Legend has it that on June 21st 1944 Ray Davies is born in Muswell Hill London to Fred and Annie Davies, the seventh child with six sisters previous

Feb 3rd 1947 - Brother, Dave Davies is reputed to have been born in Muswell Hill

June 1957 - Ray gets his first guitar as a gift from his oldest sister Rene

July - Receives first guitar lessons from brother in law, Mike Piker

Sept 1960 - With brother Dave, they perform their first shows

1961 William Grimshaw school mate, Pete Quaife, joins the brothers, to form their first band with John Start on drums from the same school. They are named the Ray Davies Quartet and play local dances covering the likes of the Ventures, The Shadows, Duane Eddy and Bo Diddley

1962 – Fellow school mate, Rod Stewart, briefly rehearses with the band on vocals but leaves to join the Moontrekkers

Sept 1962 - Ray enters Hornsey Art School in nearby Crouch End

Pete Quaife meets Robert Wace and Grenville Collins who want the band as Robert’s back up group

1963 – Band briefly change name to the Ramrods and again to the Boll Weevils. At the end of the year Ray leaves Hornsey Art School for Croydon Art School for its film and theatre program. The band lay some of their first recordings down including "I Believed In You" & "One Fine Day" and again change their name to The Ravens.

Jan 1964 – Ray finally handles the lead vocals and the band sign to Pye Records with a final name change name - The Kinks. Mick Avory joins the band shortly after an audition at the Camden Head. Shel Talmey is assigned to be he bands in house producer and they release their first single "Long Tall Sally" which charts at 42 in the UK.

1964 - "You Really Got Me" is released in August and tops the UK charts (7 in the US) and their debut album "The Kinks" in October which charts at 4. They see the year off with "All Day and All of the Night" charting at number 2 (7 again in the US) and firmly putting the band on the map. Their guitar sound will be copied the world round, spawning garage bands and eventually to laying the groundwork for punk and heavy metal. The band is number 2 in the NME Poll winners just behind the Stones

Dec 12th 1964 - Ray marries Rasa Didzpetris at St Joeseph’s Church, Packington, Bradford. Rasa will sing backing vocals on many of their sixties recordings.

Jan, 1965 – Kinks tour Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the States

1965 - Another number one hit in the UK with "Tired of Waiting For You" and "Well Respected Man", more top 10s follow with "Set Me Free" and "See My Friends", "Till the End of the Day" sees the band touring throughout the States and Europe. The year is bookend by the UK releases of "Kinda Kinks and "The Kinks Kontroversy" albums which both chart

July, 1965 - Problems with a US Agency and the US Musicians Union will cause them to get banned from touring the States until 1969.

1966 - Singles, "Dedicated Flower of Fashion" and "Sunny Afternoon" both top charts in the UK and the US top 40. The year ends with "Dead End Street" at number 6 and the bands first themed album "Face to Face" which has sees Rays writing change to social observations of British society.

1967 - "Waterloo Sunset" released and charts at number 2 and followed by the album "Something Else By The Kinks" and the single "Autumn Almanac" at number 5.

1968 - Release of "Live at Kelvin Hall" lp in the UK. Ray writes a series of songs for a weekly BBC special sung by others called "At the Eleventh Hour"

June 1968 - "Days" enters the charts at 10, originally intended for release on the next album is kept off until the re-release

Nov 22nd 1968 - The band’s cult classic "The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society" is released but strangely enough does not chart. In years to come it is often citied as one of the top twenty albums ever made and the first of many of their pioneering rock operas

1969 – Ray produces US act the Turtles and begins work on his next theatrical project "Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire" which is to be made into a Granada UK TV program, sadly the production company abandons it at the end of the year.

October 1969 - The band are finally allowed a US work visa and tour the US throughout the rest of the year and into the next.

1970 – Ray acts in the TV film The Long Distance Piano Player which is broadcast later in the year on BBC

Lola released, hitting the top in the UK and 9 in the US, it will go on to be Ray’s trademark song. Ray had been forced to rerecord the lyric of Coke Cola to Cherry Cola to get played on the BBC, taking two return flights from the US to complete this.

