A founding member of the Kinks, bassist Pete Quaife recently died from kidney failure. Forty-six years ago, the Kinks were part of the rising British Invasion, signed to Pye Records by noted record producer Shel Talmy. Quaife played bass on the band’s classic early singles, such as the breakthrough hit "You Really Got Me," "All Day and All of the Night," and the 1965 classic, "See My Friends," one of the earliest rock and roll songs to incorporate Indian musical influences. He also sang backup on the single "Waterloo Sunset" and was an early proponent of Rickenbacker 4000-series basses

Quaife was seriously injured in a 1966 car accident which resulted in him temporarily leaving the band. He rejoined later that year and worked with the Kinks on records such as Something Else By The Kinks and The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, the latter of which Quaife regarded as the best thing he ever recorded with the band. Tired of the ignominious in-fighting between the Davies brothers, however, Quaife left the band in 1969. He briefly worked in an unsuccessful country-rock band called Maple Oak before retiring from the music business entirely. Quaife later worked as a graphic artist and cartoonist, living in Canada and Denmark, but his role as a member of the Kinks during their early years remains an indelible image of ’60s British rock. – <strong>Pete Prown</strong>