Normnan Davies

The Thanksgiving Day EP – released two days before Thanksgiving Day 2005 – is a teaser for Ray Davies' forthcoming album, Other People's Lives, which is not only his first proper solo album, but his first collection of new songs in nearly 13 years. Based on this EP, Davies is in fine form and may indeed be on the verge of delivering a full-fledged comeback. The title track is a surprising bit of laid-back Stax soul, spiked with a few of his signature English eccentricities in the form of an over-the-top backing chorus and wry observations. While "Yours Truly Confused N10" has a brass arrangement that's a shade too brassy, it's a clever bit of social satire, and if the moody "London Song" is a bit too splashy and theatrical in its production, Davies' spoken verses are evocative (more so than the exaggerated backing vocals), and the gentle country-rock of "Storyteller" makes up for any of its excesses. "London Song" may prevent Thanksgiving Day from being a flat-out, undeniable success, but the rest of this EP shows Davies regaining his strength as a writer and record-maker. Once it's finished, it's hard not to want to hear more, so this teaser does its job very well indeed.

Renowned performers Iestyn Davies and Joseph Middleton perform Schubert’s tragic song-cycle Die schöne Müllerin (The Beautiful Maid of the Mill).

The decade in question on this 2018 compilation is the 1970s, ten years that found the Kinks extraordinarily busy – so busy that Dave Davies didn't often get a chance to place his songs on Kinks albums. Between 1971 and 1979, the period during which these 13 songs were recorded, the Kinks were powered by a conceptually minded Ray Davies, who cycled through rock operas at a maddening pace before finally finding the hard rock groove that brought the Kinks stadium success in the U.S.A. During this time, Dave had a grand total of two songs appear on Kinks albums: "You Don't Know My Name" on 1972's Everybody's in Show-Biz and "Trust Your Heart" on 1978's Misfits. Behind the scenes, he was writing as much as he was in the 1960s, a period chronicled on the 2011 compilation Hidden Treasures.

Davies' third album finds this artist moving in a much more "pop" direction, proving that she can both stretch her wings artistically and has far more to offer than merely recycled riffs and motifs filtered through a women's perspective. Her social consciousness raising quickly comes up for air on the opening track, "Howlin' At The Moon," one of only three Davies originals aboard this outing. But her interpretations of gospel pop ballad material like Lenny McDaniel's beautiful "Tired Angels," and duets with Coco Montoya on Albert Collins' title track and Tab Benoit on "Let The Heartaches Begin" are every bit as strong, her vocal skills showing more maturity and assuredness with each album. Her solo work is spot on, always paying homage to a wide variety of stylistic lessons well learned and solidly in the blues pocket with no added rock affectations to bog it down. But tracks like "Homework" (not the Otis Rush classic) make it clear that this is Debbie Davies being mainstreamed into Bonnie Raitt territory and she doesn't sound uncomfortable there at all, making this a most ambitious effort.

Chosen People is Dave Davies' third solo album, and by this release he seemed to have gotten it right. Gone is the big stadium rock sound and present is Davies' wonderful voice and melodic songs. Although this is not the album fans of "Death of a Clown" were hoping for, it is a much stronger album than 1981's Glamour and 1980's AFL1-3603. Davies still rocks out, but there are more ballads present. Also, the lyrics seem to have much more thought in them and present interesting stories and thoughts. Perhaps it is due to the use of a band and a co-producer on this album (the other two releases were primarily just Davies, although drummer Robert Henrit did drum on Glamour).

Orchestral and choral arrangements of rock songs have been a curious subgenre ever since the mid-'60s when Andrew Loog Oldham arranged The Rolling Stones Songbook for syrupy strings, but The Kinks Choral Collection stands apart from the pack for the simple reason that it's not the project of some associate or admirer, but rather chief Kink Ray Davies. His very presence as arranger and lead vocal means The Kinks Choral Collection isn't nearly as stuffy and middlebrow as so many of these orchestral rock albums; he manages to inject some semblance of rock & roll by pushing the songs forward with guitar, and letting the rhythms swing instead of plod.

Countertenor Iestyn Davies and the viol consort Fretwork present a new recording of works for viol consort and voice, drawn from 17th Century Germany, following their critically praised 2019 album of works by Michael Nyman and Henry Purcell.