My British Invasion

by Harold Bronson

  In November 1984 I was in London and Larry welcomed me at his Ruston Mews home/office. Larry wasn’t flamboyant or eccentric, but he was a character. He wore oversized black-rimmed glasses, like Jerry Seinfeld’s father on the TV show, and his deliberate manner made me think that he was always assessing. What I liked most about him was his candor. From having been fired by The Kinks and involved in a subsequent lawsuit, it seemed that Larry was bemused when Ray called him out of the blue in the spring about managing the group again. At the same time, he was realistic enough to sense that it wasn’t going to be long term.

  He was bemoaning his morning call from the mercurial Ray. The Kinks had been approached by writer Jon Savage who wanted to write a book about the group. Ray had signed off on the final draft, but now that The Kinks: The Official Biography was about to be published, he—too late—tried to retract his approval.

  In February 1987 after attending the MIDEM music convention in Cannes, I flew to London. I initiated negotiations with Precision Records and Tapes—Pye’s successor—for their British Invasion artists, most importantly The Kinks. Our Greatest Hits album sold much better than reissues of The Kinks’ original albums, racking up sales of 250,000. (Reprise retained the rights to a handful of albums.) It was only natural for us to augment this catalogue with that of their subsequent label, RCA Records.

  The Kinks recorded six albums for RCA, and shrewdly negotiated to have the rights revert to them ten years after their last release. Early in 1989 I made a deal with Larry for an advance of $125,000. A few months later he was fired. Without Larry involved, our relationship with The Kinks deteriorated. It seemed that Ray’s old resentment of his brother, for usurping his position as the adored little brother in a family with five older sisters, had reared its head. Larry explained that Ray wanted to negate the deal, as a good chunk of the advance would go to Dave, who was always in need of money. If the Rhino deal didn’t happen, Dave would still be in a diminished/dependent position. Ray didn’t need the money. His coffers were bulging with songwriting royalties, to the tune of $14 million, according to Larry. Astonishingly, the brothers revealed their hostility toward each other in 1991’s “Hatred (A Duet),” one of their few late-period highpoints, in my opinion.

  As a passionate Kinks’ fan, I wanted to do an outstanding job of issuing the RCA albums for the CD format. My main inspiration was to produce an elaborate package combining the two Preservation albums, acts one and two, and adding a bonus track of “Preservation,” which had been released as a single in the US, but not on an album. I wanted to make the booklet look like a libretto, with lyrics and an introductory overview from Ray. Ray had approval of such an expansion, but he wouldn’t respond to phone calls, faxes, or letters. Because of our uncertainty, by November we still hadn’t released any albums when I received a letter from Ray requesting that I hold off on Preservation as he was hoping to mount a musical or television special. He had written songs for a musical based on Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, which had been staged the previous year for six weeks at the La Jolla Playhouse (near San Diego). Ray didn’t offer any concessions: he didn’t offer to extend the duration of our deal, to buy us out, or give us replacement masters.

  A year later, Ray was in town to write another musical. He gave me a call. I picked him up at the Continental Hyatt House and drove up the street to Cravings on Sunset Boulevard. The weather was nice for the first week of December, so we sat outside and ordered breakfast. I didn’t want to push my agenda or come across as threatening. My intention was to be friendly, hospitable, and communicate our passion as Kinks’ fans desiring to do the best for his catalogue. I wanted to make a positive impression, and for Ray to feel comfortable with me for future dialogues. I suggested that our intended package might help him gain interest in mounting Preservation as a musical. Ray was shy, awkward, and scratched out notes on a small pad.

  Given the $125,000 I had advanced Ray, I could have expected him to reciprocate and pick up the twenty-five dollar breakfast tab, but knowing his reputation as a skinflint, I abandoned my usual languid response and grabbed the bill folder. I gave him copies of the four albums we had released, all but the Preservations.

  In their original release, none of the RCA albums benefitted from a hit single. “Celluloid Heroes,” the song that was most familiar because of its play on FM radio, bolstered sales of Everybody’s In Show-Biz, a double album with one disc recorded in concert. During the performance, Ray went into an impulsive segment of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” leading the audience in the call and response. It was picked up by the sports world, and “Day-Oh” has been a fan rouser for the last few decades.