Dec 1970 - "Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround" album is released, reaching the US top 40

Percy soundtrack is released only in the UK and will be the last album for Pye

1971 – Band leaves Pye/Reprise for RCA and release the country tinged "Muswell Hillbillies"
Featuring the classic "20th Century Man" written for Ray’s father

1972 - Konk recording studio is set up, virtually every Kinks album from the next year on out will be recorded here as well as over 30 top ten albums from the likes of Depeche Mode, The Kooks, Erasure and the Bay City Rollers

"The Kinks Kronikles" is released in the States turning on a whole new audience to many of the non US hits . "Supersonic Rocketship" is released in the UK and hits 16 ahead of the release of the "Everybody’s in Showbiz" double album which half is recorded at the famed Carnegie Hall in NYC

1973 - "Preservation Act one" is released, which begins the band’s onstage theatrical forays.

May 1974 – The band release the second installment of the Preservation plays with a double album "Preservation 2". While the bands record sales wane their live draw is bigger than ever before, especially in the States where they are touring heavily. The tour ends with a three night stand in London which wins critical accolades

August 1974 – The bands "Starmaker" theatrical stage production is aired on ITV, this later develops into "Soap Opera" which the band will then take on the road the following year.

1975 – "Star Maker" is released as "Soap Opera" and charts in the States where the band has honed down the production and again winning over the doubters, the band continue their heavy work schedule with the last of their theatrical productions "School Boys in Disgrace" which is released in the US at the end of the year charting in the top 50 and in the UK at the beginning of the next year

1976 – The band leave RCA and their theater rock leanings behind to Clive Davis’s newly formed Arista records and get back to making albums with more of a singles edge.

Feb 1977 "Sleepwalker" released in the beginning of the year sees the band return to form and constraining fully on the US market which welcomes them and a top 25 album and a heavy US tour schedule that would continue for the next 15 years

May 1978 – "Misfits" album released, US top 40

1979 – Ray temporarily relocates to the US and works on the material for "Low Budget" which will be the first album mostly recorded outside of Konk since 72. The album features four singles and charts as high as 11 in the US, their best since the early sixties.

1980 The band’s double live album, recorded in the states "One for the Road" album is released charting again at 14 but it goes on to be one of their biggest sellers

1981 – The Kinks sell out Madison Square Garden

1981 - Ray’s first stage musical ,"Chorus Girls" a collaboration with Barrie Keeffe which they have been working on since 1978 is staged at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.

August 1981 - "Give the People What They Want" released in the States where it charts at 15. Band headline Reading Festival and the following month see’s Pete Quaife join the band onstage in Toronto for a couple of songs, the first time since he left the fold in ‘69

1982 – Come Dancing is released and brings the band back to the UK charts at 11 and with the help of a great video brings them a top 6 hit in the US

May 1983 - "State of Confusion" album is released landing a number 12 in the US charts

1984 - "Return to Waterloo" is aired on Channel 4, this is Ray’s first directorial outing

July 1984 - Mick Avory leaves the Kinks, leaving Ray and his brother as sole original members. Avory will helped manage the Konk studios for the next decade.

Nov 1984 - "Word of Mouth" album is released via Arista

July 1st, 1985 - "Return to Waterloo" soundtrack album released in the States while Ray makes a cameo appearance in the Julian Temple directed, "Absolute Beginners". The Kinks are on a world tour throughout most of the year

1986 - The Kinks sign a new deal with MCA and the "Think Visual" album is released to strong reviews in the US but ignored in the UK

1987 - The band tour heavily in the US with some European dates ending the year with the release of the live album "The Road"

1988 – Ray writes the musical "80 Days" with Snoo Wilson, which was produced and directed by Des McAnuff at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.

1989 - Work on Ray’s film "Breakfast in Berlin" a film about the Ray’s early childhood history. The film project is abandoned in order to record.

Oct 1989 – "UK Jive" is released on MCA

1990 - Kinks inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the Who and win an Ivor Novello award back home.

1991 - The band signs to Columbia Records and releases the 5 track ep "Did Ya"

1992 _ Ray tutors his first of many songwriters workshops in Norfolk which will eventually expand to workshops in the US for budding songwriters.

