Ray Davies – The Kinks Choral Collection
Universal
http://www.umusic.com/

Rating:  B+

Ray Davies is a rock ‘n roll legend.  With The Kinks he co-wrote and sang some of the most recognizable anthems in the history of music. Songs like “You Really Got Me”, “All Day And All Of The Night”, “Lola”, “Celluloid Heroes” and “Destroyer” cemented the bands place in history and went  a long way towards getting them inducted into the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. In addition to focusing on his solo career after The Kinks packed up shop in the mid 90’s, Davies has kept himself busy by writing a few books and making a couple of films along the way as well.

With the release of his brilliant new album The Kinks Choral Collection Ray has once again found a way to reinvent himself. What you get here are his splendid reinterpretations of no less than fourteen Kinks songs, embellished by the majestic sounding, symphonic Crouch End Festival Chorus Choir. Songs like “Waterloo Sunset”, “Victoria” and “Celluloid Heroes” are executed so beautifully they sound as if they were originally written for choral accompaniment.  When you couple that with no less than six tracks from the 1968 concept album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, plus a surprising re-tooling of two of the all-time biggest Kinks hits “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night”, you have all the more reason to add this one to your CD rack.  

 The Kinks Choral Collection is proof that even ‘classic’ songs can be re-cast in such a way that they needn’t offend or tarnish the memory of the original versions. While there may some debate amongst both fans and critics alike as to why Davies even attempted this project in the first place, I think most fans will appreciate and ultimately enjoy these ‘new’ renditions of timeless songs coming from one of rock’s most prolific songwriters.

   -Ryan Sparks