  Emotionally I was caught between being a fan who wanted to make my hero happy and being a responsible businessman. We Rhinos felt that, as passionate devotees, we had the objectivity most artists lacked when assessing their own careers. Without approval for my plan and at an impasse, I combined the two albums anyway and used the existing art in a superior package for a July 1991 release. Although RCA had benefitted from additional sales by issuing The Kinks Greatest Celluloid Heroes, Ray would not grant Rhino the rights to release a similar best-of album. As of this writing Ray has yet to mount a Preservation musical.

  It wasn’t as if I didn’t know what I was getting into, or that I was unaware of Ray’s reputation as a curmudgeon. When I interviewed noted session man Nicky Hopkins in 1973, he had this to say about Ray: “After The Kinks’ Village Green LP, I stopped working with them. They didn’t pay me for the sessions, and I did a lot of TV work with them as well. I’m really pissed off. The album’s got Ray credited as guitar, vocals, and piano. I thought, ‘Jeez! I did seventy-five percent of the keyboard work and I didn’t get the proper credit.’ I’ll never work with him again. They’re greedy bastards. Ray Davies is so tight his arse squeaks when he walks.”

  Fans of musical artists can express themselves in various ways. Some can be irrational: during performances, The Beatles were confronted by massive screams and a barrage of jelly babies (jelly beans). Some can be calculating: sneaking into hotel rooms or backstage areas so they can talk to their idols. Some offer up gifts of baked cakes and stuffed animals, or write fan letters. Many endure long lines at a signing to be able to tell an artist how much they like his work. Others are content to merely buy an album, a poster or T-shirt. For those of us at Rhino, our fandom was best expressed in producing a product of high quality. It was our way of showing how much we valued the music and the creators. In this case our affection for The Kinks was restrained.

  Although I received no compliments from Ray, in Dave’s 1996 autobiography Kink, he referred to our packaging and sound quality as “great.” He also complained that the advance we had paid The Kinks was too modest. They had received a million dollars when they signed with RCA Records in 1971. Given that The Kinks did little touring during the term of our license, and did no promotion for our releases, I thought we did an admirable job. They earned another $125,000 in royalties, for a total of $250,000 on the deal.

  The Troggs

  The story of The Troggs is unlike any other band. It has twists and turns and improbable episodes. It all started with Larry Page. He was incensed. Not only did The Kinks fire him as their manager, but they also sued him. In happier times, Larry and Ray Davies had written a song together titled “Revenge” for the group’s first album. Now Larry was seething with revenge against The Kinks. But he wasn’t malicious. He vowed to get back at them by developing another band and turning them into hitmakers. It was serendipitous when music publisher Pat Mills recommended the Troglodytes. Mills told Page that their version of “You Really Got Me” was better than The Kinks.

  Reg Presley explained the band’s origin: “Ronnie got into a group and bought drums on the never-never [installment plan]. The group disbanded and he was left with all this equipment to pay for. He asked a friend to play lead guitar, and then he asked me to play bass. I’d never seen
a bass before, but I did learn to play at least a little bit. Then Chris, who played lead guitar, joined from another group along with Peter who supposedly played bass better than I, although I wonder about that now. We were playing R&B at the time. The Rolling Stones had just started playing Richmond, and Andover kids would rent buses to go see them. So we got loads of Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records, and that’s what we learned to play.”

  Page signed the band—the name shortened to The Troggs—and molded them into contenders. First, they needed new names. Page, his own name having been changed from Lenny Davies, subscribed to the Larry Parnes school of management whereby new, masculine monikers were given to budding pop stars. Singer Reginald Maurice Ball became Reg Presley. (When I first saw the songwriting credit on a record, I wondered if he was related to Elvis.) Credit New Musical Express writer Keith Altham, who suggested the change. Drummer Ronnie Bullis became Ronnie Bond, as in James Bond. Guitarist Chris Britton and bassist Pete Staples didn’t require revisions. Second, Page needed to establish a unified look for the mod Reg, beatnik Chris, and rocker Ronnie. He had the Take 6 clothing boutique design gaudy striped suits for the band. They’re on display on The Troggs’ first album cover.

