Muswell Hillbillies

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Whatever the trends and changes in direction, these are two excellent albums with excellently crafted songs, overlooked criminally at the time. The Muswell Hillbilly festival is Saturday, September 10, Noon-8pm, with Fortis Green Road closed to traffic. A deluxe box set of Muswell Hillbillies and Everybody's In Showbiz, Everybody's A Star including photos, remixes, remastered original songs and a Kinks north London 'roots map' of key locations, is released on September 9. Visit thekinks.info/latest/muswell-showbiz/ Muswell Hillbillies’ and ‘Everybody’s In Show-Biz’ original albums remastered in gatefold wallets, with original artwork. The original LP was a double, disc 1 new studio material, the second a live set from Carnegie Hall, New York, 1972. Now with a new record company and a new image, I could bring some of the old wild western spirit into my music."

What's a Muswell Hillbilly? Well, Muswell Hill was a community in England that the Davies family had to move to after their neighborhood in North London was razed and gentrified. You do the math, kiddo. Muswell Hillbillies was the band's first album for RCA Records, [2] their prior recordings having been released on Pye Records ( Reprise Records in the United States). Their contract with Pye/Reprise expired the same year. The album was recorded between August and October 1971Think about the upheaval we’ve seen worldwide in the last five years. The phenomenon of two-time Obama voters casting ballots for Trump indicates a massive political re-alignment, which is the tip of an iceberg of chaos. In some ways, Muswell Hillbillies is more right for our time than that in which it was produced. Yes, its politics are non-conformist, and one listener might make the Kinks as reactionaries while another will dismiss them as radicals. Despite its affectionate title, Muswell Hillbillies is anything but a tender tribute to the north London suburb that Ray and Dave Davies knew as home. A previous Kinks album had used the village green as a symbol of a nostalgic Eden (and another had portrayed Australia as a pot of gold for emigrating Brits), but a move to Muswell Hill – the conceptual glue holding the 12 songs on this 1971 LP together – seems in Ray’s eyes to represent a defeat for the working class, a victory for bureaucracy and the fracturing of a way of life. The character in “20th Century Man”, the opening song, is a disillusioned anti-hero, alienated by every current trend and unhappy about the erosion of his civil liberties. The narrator of “Complicated Life” is plagued by a catalogue of chronic ailments. The old man being remembered in “Uncle Son” never had a voice, never had a politician willing to speak for him. These people were mis-sold a utopia and cheated out of a vote. The album introduces a number of working class figures and the stresses with which they must contend. It did not sell well but received critical acclaim and lasting fan appreciation. Dave Davies (Ray’s younger brother) takes issue with such understandings of the band’s politics. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Davies rejects the label “conservative” (used by Pete Townshend in a reflection on Village Green). In response to the word “conservatism”, Davies says, “I think it was ‘values’ more than conservatism. My father was a socialist — very left — and I was brought up to be that way. You can still be far-left and have values.”

Though generally appreciative of the record’s songs, Rolling Stone complained about its muddied, live sound, which often finds Ray Davies’ vocals buried in the mix. The overall impression is that the record was a missed opportunity. It is also entirely understandable that music listeners in the late 1960s couldn’t understand what Davies was doing, politically speaking, during this period either. Where seemingly everyone else was basking in the liberatory potential of the moment, Ray Davies was longing for a reset. Everybody’s In Show-Biz opener Here Comes Another Day is a definite shift, a bigger production with keyboards and brass. Likewise You Don’t Know My Name is a bright and uplifting song with layers, piano and lot of additional touches. This enigmatic quality has served their legacy well. By ignoring fashions and trends, the Kinks forged a body of work that is an enduring paradox: so out-of-step with its time it’s timeless. The quirky, theatrical, and oh-so British Kinks albums of the late 1960s and early 1970s remain much more contemporary and interesting than much of the popular music from their contemporaries. But my only concern is, do two albums combined justify this? I’ll let you decide. Still, well put together and lots to enjoy.Album Review: After “Lola” and its accompanying album (1970’s Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One,), The Kinks had a good deal of bargaining power: the single took the world by storm and became one of their best-known songs, and while the album wasn’t quite as successful, it performed well enough that the band signed a new record deal on RCA. The Kinks first album for their new label, Muswell Hillbillies, is often cited as one of their strongest LPs, and was also the beginning of their musical shift away from the “Englishness” of their classic era ( Something Else, The Village Green Preservation Society, Arthur, etc.) to a more eclectic range of influences. Universal’s new deluxe edition adds a whole second disc worth of bonus material, and while it may not be essential for the casual fan, Kinks konnoisseurs will find plenty to get excited about. Original artwork for the Muswell Hillbillies album is included in a deluxe release (Image: Marketing Mix/BMG Rights Management) BMG have produced some very fine reissues of late, and while some (Slade, Sabbath) have been excellent but missed an opportunity or two, others like the mammoth Nazareth box have really been the proverbial Mutt’s Nuts. This falls largely into the latter. Larkin, Colin (2007). Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4thed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195313734.