“Such an impact”: the country singer Dave Davies called the first real rock star
In the wake of their pioneering abrasive mod rock rebellion, The Kinks launched an entirely new generation of rock stars, spanning the spectrum from The Who and their own short, sharp, youthful rock to the seething sonic assault of punk rock a few years later.
According to Dave Davies, though, the band’s output was rooted in the unlikely sound of a country hero.
The Kinks, like virtually every half-decent rock band which emerged from London during the 1960s, were endlessly indebted to the sounds emerging from the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean. Predominantly, though, it was the blues that inspired the Davies brothers, along with the soul and R&B that soundtracked their early days within the mod subculture.
That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, of course, given the fact that the blues and R&B have always been the root of rock and roll. Country, on the other hand, is an entirely different kettle of fish.
Although some early rockers did harbour an appreciation for country music, being a major influence on the emergence of rockabilly. On the whole, though, the plodding acoustic sounds of the timeless genre don’t immediately draw parallels with the rebellious realm of rock and roll, never mind the adrenaline rush of a song like ‘You Really Got Me’, which first launched The Kinks into the heart of the British rock mainstream.
Nevertheless, Dave Davies has repeatedly heaped praise on one particular country pioneer. “You have to remember the American influence on British bands and especially The Kinks is vast,” he told Goldmine back in 2019. While you might expect the guitarist to begin rattling off names like Muddy Waters, Little Richard, or Chuck Berry, he instead went down a different path: “We’re talking about Hank Williams, who I thought was the first real rock ‘n’ roller.”
“He had such an impact on us, but there also were English musicians that were very influential to us,” Davies continued, without expanding on exactly what impact Hank Williams had on The Kinks’ extensive output. Then again, as one of the most influential performers of the 20th century, it is hard to dispute that Williams impacted the band, even if his country influence was often buried under a wave of distortion and power chords.
First emerging during the 1930s, well over a decade before Davies was even born, Williams’ songwriting stylings provided an essential influence to multiple generations of country songwriters.
Although comparatively, Williams isn’t often cited as being a major influence on rock and roll, he did help to carve out the sounds of rockabilly, and it doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to connect his unique songwriting style to the more mellow, storytelling tracks The Kinks adopted towards the end of the swinging sixties.
Either way, Hank Williams’ influence over The Kinks appears to be one more thing that the musical realm has to thank the Alabama-born songwriter for, even if the band were more often noted for their characteristically British songwriting on records like Arthur and The Village Green Preservation Society.
