See My Friends – Ray Davies (Universal)

It’s interesting to observe the different approaches currently being taken by various legendary artists to keep their legacy alive and breathing. Just today, in a JB-Hi store, I was confronted by the number of box sets, greatest hits compilations, re-packaged and re-mastered albums. There’s duets albums, tribute albums and albums matched with books, DVD’s, bonus downloads and t.shirts. It feels like just about every angle is being covered in the quest to wring every last drop of blood from great catalogues.

As an aside, I wonder how many of todays new artists will be given the opportunity to build such catalogues. I suspect very few. But that’s another debate.

Of all the re-workings of great catalogues this contribution by Ray Davies surely feels like one of the most joyous. He’s taken the “duets” route – re-recording some great songs from his extensive repertoire with fans and admirers who have been impacted by his work.

This isn’t the place to extol the virtues of the Ray Davies songbook – if you are not already aware of the depth and importance of his songs then you probably wouldn’t have been moved to read this far anyway! Suffice to say he has a multitude of truly great songs at his disposal and they have been well selected here.

The album opens with Better Things, a song that could easily have been written for or buy Bruce Springsteen. The two voices are contrasting, Springsteen’s gruff, robust vocal combining well with Davies thinner, reedier and needier approach. The song works, but its only an entrée to what is to come.

There are some absolute gems sprinkled across the album. Jackson Browne contributes to an incredibly gentle rendition of Waterloo Sunset. It loses the urban, London jauntiness of the original and becomes a delicate, very soulful acoustic ballad.  The late Alex Chilton combines with Davies and LA band The 88 to re-produce Til The End of The Day, a song that Big Star had already covered and the approach reflects that style. Davies lets Chilton dominate the vocal.

Who would have thought  Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora would actually elevate Celluloid Heroes? They do a great job, giving the song some added muscle without detracting from its extraordinary pathos. The same could be said for Lola – its probably the bravest choice on the album because its just so iconic in its original form, but British soul singer Paloma Faith does it justice and then some. She sings the song superbly, but more importantly she brings another type of understanding and perspective to the lyric. It’s not a song you can just ‘sing’, you’ve got to inhabit it  and that’s exactly what she does. And Davies subtle vocal parts provide a brilliant balance to Paloma’s inspired efforts.

But even that is not my highlight. That comes from another unexpected source – Billy Corgan. Destroyer was a song that Davies himself plagiarized from his own catalogue, borrowing the riff from All Day And All Of The Night and adding a wonderfully kooky, paranoid lyric.  Here they actually merge the two songs with Corgan doing a memorable job with the partially spoken word lyric.  He sings almost in character – with a wink and sneer and another wink that reveals how accurately he understands both songs of this hybrid.

There’s not a bad track on the album – proving that great songs can be approached in different ways and still be great songs. Other honourable mentions go to Frank Black who reads This Is Where I Belong as a country oriented ballad and Gary Lightbody who provides a fragile vocal to Tired of Waiting.

The overall impact of this album is joyful celebration of a masterful songwriter and it’s a long way removed from being a cynical exercise in mining a catalogue.

Ray Davies New Album Sound Very Cool

Ray Davies is rightly revered as one of the great songwriters in rock n’ roll history as well as being one of its more interesting characters. Thus it comes as no surprise when it came to recording his new album a fascinating cast of guests have been happy to appear.

Various confirmed and unconfirmed stories seem to suggest that some of these suggestions are close to the truth.

In 2009 Davies recorded a version of Better Things with Bruce Springsteen, while Bon Jovi contributed to Celluloid Heroes. An American magazine has reported that Billy Corgan has been working on the new album, with the Smashing Pumpkins singer contributing to a new version of  Destroyer from the under-rated Give The People What They Want album. If you know the song you can just hear Corgan sneering his way through that one with Davies playing the paranoid role!

Big Star frontman the late Alex Chilton is said to have recorded his contribution prior to his death earlier this year while Lucinda Williams also due to appear.

That would be worth the price of admission alone.

But to add to that there’s a few more contemporary stars said to be lurking around the studio.

Mumford and Sons,  Paloma Faith and Amy MacDonald are all expected to appear although a rumour of The Killers being involved is false.

Work on the new album is continuing with recent visitors to the studio including members of Spoon and possibly even Frank Black.