Waterloo Sunset is, simply, the most beautiful song ever written about London and a standout entry in a ten-year period of intense creativity in which Davies became England's pop laureate, with wry and often strongly satirical tunes about English life, like Sunny Afternoon, Autumn Almanac, Dead End Street, Dedicated Follower Of Fashion and David Watts, and the oft-overlooked album, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. But within these masterful snapshots of Cool Britannia before the term had ever been coined lie clues as to why Sir Kink has turned his attention to the Land of Opportunity with Americana, his fifth solo album and the first for ten years.
Though, like most of those who made their bones in the '60s pop boom, Davies launched his career under the influence of American rock and roll, Americana - in which he is backed by rootsy Minnesotans, The Jayhawks - takes him on a somewhat sentimental journey through the cultural memes of the You Ess of A. This might sound like tired cliché, and you might be fearing wide-eyed tales of truck stops and roadside diners, but there is a genuinely journalistic, travelogue nature about the 15 tracks on this album, all entirely in keeping with Davies at his storytelling best back in the day.
The narrative is part-observational, part-reflection: Americana, the title track and opener, looks back upon childhood, and Saturday morning Wild West picture shows in North London when "My baby brother and me in the land of the free" would dream of being home on the range but "On that silver screen, 'cos since I was a teen you know I had this dream". This is in the same vein of nostalgia as Ballroom Dancing, his ironic take on Saturday nights out in Muswell Hill, but with a wistful pace slowed delightfully by the countrified backing.
Davies has had an odd relationship with America. At the height of the British invasion The Kinks were denied permits to tour the US by the American Federation of Musicians (the ban has never been properly explained, though a reputation for on- and off-stage antics has been hinted at, even though The Kinks were no worse than anyone else and certainly better than what followed in the '70s...). And then, of course, there was the more recent episode, in January 2004, when Davies was shot in the leg while chasing thieves in New Orleans who'd snatched the his then-girlfriend's handbag. An incident like that might colour one's opinion of a country. But, then, America - even America today - has been an aspiration for so many.
And so, on tracks like The Deal, and its Randy Newman-like view of Los Angeles, or Message From The Road and The Great Highway, Davies performs sketches of America, past and present, from the urban canyons to the open desert roads, touching occasionally on the American dream - more from the pursuit of it, rather than its attraction. Again, these themes have all been covered in some depth before, but with Davies you get a lyric that, though invariably quite simple, is incredibly evocative. And whereas many a non-American musician has tackled these themes in both homage and in parody, Davies does so purely from the viewpoint of wry observation, as if adding semi-sung narration to musical documentaries.
I'd be lying if I said this was Davies' best work, but there is much to endear on Americana, simply because it is Ray Davies (and also for coming with cover art photography that makes buying the two-disc vinyl version worth every penny). That might be a perilous statement to make - no one has a right to greatness just because they have been in their past - but the work here is genuine and fascinating at the same time. And that's good enough for me.
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