Though the Kinks have been inactive since 1994, Ray Davies [ tickets ] has stepped up his solo touring in the ensuing years. He will hit more than 20 U.S. cities on tour in September and October.

This tour finds Davies taking a breather from recording his first solo studio album (with a working title of "Why Suddenly Now?"), which features New York art-rockers Yo La Tengo backing Davies on several tracks. Davies has accumulated dozens of new songs in recent years and the tour will likely be a road test of the material for the album in progress.

Davies has already garnered high praise for his inventive live shows in the '90s. A series of gigs titled Storyteller, which combined new songs and readings from his biography, "X-Ray," was so successful that VH-1 spun it into its own intimate concert series.

Davies is best known as the songwriter and singer from the Kinks, his brother Dave's R&B band which Davies usurped as a vehicle for his pop hooks and poetic songwriting. While the Davies brothers were notoriously battling one another, they scored hits in the '60s with "You Really Got Me," and by the late '70s and ‘80s were a staple, commercial rock act in the States.