Solo Ray Davies gets the kinks out
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Davies

Forty-one years ago he wrote the five-note riff to You Really Got Me, launching the glorious career of The Kinks and, some say, contemporary hard rock and even heavy metal. Now Ray Davies is finally getting around to making a solo album.

Other People's Lives, out Feb. 7 on the V2 label, follows nearly 30 Kinks albums, not to mention a 1985 Davies soundtrack to the film Return to Waterloo and a live solo Storytellers package of Kinks classics. Some of the new album's 13 original songs reflect a stay in the USA, principally in New Orleans, where he was recovering from a gunshot he received last year when he chased two muggers who had stolen his girlfriend's purse.

Preceding the album, Davies will release an EP Nov. 22 called Thanksgiving Day, and will perform the title track (also on the album) on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on ­ clever tie-in ahead ­ Thanksgiving (Nov. 24).

- Ken Barnes