Recording
The sessions for Village Green were born out of a rough period for the group. In early 1968, a combination of legal and family issues slowed Ray Davies' songwriting output, and the song "Wonderboy", released in April, was a chart failure, becoming the first Kinks single to not enter the NME Top 30. Davies, determined to restore the Kinks' dwindling success, pulled the group together to begin sessions for Village Green in May. The first songs recorded included "Misty Water" (an outtake), "Picture Book", and "Days", intended for the group's next single release. After laying down rough versions of the tracks, the group departed for a short tour of the Netherlands on 18 and 19 May. After returning, the group headed straight for the studio to continue work on "Days". On 27 May a new song was recorded, "Pictures In The Sand", and "Days" was revised. The final version of the song was released on 24 July, backed with an outtake from 1966, "She's Got Everything", used due to a lack of new recorded material. The single proved successful, and quickly climbed to number 14 on NME. Shortly after its release, Dave Davies revealed the title and subject matter of the upcoming LP, stating that it will be called Village Green, and will revolve around a town and its people. He added that it was "the best thing we've ever done."
In early August, the band focused on completing the LP, tentatively titled "Village Green". The last track was completed on 12 August, "Village Green Preservation Society", and tapes were delivered to Pye. A release date was scheduled for 27 September. Ray Davies, however, was frustrated with how the record had turned out, and asked the label to postpone the album's release to rework and add new material to it. This decision came so late that Pye had already shipped tapes to some for its foreign subsidiaries, and the twelve-track incarnation of the record was released in France, Italy, Sweden, Norway, and New Zealand—these copies have since become extremely rare and collectible. Ray Davies began negotiating with Pye to expand Village Green into a double album, but Pye refused. A compromise was eventually reached—Davies was allowed to resequence a fifteen-track edition of the album within a single disc. Davies agreed to this, and the band returned to the studio to lay down two more tracks: "Big Sky" and "Last of The Steam Powered Trains". Andy Miller commented on these changes in his book about the album:
"Davies was a perfectionist, and by this stage his perfectionism was verging on the neurotic, indulged by a management and record company who hoped The Kinks' main man would soon recapture his hit making form. In a sense, he was also reluctant to finish the project, describing it as "a pet dream". The album was already highly personal; now it represented ... a decisive break in 'the hit machine'."
By October, mixing was complete for the expanded 15-track album, renamed The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. After several other re-arrangements, Davies was finally pleased with the outcome, and delivered the master tapes to Pye. The album was released on 22 November (the same day The Beatles released their White Album).
Read more about this topic: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“He shall not die, by G—, cried my uncle Toby.
MThe ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Write while the heat is in you.... The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)