to shout at. I'm out there and I'm it, I guess." Davies said the show consists of about half spoken-word and half music, including a few new songs written especially for the show.
Anyone who has followed the Kinks' career would not be the least bit surprised about Davies' venture into performance art. Davies and The Kinks have a long history of attempting to meld rock and theater, beginning with his pioneering rock operas, including "Arthur," "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society" and "Soap Opera."
In addition, Davies wrote, composed and directed the award-winning TV movie "Return to Waterloo," and was resident composer for the BBC TV series "The 11th Hour" and "Where Was Spring." He collaborated with Barrie Keefe in 1981 on his first stage musical, "Chorus Girls," and in 1988 he wrote "80 Days" with Snoo Wilson, which was produced and directed by Des McAnuff at the LaJolla Playhouse. He played the lead in the TV play, "The Long Distance Piano Player," and composed and performed the song "Quiet Life" for the Julien Temple film, "Absolute Beginners."
Davies has long struggled against the formal limitations inherent in the three-minute pop single. "I love making singles," he said. "I'm doing a little project on Monday, going into the studio and doing just a little thing for a radio program, just to make a great, three-minute piece of music. I'm still very interested in that.
"But I think after two or three albums I found that....I started off as an art student, and I wanted to be creative, and I think I am a creative person who doesn't really specialize. I love music, I love playing blues, I love playing guitar. I just feel like I like to try new things all the time. It's just something about my character. I like to expand things, and I think the arts should expand more."
Davies said that one of the things he likes about doing the one-man show, as opposed to touring with the Kinks, is that he gets to perform in towns where he has never appeared before.
"When I toured in England what was great was I could play places that the Kinks couldn't normally get to, either because there wasn't a theater there or the stage was too small or whatever," he said.
In fact, until last week, Davies had been laboring under the misapprehension that this week's run in Stockbridge was to be one of those virgin performances. After his memory was jogged, he recalled that the Kinks had indeed played at the legendary Music Inn in the 1970s, a concert that was immortalized on the live album "One For the Road," which included photographs from the show.
"Well, well, well, I remember that vividly," said Davies. "I remember it very clearly because we played Cape Cod the night before, and I didn't sleep at all. We had to get a private airplane, a small-propped plane, to get to the gig at Stockbridge, and I'm terrified of flying those things, but I had to do it. I was exhausted and got on stage and kind of got rejuvenated and afterwards I just collapsed. I remember it very well. It was a hot day, wasn't it?"
As for the future, The Kinks have a new, mostly live, double-CD coming out in just a few weeks. "To The Bone," on Guardian Records, consists mostly of new, "unplugged" versions of familiar and obscure Kinks songs, as well as a few new ones. Davies and his brother, Dave, are notorious for their sibling rivalry, but he said "I think we're OK," and he hopes the Kinks will tour again next year.
If there is one thing that audiences will take away from "The Storyteller," Davies hopes it is a new appreciation for what he is like in person. "People think that I don't like talking to people, that I'm a bit standoffish," he said. "I do like people. I guess by nature I'm a reclusive person, but I do have my moments when I like to go out and speak to people. I'm not as frightening as people imagine me to be."
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