June 15, 2009: Now the curtain rises on Ray’s debut album for Decca, The Kinks Choral Collection, on which he has hand-picked a selection of songs from his compendious repertoire and arranged them for his band and choir. And not just any old choir. Davies fans will be aware that, wherever else his career has taken him, he has always remained rooted in his native north London. Therefore the only logical choice for this Muswell Hillbilly boy’s new album was the Crouch End Festival Chorus.
"With a song like Waterloo Sunset, I feel as if the people I wrote it for are singing it, and that’s what’s interesting," he says. "I know some of the singers in the choir, though not all, but as a group I imagine them all living in north London, and they are my subject matter as well as the people singing it. There’s some sort of symmetry there."
The disc was recorded locally too, with the sessions divided between Konk studios and Air Lyndhurst in not-too-distant Hampstead.
The seed of the new album was planted when Davies was asked to perform at the BBC Electric Proms at the Roundhouse in 2007, around the time of the release of ‘Working Man’s Café’. He’d first met choirmaster David Temple when he conducted the 80-piece choir used in Davies’ ‘Flatlands’ piece (a commission from the Norwich and Norfolk Festival). He bumped into Temple again in Highgate, where he was conducting the Crouch End Chorus in a local church, and hit upon the idea of using the Chorus for his Electric Proms appearance. This worked so well that they reunited for two performances at the Hampton Court Festival last summer, and then inevitably the discussion turned to capturing Davies and choir on disc.
Davies had his own conception of how each song would work with the choir, but Temple played a vital role in shaping and interpreting his wishes.
"My first brief to David and (arranger) Steve Markwick, regarding the arranging, was ‘I don’t want this to be (a) a karaoke record or (b) a singalong with backing vocals’. I wanted the arrangements to be ambitious and for the pieces to be interesting to sing, but I didn’t want it to sound like Messiaen or something like that, which wouldn’t lend itself to my style of music. Something David taught me very early on was that a choir sounds great when it’s a choir, and there’s a certain kind of ambience you have to retain. Otherwise it’ll just sound like a doowop group."
The finished tracks display an ingenious palette of choral techniques, from the tricky tempo changes and contrasting parts of ‘Shangri-La’ to the minimalist, Steve Reich-like "ah-ah-ah" sounds in ‘You Really Got Me’. One of the most instantly striking efforts is the acapella treatment of ‘See My Friends’.
"I started ‘See My Friends’ with a band, but I rearranged it after we’d finished recording it," he recalls. "In other words, I cut it up in the studio after it was recorded. It sounds brilliant! I’m really pleased with it, because it’s an acapella version."
The selection of six songs from the Village Green album is testament to how highly he regards that particular album, though he admits that some of the songs are not well known.
"I think these songs fit together really well as a record," Davies says. "I couldn’t re-record anything unless I could bring something new to it, and I think I certainly have."
[via Ray Davies]
This must-have album includes brand new renditions of phenomenal classics: 1. Days, 2. Waterloo Sunset, 3. You Really Got Me, 4. Victoria, 5. See My Friends, 6. Celluloid Heroes, 7. Shangri-La, 8. Working Man’s Café, 9. Village Green, 10. Picture Book, 11. Big Sky, 12. Do You Remember Walter?, 13. Johnny Thunder, 14. Village Green Preservation Society, and 15. All Day and All of the Night.
RFNAPLES Space 