Pete Quaife, the original bassist for The Kinks, passed away Thursday (June 24) at age 66 in Herlev, Denmark.
Quaife formed the band with Ray and Dave Davies in 1962. While some of The Kinks’ early singles flopped, they eventually achieved success in both America and the U.K. on the strength of early garage rock hits such as ‘You Really Got Me’ and ‘All Day And All Of The Night.‘
Quaife temporarily left the band after a car accident in 1966, during which time he was replaced by John Dalton. Quaife ended up permanently splitting from The Kinks in 1969. In the 41 years since, he has reunited with his former bandmates on stage only twice: at a concert in Toronto in 1981 and at their induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1990.
Aside from The Kinks, Quaife has a pretty interesting career. After he left the band in 1969, Quaife formed Mapleoak, a country-rock outfit. Mapleoak derived its name from the Canuck heritage of members Stan Endersby and Marty Fisher.
Apparently being in a band with Canadians rubbed Quaife the right way. In 1980, he settled in Belleville, Ont. and set up shot up as a graphic artist. He lived there for the next 25 years, moving to Denmark after a divorce.
You gotta admire the fact that unlike the notoriously grouchy Davies brothers, Quaife had a hell of a sense of humour. He spent more than a decade at the end of his life on dialysis after renal failure in 1998. He published a book in 2004 consisting of cartoons he had drawn, entitled The Lighter Side Of Dialysis.
