Rock and roll gave the working class a soapbox upon which to spiel. Fifty years later, it has largely become corporatized, commoditized, embalmed, and enabled by everything it once chafed against and spat at. Still, it will always have its up-and-comers, iconoclasts and heroes. The Kinks began in the era of rock's greatest malleability, but because of a ridiculous four-year ban from the U.S., when the band stood to make its greatest inroads in building an audience, its efforts were thwarted, and any chances of rising to a level of commercial success commensurate with peers such as The Who, dashed. By the time The Kinks caught a second breath in America, the band's sound had changed somewhat, toughening up, but songwriter Ray Davies' vision remained both jaundiced and nostalgic - a very difficult balancing act. Two decades into its second wind, The Kinks effectively went into hibernation, during which time brothers Ray and Dave penned their own individual autobiographies, and embarked upon occasional musical forays, but nothing quite as cohesive as fans had hoped for.
Ten years hence, Davies finally released his first official solo album, quickly following it up with Working Man's Cafe, an album not only deeply influenced by America, but recorded here as well, in Nashville. Like fellow Brit ex-pat Ian Hunter's recent Shrunken Heads, Working Man's Cafe is a scathing, incendiary, and kick-ass album, knee-deep in topical as well as personal issues, bolstered by Davies' biting wit and candor, and a slew of beautiful melodies. Whereas Hunter attacks post-Hurricane Katrina politics with uninhibited vitriol, Davies' ordeal of being shot while chasing down the mugger of a stranger in the Crescent City delivers a gentler, though no less bittersweet spin on outsider status in “Morphine Song,” recounting overheard banal bedside conversations while recuperating in intensive care at LSU's Charity Hospital. New Orleans factors into the fabric of at least two other songs, as well - the playful “Voodoo Walk,” and the album's poignant finale, “Real World,” where everything boils down to the tenuous and often tempestuous relationships between people. Longtime Kinks fans will recognize the same deft juggling of pathos and condemnation here; also in “Vietnam Cowboys,” a slinky back slap against globalization; “No One Listen,” which indicts computer-age alienation and emotional impotence; and the title track, lamenting the viral spread of anonymous chain store culture at the expense of individuality and human intimacy.
--Larry O. Dean
