Bye Shel Talmy

Shel Talmy, the legendary producer who worked on the first five albums by The Kinks (as well as the Who/Creation/a million other bands), has died at 87.

There's a lot of shitty things about social media to go on & on about, but one of the absolute positives is Talmy's Facebook page, where he would regularly & suddenly post about the songs he had such a big hand in helping bring to life that that had brought joy to millions of people over decades & will continue to as long as humans – or something – have ears. As the years roll on & on The Kinks' seismic You Really Got Me looms bigger & bigger in its influence on any rock & roll with a guitar in it; here's what he said in a random "oh shit here's another Facebook post from Shel Talmy, I can’t believe I'm getting these notes from Shel Talmy!" post about the song:

THE BLUEPRINT FOR PRODUCING ‘YOU REALLY GOT ME’ BY THE KINKS A few days ago, it was the 60th anniversary of the release of ‘You Really Got Me’, the first hit that I produced with the Kinks, and of course the record that put them on the map. So I thought it might be a good time for a refresher on how we got there!

At the beginning of 1964, I had met a group called The Ravens, and liked and got on well with all of them. Ray Davies was introduced as the songwriter, and having heard their demos, I thought Ray’s potential for writing hits was up in the 95th percentile. These were still early days for me--I didn’t have my own label yet, or the money to sign a band directly to my company. So, exercising my independence, I took them to Pye Records. As I’d had hits with Decca and was reasonably well-known in London’s music biz, there was no problem arranging a meeting with the label head, Louis Benjamin. Benjamin brought in his head of A&R, Alan Freeman (not the famous 60s-70s deejay), who liked the band a lot and so a deal was done. 

The Kinks, as they now were named, signed directly with Pye, with me as their producer. The first session was scheduled for January 1964, and we discovered that Pye insisted we record their choices, four songs that consisted of the Little Richard hit, ‘Long Tall Sally,’ and three of Ray’s early efforts that he and I didn’t want to record, but were forced into it. As far as the Kinks and I were concerned, predictably, the buying public wasn’t interested... I don’t know if all this negative stuff had an impact on Ray, but maybe it went some way to inspire him to begin a hot streak that would crown him as one of the songwriting greats!

The next song he wrote was ‘You Really Got Me,’ which we all felt was a hit and to make our point, a meet was arranged with Benjamin and Freeman, the two Kinks managers Robert Wace and Grenville Collins, and myself at Pye’s offices. To sum up, we said we were unhappy with the tracks we had been “commanded” to record, and for the next single we insisted on recording ‘You Really Got Me’,’ and without actually stating it, implied, “take it or leave it”!

I will note here that at the time Pye was lagging behind the other major labels in their percentage of “hit” acts, so they were somewhat over a barrel, and so agreed to what we wanted to record. The session was held in June at Pye’s studio #2, the room used for bands, as opposed to orchestras. The track turned out great and Pye loved it.

But--after listening to it for a couple of days, Ray decided that his song was too slow and bluesy and wanted to re-record it. Pye refused to fund another session. At a meeting with the guys, Wace and Collins, we unanimously said, “the hell with that”! I said I would pay for it, and booked a session at IBC Studios. 

So around the second week of July, we re-recorded ‘You Really Got Me,’ and here is how the session went. I also booked Perry Ford, piano player and part of the Ivy League trio, who had their own hits. Pete Quaife who had played with Ray and Dave from the time they were in art school together, was a terrific bass player. Ray and Dave Davies filled out the group-- Ray, the lead singer, playing rhythm guitar and Dave playing lead guitar.

To confirm the question I’ve answered about 5,000 times, yes, Dave played the solo on ‘You Really Got Me!’ Here is Dave’s set-up and how we got the sound that many music critics have credited for influencing a whole new way to play the guitar, and inspiring bands around the world! Dave was playing a Harmony Meteor guitar, plugged into an Elpico amp, we usually referred to as the “little green monster,” and played barre chords. Yes, Dave had sliced into the amps cone to get the growl it produced, and that amp was hooked up to a Vox AC30 amp. I mic’d both amps and combined their individual sound output into what you hear on the record. Backing vocals were double-tracked and done by Dave, Pete Quaife and Ray’s then wife, Rasa.

‘You Really Got Me’ was released a couple of weeks later and shot straight up to number one in the UK. It was the first chart-topper for both myself and The Kinks.

Thanks Shel for the music we love, and thanks for sharing such great insight as this about the music we love. Enjoy the control room in the sky, Shel.