Ray Davies - Acoustic, KFWD-FM 102 Studios, Fort Worth, TX, 4-1977

Since I'm a huge Kinks fan, I figured it's appropriate to resume with something Kinks-related. This is a very short album, only 20 minutes long, but I think it's quite good.

The core of this album is a solo acoustic appearance Kinks leader Ray Davies at a radio station in Texas (KFWD-FM 102 in Fort Worth). This is unusual and interesting because Davies' solo career didn't begin as an occasional part time thing around 1985 and then more seriously after the Kinks broke up in 1996. As far as I know, this was the first solo performance by Davies, even if it was only a short one in a radio studio.

Furthermore, it was highly unusual for Davies to perform acoustically during this time period. But for whatever reason, it seems he was the only one in the group ready to make an appearance at the radio station to promote the Kinks' new album (Sleepwalker).
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I think the highlight is the acoustic version of the Sleepwalker song "Life on the Road." After that, Davies largely played songs from the 1971 album Muswell Hillbilles, maybe because that album had a country music focus that was fitting for Texas. Unfortunately, most of the songs were done in incomplete versions of about one minute each. But these short versions are still fascinating since they are practically the only acoustic versions done by Davies in the 1970s.

There are a few extra songs at the end that fit, as they were acoustic versions done in 1977 or 1978. One song, "A Rock and Roll Fantasy," was done by the Kinks in a hotel room, though really it's mostly just Ray Davies and his brother Dave Davies singing and playing together.

Then there are two songs ("Lola" and "Waterloo Sunset") done by Ray Davies on acoustic guitar and Gordon John Edwards on piano. I don't know where or when the performance is from exactly, but it must be from some point in 1978, because Edwards was only a member of the Kinks for part of that year.

I've added one bonus track. It's another version of "Lola," done at the same time as the hotel room version of "A Rock and Roll Fantasy." (You can find video footage of both performances on YouTube.) I only added it as a bonus track because I don't like to have two versions of the same song on an album, and I think the other version here (with Ray Davies and Gordon John Edwards) is much better since it's a full run through of the song whereas this version is more of a snippet.

01 Life on the Road (Ray Davies)
02 A Well Respected Man (Ray Davies)
03 Here Come the People in Grey (Ray Davies)
04 20th Century Man (Ray Davies)
05 Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues (Ray Davies)
06 Oklahoma U.S.A. (Ray Davies)
07 A Rock and Roll Fantasy (Kinks)
08 Lola (Ray Davies & Gordon John Edwards)
09 Waterloo Sunset (Ray Davies & Gordon John Edwards)

Lola (Kinks)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256410/TKnks_1977c_FortWrthTX__4-1977_atse.zip.html

For the cover photo, I grabbed a screenshot from a YouTube video of the performance of "Lola" by Davies and Edwards.