July 7, 1965 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.... Watch the full show: http://thesixtiesarchive.blogspot.com/2010/12/kinks-live-in-paris-1965.html
The song was recorded by the Kinks in a number of styles in the summer of
1964 before the final sound was achieved. The group was under tremendous
pressure for a hit from their record company Pye, after their two previous
single releases failed to chart. Ray Davies in particular was stubbornly
persistent in forcing the Kinks' management and record company to take the
time and money needed to develop the record's landmark sound and style.
Davies' efforts on behalf of the career-making song effectively
established him as the leader and chief songwriter of the Kinks.
The influential distortion sound of the guitar track was created after
guitarist Dave Davies sliced the speaker cone of his guitar amplifier with
a razor blade and poked it with a pin. The amplifier was affectionately
called "little green," after the name of the amplifier made by the Elpico
company, and purchased in Davies' neighbourhood music shop, slaved into a
Vox AC-30.
The guitar solo on the recording is the source of one of the most
controversial and persistent myths in all of rock and roll: that it was
not played by the Kinks' lead guitarist Dave Davies, but by then-session
player Jimmy Page. The solo is said to be actually played by Dave Davies
(then seventeen years old), as most of the people involved in the July
1964 recording sessions for the track have always maintained. However, the
story has circulated for decades that the solo was played by Jimmy Page,
who later joined The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin. Page was in fact hired by
Kinks producer Shel Talmy as a session rhythm guitarist on a handful of
tracks on the Kinks' first album, but those sessions took place several
weeks after the "You Really Got Me" session. Page has always denied
playing the song's guitar solo, going so far as to state in a 1977
interview that "I didn't play on 'You Really Got Me' and that's what
pisses him (Ray Davies) off." Rock historian and author Doug Hinman makes
a case that the rumour was begun and fostered by the established UK Rhythm
and Blues community, many of whose members were resentful that an upstart
band of teenagers such as the Kinks could produce such a powerful and
influential blues-based recording, seemingly out of nowhere.
Several session musicians did play on "You Really Got Me": The piano work
was by either keyboardist Jon Lord of Deep Purple or Arthur Greenslade In
the same interview, Davies says that there was a session guitarist named
Vic doubling his rhythm part, but that it wasn't Page. At the behest of
producer Talmy, session drummer Bobby Graham played drums on the
recording, rather than regular Kinks drummer Mick Avory. Graham went on to
play the main drum part on many of the Kinks' early recordings.
Interestingly, both Jon Lord and Talmy claim Jimmy Page did play on "You
Really Got Me". Talmy credits him for the rhythm guitar and Lord for the
solo.
According to Ray Davies, the song's characteristic riff came about while
working out the chords of The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie." The Kinks' use of
distorted guitar riffs continued with songs like "All Day and All of the
Night," "Tired of Waiting for You," and "Set Me Free," among others. Pete
Townshend of The Who has stated that their first single, "I Can't
Explain," was an intentional soundalike of The Kinks' work at the time
(The Who were also produced by Talmy at that time).
The Kinks would go on to perform successfully together as a band for over
30 years, through many musical styles, and they would always play "You
Really Got Me" in concert. Both Ray and Dave Davies still perform the song
in solo shows, generally as a closing number.
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