1993 - "Phobia" album is released with a full year of touring throughout the states and Europe

1994 - Ray directs and produces "Weird Nightmare", a portrait of Charles Mingus for Channel 4’s jazz series. It features the likes of Elvis Costello, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts

1994 – The Kinks assemble in Konk to re-record some old classics which are filmed as well for a BBC documentary. Later the Kinks record "To The Bone" which comes out as a single cd set in the UK and a double in the States a few years later.

1994 - Davies published his "unauthorized autobiography", X-Ray, to critical acclaim and launches it with some solo shows in the UK .

The Kinks play their last tour of Japan and the States

Feb 1996 - Writes and performs "Storyteller, a one man history of the Kinks and Ray Davies" Ray will tour this internationally and records it for VH1 whom build a series around it that continues to this day with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie and Elton John featuring on it.

June 1996 – Kinks play their last ever concert in Oslo at the Norwegian Wood Festival

March 1998 - The album of Ray`s one-man show entitled "Storyteller" was released on Columbia

1998 - Ray is commissioned to compose a fifty minute choral piece, Flatlands, for the Norwich and Norfolk Festival featuring the Britten Symphonia. He also co-directed "Vision of England", a program for Anglia Television featuring this music which won a regional television award the following year.

1999 - sees the publishing of Waterloo Sunset, a collection of short stories based on the titles of some of the Kinks songs

2001– The Kinks BBC sessions 1964-1977 is released

Summer 2003 - saw Ray playing in front of millions worldwide at Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations

2003 - saw the release of two tribute albums – "This is Where I Belong" on Rykodisc, and "Give the People What We Want" on Sub Pop.

January 4th 2004 - Ray shot while pursuing a thief who had snatched the purse of his companion in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Ray recuperates in New Orleans hospital where he writes the Morphine Song and others.

March 17th, 2004 Awarded a CBE, by Queen Elizabeth II for "services to music."

22nd June 2004, Davies wins the Mojo Songwriter Award,

June 30,2004 - Brother Dave suffers a stroke while leaving a BBC interview

2005 – Ray releases first solo studio work with the Ep "The Tourist", it is renamed "Thanksgiving Day EP" in the states with the addition of an extra track

Sept 2005 – Kinks are inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame by Pete Townsend, the first time they are all together since 1984. The Kinks are the only surviving band from the sixties with all members still living. Townsend asks that he would like to see a full reunion. Afterwards Ray takes the band for a curry at an old haunt in Muswell Hill, Dave has a take-away

2006 - The release of Ray’s first studio solo record, "Other Peoples Lives" on V2 Record arrives to great critical acclaim. Ray tours the UK and US in support

Nov 2007 – V2 release Ray’s second solo album "Working Man’s Café" which is launched with a show at the BBC Proms featuring the 60 piece "Crouch End festival Chorus".

Jan 2008 – New West release "Working Man’s Café" in the US where Ray follows it with two weeks of dates

June 19 and 20th 2008 - Ray performs two shows at the Hampton Court festival with his band plus choir.

September - Nov 2008 - Ray performs his musical "Come Dancing" at the Stratford East Theatre in East London. Ray had been working on the musical for over ten years which he has written all the music for. Ray sings, narrates and acts in the musical which plays to packed houses. It goes on to win the Whats On Stage Best off West End Musical Award

December 2008 - The Kinks - Picture Book is released - A deluxe 6 cd box set featuring tracks from the bands entire career. It showcases them at everystage in their career, including many unreleased tracks and demo versions of well known tracks. Ray does a short tour of the US

June 2009 - Ray releases The Kinks Choral Collection which is his highest charting album in the UK sinces the 60s. In support of the album he plays an outdoor show at Kenwood House Hampstead Heath with the Crouch End Festival Chorus, just within view of where the pictures to "Village Green Preservation Society" were taken

September 2009 - Ray tours Sweden, Norway and Holland

October 2009 - Ray is invited by Metallica to sing with them at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at Madison Square Gardens. Ray is voted one of the best performers of the evening for the great versions of You Really Got Me and All Day and All of the Night with Metallica. Other performers that night include Lou Reed, U2, Mick Jagger, Ozzy and the Black Eyed Peas

Nov 2009 - Off the back of a US release of The Kinks Choral Collection Ray tours the States featuring four packed shows with a choirs. Ray also appears of David Letterman for the Choir

Dec 2009 - Ray tours the UK with shows in Birmingham and London featuring the Crouch End Festival Choir