“Guitar hero”: The musician who inspired Dave Davies the most
In one of the most famous sibling musical pairings alongside the Wilsons and the Gallaghers, guitarist Dave Davies along with older brother Ray produced some of the most essential records across the 1960s and ’70s, initially inspired by R&B and Mersetbeat but swiftly capturing the English pop scene with their unique lense of anglo-eccentric soft psychedelia and baroque pop, plus crafting two of the finest pieces of proto-punk garage rock with 1964’s ‘You Really Got Me’ and ‘All Day and All of the Night’.
As is the case with the British invasion generation, the lightning bolt moment that inspired everybody from John Lennon to Keith Richards to pick up the guitar in their 1950s youth was the rock ‘n’ roll revolution that injected a dose of colour into post-war Britain’s grey austerity. The Kinks’ Davies was no exception, fascinated with the American artists topping the charts at the time.
In one of Amoeba Music store’s ‘What’s In My Bag?’ features, Davies peruses the Berkeley record shop and selects key releases for his figurative ‘bag’ that he has some affection or affinity for. While Jake Bugg gets a ‘pick’, the majority of his choices are all American artists from the 1950s. One artist in particular, singled out by Davies, is a key influence on him.
“It was Eddie that really brought to life the guitar hero thing in me,” explained Davies. “The technique was pretty ahead of the game, and I liked that kind of swagger had in the voice, which is different from Presley or Gene Vincent.”
Eddie Cochran’s influence is indelible. A deity in the rockabilly scene, his 1958 hits ‘C’Mon Everybody’ and ‘Summertime Blues’ eternal anthems of youth culture, Cochran was tragically frozen in eternal youth by a fatal car crash in Bath, Somerset, at the tender age of 21. Incorporating distortion pedals and techniques into his guitar playing would prove foundational on the future Davies brothers when writing their future fuzzed-out garage cuts.
Davies always counts Cochran among the litany of his 1950s influences, speaking to Stay Thirsty Media in 2010: “There are so many people. We were listening to all this stuff and we just tried to copy it. I really got into Eddie Cochran, and I liked the way he sang, and he looked cool, and he’s a very accomplished guitar player as well. So he kind of had the full set; the sound, EVERYTHING. It inspired me to want to learn the rest of what this music thing was all about. There are lots and lots of influences. I’ve really only mentioned a few.”
While crediting Cochran with evoking his inner “guitar hero”, Davies is candid about his love for Chuck Berry and his enormous impact in tandem with Cochran’s rock style, telling The Audiophile Man in 2016 “As soon as I heard Eddie Cochran, I thought, ‘I wanna do this!’. As for Chuck Berry? I regard him as the king of rock ’n’ roll and guitar.
He continued “Although Little Richard was really important, Chuck Berry had the look. In fact, I always thought that he looked like a French jazz player, he had European features. Really cool. Both him and Eddie had a certain look and both were great guitar players. They could sing, they were funny and the sound was phenomenal. I was totally focused on them.”
