Creativity Quote by Ray Davies

It is a disarmingly casual line that quietly rewrites origin mythology. Ray Davies isn’t trying to sound lofty about the early Kinks; he’s doing something more strategic: pinning their beginnings to a messy, hybrid American soundscape rather than a neat, British pop narrative. “Sort of country rhythm and blues” is the tell. It admits that genre was never a clean inheritance, even in the supposed golden age of “authentic” R&B. It’s mimicry, yes, but also translation - London kids rebuilding Black American forms through whatever records, radio bleed, and secondhand lore they could get.

Name-checking Sonny Terry sharpens the point. Terry, a master of blues harmonica associated with a rural, pre-rock tradition, represents grit and physicality over polish. By invoking “Sonny Terry things,” Davies frames their set not as chart-chasing but as feel-chasing: rhythm as a bodily fact, blues as a working vocabulary. He’s also signaling credibility without bragging. The phrase “things” is intentionally under-specific, like a musician nodding to other musicians: you either know the tone and phrasing, or you don’t.

Context matters: British rock in the early 60s was a frantic act of cultural import-export, with young bands using American blues and R&B as both rebellion and apprenticeship. Davies’ understatement is the subtextual flex. The Kinks didn’t arrive from nowhere; they came up through a patchwork of borrowed grooves, regional accents, and basement-level experimentation - the exact friction that later made their sound feel so distinct.