Ahead of Vox Holloway’s performance celebrating the music of The Kinks at Alexandra Palace Theatre on Saturday 27 July 2024, Director Harvey Brough explains how it came about.
“In 2017 I had a phone call out of the blue from Sir Ray Davies’ office asking if I would do a couple of choral arrangements for two songs. I immediately said, “Yes!”
Ray was very generous to me about those arrangements, so I was emboldened to ask him if I could do an arrangement of a complete album – The Village Green Preservation Society, for its 50th anniversary. We then had several meetings, in a secluded side room within a reasonably downmarket café just around the corner from him, where he could sit and talk without being bothered. As people left the café, they might catch a glimpse of him as they got to the door – most were too cool to make deal of it, or were used to seeing him without making a fuss.
We would sit and talk about anything – not really the Village Green Preservation Society project, but about music in general, sometimes politics – often about my lifetime of musical experiences and the things we had in common musically. I had to pinch myself quite often when I looked up and saw that face, that quizzical smile, those eyes. It’s Ray Davies, talking to me as if I was an equal, almost as a friend!
I think it was a kind of test – he wanted to see if I was genuine and whether I would do a good job if he gave me permission to go ahead.
After a few of these sessions, he said ‘come to Konk next week and we can talk through the album’. Which led to one of the strangest, kind of scariest experiences of my life – sitting at a grand piano in the legendary Konk Studios, playing and singing the whole of the seminal Kinks Village Green album to Ray and explaining what I might do with the songs. Sometimes he would join in with a backing vocal (which was quite surreal) and often he’d fill me in on details from the songs – like mentioning specific places in Muswell Hill, where he had grown up – and where we’ll bring the music back to this July.
A couple of years later, Ray asked me to arrange some of the songs from Arthur in ‘a cappella’ style. I put together a group, which he referred to as a Doo Wop choir – Arthur and the Emigrants. When I heard the final mix, it sounded something like my old group Harvey and the Wallbangers, but with Ray Davies on lead vocal. Amazing! I also worked with him on the Radio 4 play based on Arthur and found out how deeply that album draws on Ray and Dave Davies’ family’s experience when their brother-in-law moved to Australia as a ten pound pom.
Ray has always been incredibly generous to me, and supportive to Vox Holloway. He gave me a free hand to arrange the songs and trusted me to follow my instinct. The only musical advice he gave me was ‘don’t ruin it with lots of drums’.
I hope I’ve passed the test. I’ve certainly done my utmost to honour an amazing man and a legendary musician and songwriter.
Sir Ray as you turn 80, we salute you!”
Vox Holloway Salutes The Kinks – Village Green Preservation Society, Alexandra Palace Theatre, Saturday 27 July 2024
Vox Holloway 