Kinks' Frontman Delivers Album On Double LP! Featuring The Jayhawks!
For more than 50 years, Sir Raymond Douglas Davies, CBE, has been fascinated with American music and American culture. In the early 1960s, he and his brother Dave formed The Kinks to play Little Richard songs and original tunes steeped in rock 'n' roll. All these years later, Ray Davies is still making music and still fascinated with our culture.
Following Americana the album, Ray delivers "Our Country: Americana Act II" which contains the lead single "Our Country".
""Our Country follows my journey across America; through endless tours not just to reclaim the Kinks' career, but to rediscover the country that offered me my earliest inspirations," Davies said in a statment of the album, a sequel of sorts to the album based on his 2013 memoir Americana.
"Our Country: Americana Act II is preceded by its first single and opening track "Our Country" a rootsy rocker about Davies' conflicted relationship with America. "This is my country / And I can't believe / That one day I'd want t o leave these shores forever," Davies sings on the chorus.
""The book [Americana] has got some song references in it and the songs are part of the narrative, so the trick was to get the record to stand up as a record as well as being part of a series," Davies said in a video that accompanied the album announcement. "I think people that like the first album understand where it's going. [Our Country] is what happens when you get there."
"In addition to new songs Davies penned for the project, Our Country: Americana Act II also finds Davies revisiting tracks from his discography, from a new rendition of the Kinks' Muswell Hillbillies cut "Oklahoma U.S.A." to "The Real World" from Davies' 2007 solo LP Working Man's Cafe.
"Like its predecessor, the album was recorded at London's Konk Studios alongside guitarist Bill Shanley and the alt-country band the Jayhawks." - rollingstone.com, May 2, 2018
Features: • Double LP • Second album in the Americana series • Featuring The Jayhawks as backing band • Gatefold jacket • Limited time digital download
Selections: Side A: 1. Our Country 2. The Invaders (Spoken Word) 3. Back In The Day 4. Oklahoma U.S.A. 5. Bringing Up Baby Side B: 1. The Getaway 2. The Take 3. We Will Get There 4. The Real World 5. A Street Called Hope Side C: 1. The Empty Room 2. Calling Home 3. Louisiana Sky 4. March Of The Zombies 5. The Big Weird Side D: 1. Tony And Bob 2. The Big Guy 3. Epilogue 4. Muswell Kills