Originally released in 1971, Muswell Hillbillies was not well accepted after the Kinks previous album "Lola versus Powerman and the Money-Go-Round, Part One" and the smash hit "Lola" from that album. Though Ray Davies had been under a lot of pressure to perform a similar feat, he resisted in making another radio friendly single and album and came up with MH.... what he then called his "existentialist-type record." It is a marvelous collection of country and urban bluesy rock tunes centered around Ray and Dave Davies hometown of Muswell Hill, a working class suburb of London, that documents the English proletariat and their struggles with modern life, (20 Century Man, Complicated Life), simple pleasures, (Holiday, Have a Cuppa Tea), demons and desperation, (Alcohol, Holloway Jail, Here Come the People in Grey), and dreams of life in a far away place, (Oklahoma U.S.A).
This album was recorded at the end of the counterculture period when folks were getting "back to the land" after the purple haze of the late '60's. I can hear shades of "The Band" in this album who were emerging as a major force in rock at the time as well as "The Grateful Dead" from the same period. Indeed "Uncle Son" could be inserted right in the middle of the "Workingman's Dead" album and sound like it's supposed to be there. I am not a Kinks aficionado and I don't own many of there albums, but I believe Muswell Hillbillies ranks right up there among the all time greats from the period. In recently rediscovering this album, I feel that it's one of those rare recordings that somehow sounds as fresh today as when I first heard it a long time ago. So "Have a Cuppa Tea" and give it a listen! I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Muswell Hillbillies has been remastered and is widely available on CD including two bonus tracks that deserve to be there too!
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