•Their 1968 album Odessey and Oracle is considered by many to be a masterpiece and a landmark in Britpop
•Their 1969 hit "Time Of The Season" served as a soundtrack to the hippie movement
• The Zombies are alive and well and touring the states this summer
"She's Not There" was only the second song Rod Argent had ever written.
The group's 1966 song "I Love You" was later released by the group People! in a very similar arrangement, becoming a hit in the summer of 1968. Argent went on to form Argent, of "Hold Your Head Up" fame; he also penned Three Dog Night's "Liar" and "God Gave Rock And Roll To You," later covered by Kiss. Their album
Oracle was only released in the US after musician Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat and Tears insisted upon it, saying it "stuck out like a rose in a garden of weeds"
Early years: The Zombies were centered around St. Albans' school in Hertfordshire, where Argent, Grundy, and guitarist Paul Atkinson began playing together in 1961. Eventually, bassist Paul Arnold was added, and introduced the others to singer Colin Blunstone, persuaded to leave his job at an insurance firm. Colin's fellow schoolmate Chris White soon took Arnold's place, and the group developed a local following; unsure as to whether they should continue after school ended, the band was persuaded by Argent and White to enter a local talent contest. The Zombies had a deal with Decca before the contest was even decided.
Success: Rod Argent showed up at the studios with a song he'd written specifically for the occasion, a dark brooder called "She's Not There." But a cover of Gershwin's "Summertime" was the heavy favorite for first single. Fortunately, label producer Ken Jones insisted that "She's Not There" was the hit, and while it did relatively well in the UK, heavy exposure by New York radio powerhouse WINS led it to sell two and a half million copies stateside. The same year "Tell Her No" did almost as well, but that appeared to be it for the group, who couldn't match their earlier successes.
Later years: In 1967, however, the band signed to CBS to cut one last album, and the result, Odessey and Oracle, was an instant classic. But the album languished, the band broke up, and the Zombies weren't heard from again until two years later, when DJs around the country began picking up on CBS' last Zombie single, "Time Of The Season." The die had been cast by that point, but it remains popular today, and along with their growing critical rep, allowed Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone to hit the road with a new lineup in 2001, which today performs as the Zombies. (The five original members reunited only once, for a two-song 1997 concert.)
Chris Tuthill, their American agent at TCI writes: "Here’s an interesting fact about the current line-up: Jim Rodford on bass (Rod Argent’s cousin) was instrumental in helping The Zombies form in the early 60’s, and even lent them gear for their first rehearsal. He didn’t join at the time; he later joined Rod as a founding member of ARGENT, and afterwards, became a member of The Kinks for almost 20 years. Now, many decades later, he is an official Zombie! and so is his son Steve, who now plays drums for them!
The Kinks marked the first time in British music where jejune modern life became one of it’s themes. The Kinks consistent caricatures of modern life in London would go on to influence hundreds of band’s who wanted something to write about besides unctuous themes of love.
After their initial success of “You really got me” and “All day and all of the night”, they went on to create some of the most sophisticated music for the time.
It was in the late 60’s that they hit their stride with a string of memorable singles such as “Waterloo Sunset” which embodied the apathetic easiness better than any song before. In 1968 when they released “The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society”, they had finally been given the high rank in British pop that they deserved. What was a 2 sided theme album, was full of valent songwriting full of catchy chorus’s and jumpy rhythms. Listen to “Starstruck” just once and you will have the chorus in your head for months. Nowhere was the apathetic London attitude more noticeable than on the title track for the album. Complete with candy-coated back up vocals and clever lyrics only known to Ray Davies at the time, “The Village Green Preservation Society” would go down as one of the greatest songs of all time
The Kinks
The Kinks output in the 70’s would tend on the side of larger concept albums that were too theatrical compared to the relative ease in which jocular social commentary came to the Kinks in the 60s. What The Kinks will be remembered for are songs like “Lola”, “Ape Man” and “Autumn Almanac” which were songs that never took themselves too seriously but always pierced the skin of larger social themes. It’s hard to think of a band more British than the Kinks, and it’s hard to think of a songwriter as acute on modern life than Ray Davies. It would be erroneous to not include them on a “Top Ten British Bands of All Time” list.
Despite being less commercially successful than the Beatles, Stones and the Who, the Kinks are cited among one of the most important and influential rock bands of all time. They were revered among other musicians, but they were unable to capture a fan base, mostly because of a four-year ban from the United States in the mid-to-late 1960s.
The band's early hard-driving singles set a standard in the mid-1960s for rock and roll, while albums such as Face to Face, Something Else, Arthur and Muswell Hillbillies are now highly regarded by fans, critics, and peers, and are considered among the most influential recordings of that era.
Ray Davies was awarded the rank of Commander of the British Empire, or CBE (the rank below Knighthood), by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 for "services to music." On January 4 of that year, Ray Davies was shot in the leg while pursuing a thief who had snatched the purse of his companion in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
Their 1968 album Odessey and Oracle is considered by many to be a masterpiece and a landmark in Britpop 
