Shopkeepers are staging a tribute to local rock legends The Kinks with a “Hillbilly” festival in Fortis Green.
Tribute bands are performing to mark the 50th anniversary of the milestone album Muswell Hillbillies, with food and drink offered by the Muswell Hill Brewers, Jeroboams, The Village Green BBQ, and Amici Miei 2 Go Pizza.
The anniversary was last year, but traders' association Muswell Business and the Friends of St James Square postponed the festival because of the pandemic. The band themselves are releasing a deluxe anniversary boxset, including remastered songs, photos and a north London "roots map".
“It was worth the wait,” said Bonafide studio owner Deanna Bogdanovic. “We couldn’t celebrate in 2021 because of Lockdown, but came up with the idea of an ‘all things Kinks’ festival to our local rock heroes.”
Brothers Ray and Dave Davies formed the Kinks, which became one of the biggest rock groups of the 1960s, but have kept their north London connections. Konk Studios, founded by the Kinks in the 1970s, remains a successful independent recording studio in Crouch End, and Ray lives in Highgate.
“I see Ray about a lot, usually at Marks & Spencer’s,” Deanna said.
She promised a "full schedule of high quality entertainment with the road closed to allow more room for dancing in the street".
Netherlands tribute band Kick Some Kinks will perform alongside Kinked Alive and Kinksfan Kollectiv.
Petra Speijer said: "Kick some Kinks are very honoured to play for our heroes. Our acoustic guitar player Dick van Veelen is the author of the only two Dutch books about the Kinks. We are all huge fans and hoping this festival and especially The Kinks get the honour they still deserve. These fantastic men are a big part of music History."
The brothers were born in East Finchley before the family moved to Denmark Terrace in Fortis Green. They attended William Grimshaw Secondary in Muswell Hill, forming a band with Ray’s classmate Pete Quaife and his friend John Start.
Ray went on to study at Hornsey College of Art, but kept the band going with gigs at local pubs like the Clissold Arms and the Archway Tavern – which features on the Muswell Hillbillies album cover. They also played Hornsey Town Hall on Valentine’s Day 1963.
A contract with Pye records in 1964, saw them top the charts with You Really Got Me. Other hits followed including Sunny Afternoon, Days, Dead End Street, and Lola.
Recorded with RCA, 1971's Muswell Hillbillies was a move away from chart hits to look back on the brothers' north London roots, telling tales of working class families migrating from the war torn inner city to the leafy suburbs, and including a tribute to local prison 'Holloway Jail'.
Ray has said: "It was an attempt to make north London country music."
“Now with a new record company and a new image, I could bring some of the old wild western spirit into my music."
The album was a critical if not commercial success but Dave Davies said: “Muswell Hillbillies is one-of my favourite Kinks albums. It’s a bit of a backstory to the Davies family and the characters involved.”
The Muswell Hillbilly festival is Saturday, September 10, Noon-8pm, with Fortis Green Road closed to traffic. A deluxe box set of Muswell Hillbillies and Everybody's In Showbiz, Everybody's A Star including photos, remixes, remastered original songs and a Kinks north London 'roots map' of key locations, is released on September 9. Visit thekinks.info/latest/muswell-showbiz/
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