The Kinks
Salvation Road
Who does not know them? The two valiant twins Ray and Dave Davis, whose harmonies and disharmonies represented the musical base of the rock band “The Kinks” over decades. Today, they are refined persons because of their disease (Dave) and lack of success (Ray).
For a long time, The Kinks were considered to have just as much creativity and talent as those monster groups, The Beatles and Rolling Stones. They had a huge pool of potent rock songs and were also regarded as forerunners of what later became punk music.
The band also published the first rock opera. But this masterpiece was ignored back then, so that a few years later the project “Tommy” by another group (“The Who”) earned the merit of an increasing interest in a concept album.
In 1968, Ray as the creative head of the group, composed the opera mentioned above, a really phenomenal, great work. The story was titled “Arthur or the Decline And Fall Of The British Empire”. But as I said, the whole thing failed, although there was a number of fine songs on the LP. Ten years later, the members of the band made two further attempts: “Preservation Act 1” and “….2”.
The latter one, “Act 2”, is about the fight between Mr. Black and Mr. Flash, who want to rule the world. The listener gets to know a very special song towards the end of the 23 (!) tracks. “Salvation Road” impresses with a classic, catchy melody, fine chords and remains in your memory, maybe also because of the vocal performances of the two Davis brothers.
In my opinion, it is one of the truly incisive songs of the group. Obviously, it had never been released as a single. What a pity!