  The Troggs were from Andover, a small city southwest of London in the county of Hampshire. Residents of Andover were considered “country bumpkins” or “hicks from the sticks,” and The Troggs were no exception. With all the pop groups vying for media attention, how was Larry Page going to promote his new charges, without intellect, without big-city savvy, without much personality other than being nice guys? In order to mask their country yokel accents and naïveté, Page coached them to be extra polite, including standing when women walked into a room, and escorting them to the door. He also had them all show up for interviews, rather than favoring a single member, as was often the case.

  CBS Records released the debut Troggs’ 45, “Lost Girl,” but dropped the group when it failed to chart. Reg Presley: “We got these two publishing demos, ‘Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind’ by The Lovin’ Spoonful, and ‘Wild Thing’ by a guy named Chip Taylor. We weren’t in The Spoonful bag, so I looked at the sheet music of ‘Wild Thing’ to play along. ‘Wild Thing, you make my heart sing, you make everything groovy.’ I thought it was a joke. What kind of crap are they sending us? Then I played the demo, and it was incredible. I knew it was going to be a hit.”

  The composer, Chip Taylor, was born James Voight, the brother of actor Jon Voight. Taylor had cowritten “I Can’t Let Go,” a number two UK hit for The Hollies earlier in the year. He composed “Wild Thing” for a New York group called the Wild Ones. United Artists released the record in October 1965, but it stiffed. The record embarrassed Chip because the vocalist sang with a near redneck affectation, approaching the comedic style of Larry Verne in “Mr. Custard.”

  With one failed single, Larry Page wanted to avoid the financial risk of booking a studio, so he thought he could have The Troggs use the remaining time—if any was left over—of a session for the Larry Page Orchestra. The group waited outside Olympic Studios in their van for two hours. Reg picked up the story: “With forty-five minutes left, we noticed musicians leaving. So we rushed our gear in there. It took us fifteen minutes to set up. So, in twenty minutes we recorded ‘Wild Thing’ and ‘With a Girl Like You,’ both live, and they balanced it there. I used the ocarina in the break because there was one on the demo.” The group also recorded The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind,” but it was never released.

  “Wild Thing,” with its pounding drums, super-serious vocal, and absurd ocarina solo, provided a blast of simplicity in 1966 as rock music was progressing. It corresponded perfectly to images of primitive cave dwellers conjured up by the group’s moniker. “It took off so fast, I was still laying bricks for a living when it was number twelve on the chart,” said Reg. It rose to number two in the UK and number one in the US. At the time Graham Nash said, “They’re so behind, they’re in front.”

  “With a Girl Like You,” composed by Reg, followed. “We’d never rehearsed ‘With a Girl Like You’ all the way through before,” said Ronnie Bond, “because we didn’t know we were going to record it. When we came to the middle break, I was nervous because I didn’t know what drum pattern to use.” Flush with the success of “Wild Thing,” the group spent a frustrating day in the studio trying to improve on their initial recording, but were unable to do so. Reg noted that even Mick Jagger tried helping out. “With a Girl Like You” hit number one in the UK at the same time that “Wild Thing” was number one in the US. Larry Page’s forty-five minutes of leftover studio time yielded two big hits.

  The group’s first LP—From Nowhere in the UK, Wild Thing in the US—was recorded in three hours. Ronnie Bond: “Some of the songs weren’t completely written yet. On ‘Jingle Jangle’ and four other tracks, Reg wrote the lyrics and the music while we were recording the instrumental backing.”

  In Britain The Troggs became big stars, with five Top 10s and two Top 20s in little more than a year, from May 1966 to October 1967. The chart positions were even more noteworthy when one considers that England’s main radio station, the BBC, banned three of the group’s hits—“I Can’t Control Myself,” “Give It To Me,” and “Night of the Long Grass”—for being too suggestive. Fortunately, they received airplay on pirate stations. Of note, “Night of the Long Grass” was Reg’s proof that one didn’t need to take LSD in order to concoct trippy lyrics. “I wrote that on a cup of tea,” he said.

