50th anniversary of "Arthur" by the Kinks

[Brian]

The unboxing video for the Deluxe Box Set of "Arthur," the Kinks album released in 1969.

The super deluxe box sets are stacking up in my living room, five of them in just two years.  The 50th anniversary edition of "Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)" by the Kinks was released on Friday.  My pre-order is currently on its way from Des Moines, according to USPS Tracking.

The first record I bought was "Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane" when I got $5 for my 9th birthday and simultaneously learned that I could play those songs anytime -- I didn't have to wait to hear them on my AM transistor radio.  I still insist on owning the music I play, so these lavish packages are irresistible.  All of them have the original albums re-mastered from half century old tapes with the latest technology.  Then there's the bonus tracks -- alternate takes and songs omitted from the original releases, singles and B-sides, in stereo and mono.

"Arthur" has always been one of my favorite Kinks albums, just behind "Village Green," "Lola," "Face to Face" and "Sleepwalker."  I can't wait to hear a mix closer to what Ray Davies intended.  The most intriguing disc in the box is an attempt to collate "The Great Lost Dave Davies Solo Album" from tracks recorded in 1969 for that noble purpose.  Dave wouldn't get around to putting out a solo album until 1980.


This official montage of four songs starts with a new doo wop version of the title song.

[Brian]

For seven weeks, I've been enjoying the "Arthur" Deluxe Box Set.  And I have a lot to say about its four discs, especially "The Great Lost Dave Davies Solo Album."

But let's start with the re-mastered mix of "Mr. Churchill Says," one of three overtly anti-war songs on the original album.

[Brian]

"Death of a Clown," co-written by Ray Davies and recorded by the Kinks with Nicky Hopkins, was a huge hit single overseas under the name of Dave Davies in 1967.  Pye Records in England wanted to release a Dave solo album, but each subsequent single charted lower or nowhere at all.  Nonetheless, the Kinks recorded more tracks written solely by Dave around the sessions for the "Arthur" album in 1969, and Reprise Records in the U.S. went as far as pressing an acetate.  But Dave wasn't happy with the project.  He wouldn't release his first solo album until 1980 -- a much better LP than any by the Kinks in that period.  And Dave's been far more prolific than his older brother in the 21st century.

I waited many years to hear most of Dave's early material.  I could never find any of his foreign 45's when I was filling out my Kinks collection in the 1970's.  Reprise released three wonderful Dave tracks on "The Great Lost Kinks Album" after the band left the label in 1973.  It was quickly withdrawn from the market because of a lawsuit.  The vinyl floodgates started opening in 1980.  Then in 2011, Dave put everything out in his "Hidden Treasures" album, compiled by Kinks historian Andrew Sandoval.  Now we have "The Great Lost Dave Davies Album," one of four discs in the "Arthur" deluxe box set, which replicates the song order of the 1969 unreleased album and remasters everything with 2019 technology.


The 2019 remaster of "This Man He Weeps Tonight," not released in the U.S. until 1973.

"This Man He Weeps Tonight," one of my favorite songs by Dave, was the B-side of "Shangri-La" in 1969, yet I didn't hear it for another four years until "The Great Lost Kinks Album" came out.  Although it's played by the Kinks, the song feels unique because of the jangly Byrds guitar figure and Dave's raw pain.  "Despite what I was going through while making them, I think the tracks all hold up as songs," Dave said in the book accompanying the "Arthur" deluxe box set.  "I'm now very pleased that they were saved and kept."


The 2019 remaster of "Lincoln County," a single that flopped worldwide in 1968.

Dave wrote "Lincoln County," his third single, in the voice of Billy the Kid. When I finally found it in 1980, I felt as if I had struck gold.  As Ray said in the book, "'Lincoln County' has one of my all-time favourite lines in it:  'I got a boot lace tie, I got for my Pa, I got a head scarf, fair, I got for my momma that she won't wear.'  I wish I'd written that."