The Kinks: The Official Biography

by Jon Savage

Traces the history of the rock group, the Kinks, discusses the development of the band's music, and describes the lives of the members of the group

Genres: Music

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Jon Savage (born Jonathan Malcolm Sage) is an English writer, broadcaster and music journalist, best known for his definitive history of the Sex Pistols and punk music, England's Dreaming (1991).

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty thorough, considering it’s less than 180 pages. Also for an authorized bio, surprisingly honest in its assessments of Kinks songs/albums. Little biased toward Ray at the expense of Dave, but overall a solid look at one of the great bands of the rock n roll era.

[Ron Fowler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This came out the same year as John Mendelssohn's book "The Kinks Kronikles", but make no mistake, this is the more impressive tome. First of all, Savage had the cooperation of all band members, past and present. It's also a glossy soft cover book with dozens of rare photos of the band. Although much of the focus is on bandleader, main songwriter and lead singer Ray Davies, Savage is careful to present the views of younger brother, lead guitarist Dave Davies throughout. The author takes you inside the frantic mid 60's tours, and what it was like coming to America in the midst of Beatlemania. The band threatens to crumble under the pressures numerous times. Their late 60's ban from the U.S. only seems to engage the guys creatively - this is the period where they created the albums now revered as classics. After that, it's the long, hard climb back to the top in America, where they eventually have a string of top selling albums, and regularly fill arenas on tour. Typically, success only seems to feed the bickering between Ray and Dave, who both attempt to stretch themselves creatively with projects outside the band. Even though the book ends in 1984, it's still the best bio of the band - not much happened in those later years, despite a string of excellent albums. I like Savage's writing style, because he doesn't let his personal views get in the way of telling the story. He may prefer their late 60's albums to anything that came later, but he presents a "fair and balanced" view of their entire career.

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative, sometimes illuminating. The band hasn't done much since 1984 so this is less dated than you'd think. For an official biography, the author seems to have had a lot of leeway: He (correctly, in my view) writes off most of the band's '70s work as subpar and misguided. But, oh, their classics...!