Ray Davies: A Complicated Life by Johnny Rogan

Author:Johnny Rogan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Music, Biography
ISBN: 9781847923318
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2015-03-04T11:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHANGES

NEW BEGINNINGS COINCIDED with further ructions in the group’s business structure as Ray Davies established total control. The RCA signing concluded with the departure of Grenville Collins who, according to one former associate, elected to “manage his wife’s estate1” rather than the Kinks. There had been several frustrating moments on the road which stretched his patience and some of the antics associated with the group had become tiresome. The decision seriously affected Dave Davies, who had come to rely on Collins as a psychological ally and confidant. “I spent a lot of time2 with Grenville. We became really close just before he left. He showed me yoga and knew about people that did meditation, and I was curious. If we hung out together, it was more me and Grenville, and Ray and Robert. Robert was more into Ray, although we all loved each other. It was really close knit.” Collins travelled extensively after resigning from the Kinks, at one point living near Bodrum in southern Anatolia. His keen interest in the Ottoman Empire saw him amass one of the most comprehensive postcard collections of Turkey in the world. He also established himself in the antiques business for a time, a welcome departure from his previously hectic occupation.

The RCA signing was followed by an American tour, including a memorable performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall, featuring the return of ‘Shangri-la’. “We were presented3 with these plaques,” Gosling remembers with pride. “I kept mine on the mantelpiece – it’s still there.” Just as it seemed the group were settling into a routine, there was another bombshell when Robert Wace officially quit on 30 December 1971.

Wace had grown weary of Ray’s obduracy, particularly in the aftermath of ‘The Moneygoround’ which he considered an unwarranted attack. It was difficult simply to laugh it off as an example of Davies’ whimsy. The final insult occurred after a delay in payment of outstanding monies, a tactic seemingly guaranteed to rile Wace. Indignant, he walked away. The timing was unexpected, given that the Kinks had just signed a new record deal, but Wace stuck to his convictions. It had never been the easiest of business relationships, largely due to Davies’ unpredictability and uncertainty of purpose. Psychological conundrums, mind games and career crises all played their part in the story, as did Davies’ tendency to retreat at inopportune moments. “The Kinks as a group4 never worked as hard as the Who or the Rolling Stones,” Wace maintains. “I mean graft. This was part of Ray, I suppose. They were unreliable in those days, cancelling tours and all those sort of things. There was too much worrying, bickering and infighting . . . Ray once described the group as being like a football team that’s always on the brink of relegation to the second division but somehow just does enough to avoid the drop by getting a hit record. They never wanted to be as big as the Beatles or the Stones. They could have been, but they ran away from it.

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