Ray Davies: A Complicated Life

Johnny Rogan

Mar 2015 · Random House

About this ebook

NOW UPDATED WITH A NEW EPILOGUE

In the summer of 1964, aged twenty, Ray Davies led the Kinks to fame with their number one hit ‘You Really Got Me’. Within months, they were established among the pop elite, swamped by fans and fast becoming renowned for the rioting at their gigs.

But Ray’s journey from working-class Muswell Hill to the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame was tumultuous in the extreme, featuring breakdowns, bitter lawsuits, spectacular punch-ups and a ban from entering the USA. His relationship with his brother Dave is surely the most ferocious and abusive in music history. Based on countless interviews conducted over several decades, this richly detailed and revelatory biography presents the most frank and intimate portrait yet of Ray Davies.

Ratings and reviews

Life and times with the KINKS

About the author

Johnny Rogan is the author of over twenty books, including highly acclaimed biographies/musical studies of the Byrds, the Smiths, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, John Lennon and Morrissey. His groundbreaking Starmakers & Svengalis: The History Of British Pop Management was adapted for a six-week BBC series. Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance was one of the best-selling and most controversial rock biographies of its time, receiving various music biography of the year awards, and has been in print continuously for over twenty years. More recently, Van Morrison: No Surrender was chosen by the Sunday Timesas one of its Top 10 Music Books of the Year. He is currently completing an epic two-volume study, Byrds: Requiem For the Timeless.