Ray Davies and Alex Chilton – Till The End of the Day

I didn’t know they ever did anything together and to find this was special. Two of my favorite performers coming together. Ray of course from one of my favorite bands of all time and Alex Chilton from another band I admire, Big Star.

Ray had an album in 2010 called See My Friends, a 2010 album featuring versions of classic Kinks’ songs recorded with Alex Chilton, Black Francis, Lucinda Williams, Bruce Springsteen, Metallica and many others.

This song was recorded a year before Alex died. They were neighbors in New Orleans and Alex would bring beer over to Ray’s house although Alex didn’t drink. Alex and Big Star were huge fans of The Kinks.

Ray Davies:

“Way back in 2004 I was in New Orleans, recovering from an injury, and I was befriended by a neighbor called Alex Chilton. Alex had been in a band called Big Star, and had sung on a record called ‘The Letter’ by The Box Tops. We didn’t talk about music much, but he did say to me before I came back to England, ‘You know, I’ve recorded one of your songs, ‘Till the End of the Day’, with Big Star, and I’d love to do another song with you. And he asked me to write some songs for him – I felt really flattered, because by then I had found out about his history. A very unassuming guy.”

“In 2009, on July 4th, Independence Day, he came up to Konk Studios. He was a real character – he was wearing a New Orleans beret, he had a cigarette holder – he was a chain smoker, and I think a recovering drinker – and he said, ‘Let’s do it!’ I said, ‘What would you like to do?’ He said, ‘‘Til The End Of The Day’ and ‘Set Me Free’. So I just had an acoustic guitar and a rhythm box, because I hadn’t organized anything. I played guitar and Alex sang. We did five or six takes and comped it together. “

I cannot find Set Me Free but here is a short clip of Ray talking about Alex.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

45 thoughts on “Ray Davies and Alex Chilton – Till The End of the Day”

  1. wow, great story! I didn’t know Ray lived in New Orleans. One would also expect he would’ve had FAR more funds for a fancy house than Alex, but from what I hear that’s one of the odd/charming/dangerous things about the city – it’s not so divided into rich neighborhoods, poor ones… everything’s there together on the same blocks.

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    1. Alex in the 90s and after was making a pretty good living on short tours with Big Star and The Box Tops…plus whoever covered his songs…I know he made quite a bit on the Bangles covering September Gurls….plus That Seventies Show theme…but yea New Orleans is different from anywhere else.

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      1. right, I think I read the royalties off the Bangles cover paid for his house …and it wasn’t that much of a hit! Forgot about ’70s Show’… he might have made a ton off that if he had good legal advice…seems like there is a huge variation in how much they get paid for themes, if they get money off re-runs or video releases etc.

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      2. I guess he got a cut of the album sales of that Bangles album also…plus he did make pretty good at touring. Big Star only played around 10 shows a year but they were offered good money when they did…the Box Tops I don’t know how much they toured.

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  3. Good one! The only moment why this album will be remembered is “Til The End Of the Day”. It’s probably Alex Chilton’s last recording. He conjures together with Ray Davies a congenial version.

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  5. “And it still took me 934 listens to figure out that Paul was talking about trading rare Kinks albums – “Exchanging Good Lucks, Face To Face”. So you’ve got the holy trinity, the greatest band of the ’80s singing about the greatest band of the ’70s with a link to the greatest band of the ’60s! Or, if not the greatest, the most certainly underrated!”

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  9. Great duet with those two. Wish I could have heard more to the song Ray was starting. Not sure if I new Ray got shot in NOLA or not… It’s a place I’d like to see before it goes underwater.

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      2. When you mentioned him…I pulled something up…”Too Sensitive For this World”…that tremolo…CB I’m a sucker for that guitar effect…it sounds really cool and his voice fits perfectly.

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      8. Yea I ran across that one today…he does have some good stuff…he is different and that makes it all the better

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      10. The Ben Vaughn post will be Sunday…If you don’t mind keep feeding me these new artists… It’s nice to hear something new and not to post another Stones post…I love the Stones but I love the harder to find.

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      11. No poblem and vice versa. I wore out those first Vaughan albums. He has a great sense of humor. I always picked up a Lou reed vibe if Lou wasnt such a tight ass “Shingaling” with me Max. Another good Ben tune.
        A Ben Post. That will be a rarity in the circle I follow. very cool.
        (My buddy is running his internet show right now. You might dig it From NY. ‘Roots Rock Radio 365 The Grand”. Cool mix with you kinda of tunes. I pick up lots of good stuff and hear lots I already dig). Later fella. Always good talking to you.

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      12. There isn’t a lot of info on him…kinda like Green on Red but that makes it more of a challenge.
        Cool I just book marked that station. I see the recently played list and there are some rare things. I like it.

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      14. He had some some known bands but songs you don’t normally hear…which that is what I love.
        Yea I robbed some of the Wiki lol… I also want to look up the Ben Vaughn Combo in the early eighties…they got MTV play.

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      16. There are so many….and many that I missed at the time. I start finding them like when I read about the Replacements… their peers came up and I started to listen to all of them. Robyn Hitchcock is one of them that I’m tracking down also.

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