  Although The Troggs’ outrageousness bordered on comedy, their recordings were successful because they delivered them with an unpretentious honesty. Reg, who wrote most of the songs, sang in the manner of the ordinary working class teen who cared only about girls. But whereas The Beatles and others usually limited themselves to falling in love, The Troggs made their mark as lust-driven, sexually unsatisfied cavemen intent on ripping the dress off the nearest appetizing girl and having a go at it.

  Titles such as “I Can’t Control Myself” or “I Want You” are more implied than graphically stated, but when the lyrics were coupled with the group’s unself-conscious musical interpretation, there was little doubt of their intentions. Presley didn’t look much like a typically svelte lead singer: baby fat hung on his cheeks and his figure was trim but round. To me his accent sounded almost Irish, a cross between a jolly leprechaun and a lecherous gravedigger. He sang in a subtle but direct manner, sneering each suitable vocal.

  Of all the British Invasion groups, their musical influences were less recognizable. The instrumental backing, hard and markedly simple, was sloppy, characteristic of the we’re-tough-we-don’t-care punk attitude. Chris was so good in creating the group’s sound no one would have ever guessed that he had taken four years of classical guitar lessons. “Simple” is used a lot, by the group as well as others in describing their sound—simple, yes, but effective. For a parallel, consider the rudimentary styles of Black Sabbath and the Ramones.

  What’s interesting was how much the band’s new musical direction emanated from the success of “Wild Thing.” A handful of the group’s subsequent singles were built on suggestive lyrics delivered with serious intentions. Prior to recording the song, the group’s rock ’n’ roll and R&B repertoire was similar to that of other groups, and included covers of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Lee Dorsey, Wilson Pickett, Slim Harpo, Little Richard, and Muddy Waters. For comparison, take one of Reg’s early songs, “With a Girl Like You,” that he knocked off during an extended break from a construction job. It’s a sweet—if simple—romantic song, without any hint of suggestiveness.

  One of the best examples, and one of The Troggs’ best songs, is “I Can’t Control Myself.” Reg was inspired to write it “by a girl we saw at a gig in Stevenage. She was wearing bright scarlet hipsters that were very, very tight.” Writer Ken Barnes described the number two UK hit as “a lewd and lip-smacking ode to sexual volatility replete with
leering lyrics and climaxing with a frustrated scream.” The Troggs’ last good single, “Strange Movies,” recounted watching a porno movie. Note that “groovy” is part of the lyrics in both “Wild Thing” and “Strange Movies,” although composed eight years apart.

  Chip Taylor wrote “Any Way That You Want Me” for The Troggs as a thank you for making “Wild Thing” a smash. It became the group’s fourth 1966 release to hit the UK Top 10. Page’s Troggs bested not only The Kinks, but also The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits, The Who, and The Hollies. They fared less well in America, with only two big hits overall, but they distinguished themselves from being just another exponent of the British Invasion’s second wave.

  Relaxing at home one evening, Reg saw The Joystrings Salvation Army vocal group perform a song, “Love That’s All Around” on TV. Inspired, he wrote “Love Is All Around” in fifteen minutes. A gorgeous paean to the “Summer of Love,” it was a perfectly hummable love song, with Presley revealing a lightness, innocence, and sensitivity. The song became a big hit, number five in the UK and seven in the US.

  The Troggs were offered $80,000 to tour the States for concerts and TV appearances (including The Ed Sullivan Show), but Page turned it down because, with only one US hit at the time, he thought the trip would lose money. The Troggs still hadn’t made it to America, wanted to go, and were upset that he didn’t discuss it with them. This was a last straw as they bristled against Page’s control of the group.

  Page slyly stuck his songs on the group’s B-sides, earning extra money for himself. If, as a manager, he was working in the best interests of his clients, he would have selected the group’s own compositions. Ronnie Bond: “Our manager decided to write songs for the bread, and it wasn’t The Troggs as much. It was The Troggs doing their manager’s songs.” Bond also pointed out that the group was angry that Page released a second album, Trogglodynamite, composed of inferior material, without their consent. Page’s commercial instincts were sound: Trogglodynamite followed From Nowhere into the UK Top 10.