ABSTRACT
On New Year’s Day 1964, Ray Davies met with Freddie Crookes, a counselor and department head at Croydon School of Art, to discuss whether or not he should return to school for the spring semester or pursue a career in music. The practical-minded Crookes advised Davies to finish the current semester, which ended in about two weeks, and then try music for six months. If music did not work out, Davies could always return to college in the fall. Following Crookes’s advice, Davies put the Kinks into full drive-overdrive, in fact. Within one week, the Kinks signed with Arthur Howes, who promoted several tours for the Beatles and who agreed to place the band on a package tour with the Dave Clark Five; within two weeks, the Kinks raced into the studio to record demos for the consideration of Pye Records;1 within three weeks, they signed with Pye and recorded with producer Shel Talmy;2 within four weeks they recruited Mick Avory, their drummer for the next twenty years, and, on February 7, they released “Long Tall Sally,” their first single, which they promoted on Ready Steady Go! Ideas, musical and business, were tossed around, including one which encouraged Ray to write songs. The push was on to make the Kinks a player on the explosive musical scene.
