August Darnell: That's What I Call....

When I was a teenager living in the Bronx, I joined my older brother’s band. He needed a bassist. One day, we heard a strange song on the radio. The DJ said it was a British band called The Beatles! What a stupid name for a band, we thought. But when we later discovered how it was spelt, we took back our silly aspersions. Later on, we saved up our pennies and bought the album. It is a masterpiece and ‘PS I Love You’ is one of my all-time favourite songs to this day.

On this album the Fab Four covered ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ and ‘You Really Got a Hold on Me’ and ‘Holy Moses’. My brother and I were also huge lovers of the Motown and home-grown Rock’n’Soul. To learn that these young upstarts from across the pond also admired Smoky Robinson and Chuck Berry)... well, that just baked the cake! This album changed my life!

By 1964, the British invasion was real. The Fab Four released a movie, and everyone I knew went to see it. It was discussed in every classroom in my school. My brother and I had already started writing songs by this time. No more covers. Our earliest creations sound very Beatles-eque. The opening chord of the eponymous title song fascinated us. What was it? We loved it because it dared to challenge us.

This one has my favourite Kinks compositions: ‘You Really Got Me’; ‘Tired of Waiting’; ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’; ‘Sunny Afternoon’; and ‘Lola’. Superb songwriting, masterful lyrics, and the fact that the band was comprised of two brothers — my brother and I liked that. When I first heard ‘You Really Got Me’, I immediately picked up my guitar and tried to figure out how to do that angry chordal slide!

When I heard ‘She’s Not There’ in 1964, I became an instant fan. What a great song. A true classic. Unlike my adoration of The Beatles, however, I did not know the names of the band members. But their debut album still remains on my best list. As the years passed on by, my admiration for the band continued. I still listen to ‘Time of the Season’ and ‘Tell Her No’ at least 53 times a year!