Editing Ray Davies (section)

===The Kinks' early years===
[[File:The Kinks Majalah Aktuil edisi 48 tahun 1970.jpg|left|thumb|391x391px|Kinks individual photos in 1970]]
Davies was an art student at [[Hornsey College of Art]] in London in 1962–63. In late 1962 he became increasingly interested in music. At a Hornsey College Christmas dance, he sought advice from [[Alexis Korner]] who was playing at the dance with [[Blues Incorporated]], and Korner introduced him to [[Giorgio Gomelsky]], a promoter and future manager of [[the Yardbirds]]. Gomelsky arranged for Davies to play at his Piccadilly Club with the Dave Hunt Rhythm & Blues Band, and on New Year's Eve, the Ray Davies Quartet opened for [[Cyril Stapleton]] at the Lyceum Ballroom. A few days later he became the permanent guitarist for the Dave Hunt Band, an engagement that would only last about six weeks.<ref name=Kitts/> The band were the house band at Gomelsky's new venture, the [[Crawdaddy Club]] in [[Richmond-upon-Thames]]. When the Dave Hunt band were snowed in during the [[Winter of 1962–63 in the United Kingdom|coldest winter since 1740]], Gomelsky offered a gig to a new band called [[the Rolling Stones]], who had previously supported Hunt at the Piccadilly and would take over the residency. Davies then joined the Hamilton King Band until June 1963. The Kinks (then known as the Ramrods) spent the summer supporting [[Rick Wayne]] on a tour of US airbases.<ref name=Kitts>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/raydaviesnotlike0000kitt|url-access=registration|pages=[https://archive.org/details/raydaviesnotlike0000kitt/page/29 29]–30|title=Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else|first=Thomas M.|last=Kitts|publisher=Routledge|date=2008|isbn=9781135867959}}</ref>

After the Kinks obtained a recording contract in early 1964, Davies emerged as the chief songwriter and ''de facto'' leader of the band, especially after the band's breakthrough success with his early composition "[[You Really Got Me]]", which was released as the band's third single in August of that year. Davies led the Kinks through a period of musical experimentation between 1966 and 1975, with notable artistic achievements and commercial success.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thekinks.info/about-the-kinks/the-band/|title=The Band|website=The Kinks Official Website|language=en-US|access-date=9 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170613155258/http://www.thekinks.info/about-the-kinks/the-band/|archive-date=13 June 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[File:The Kinks You Really Got Me.ogg|thumb|305x305px|"[[You Really Got Me]]" audio file]]

The Kinks' early recordings of 1964 ranged from covers of [[Rhythm and blues|R&B]] standards like "[[Long Tall Sally]]" and "[[Slim Harpo|Got Love If You Want It]]" to the chiming, melodic [[beat music]] of Ray Davies's earliest original compositions for the band, "[[You Still Want Me]]" and "[[Kinda Kinks|Something Better Beginning]]", to the more influential [[proto-metal]], [[protopunk]], [[power chord]]-based [[hard rock]] of the band's first two hit singles, "[[You Really Got Me]]" and "[[All Day and All of the Night]]".

However, by 1965, this raucous, hard-driving early style had gradually given way to the softer and more introspective sound of "[[Tired of Waiting for You]]", "[[Kinda Kinks|Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl]]", "[[Set Me Free (The Kinks song)|Set Me Free]]", "[[I Go to Sleep]]" and "[[The Kink Kontroversy|Ring the Bells]]". With the eerie, droning "[[See My Friends]]"—inspired by the untimely death of the Davies brothers' older sister Rene in June 1957—the band began to show signs of expanding their musical palette even further. A rare foray into early [[psychedelic rock]], "See My Friends" is credited by Jonathan Bellman as the first Western pop song to integrate Indian [[raga]] sounds—released six months before [[the Beatles]]' "[[Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)]]".<ref>Jonathan Bellman. ''The Exotic in Western Music''. Lebanon, New Hampshire. 1998.</ref>