Kinks Co-Founder and Former Bassist Pete Quaife Dies

Original Kinks bassist and band co-founder Pete Quaife has died at the age of 66 -- the cause of death is as yet unconfirmed although the BBC website reports he had been undergoing kidney dialysis for over ten years.


Quaife quit the Kinks in 1969 before going on to form his own band a few months later but
Mapleoak never came close to achieving the success his former outfit enjoyed.

Quoted at the time as being unhappy with life in the Kinks, partly because of the tensions between brothers Ray and Dave Davies, Quaife ended his five-year stint in the band only to return for a one-off reunion show in Canada in 1981.

A fully-fledged reunion was mooted at the time but never came to fruition.

However it wasn't all negative for Quaife during his Kinks tenure. The highlight came with the recording of the 1968 'Village Green Preservation' album. Speaking to Jukebox magazine in 2006 the bassist recalled, "Making that album was the high point of my career. For me it represents the only real album made by the Kinks ... in which we all contributed something."
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Mapleoak

After leaving The Kinks, Quaife founded a new band, the country/rock outfit, Mapleoak. The group's name derived from the heritage of its members: The 'Maple' represented the two Canadian members of the group (singer-songwriters Stan Endersby (born 17 July 1947, in Lachine, Quebec, Canada) and Marty Fisher (born 24 December 1945, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), while the 'Oak' represented British members Quaife and drummer Mick Cook.

Quaife had contacts in Denmark, so the group gigged heavily there and in the UK during most of 1969 and early 1970. Cook left the band in June 1969, and was replaced by another Canadian: Gordon MacBain (born 5 August 1947, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada), who would write most of the group's original material.

Mapleoak released their first single, "Son of a Gun", in April 1970 but it failed to chart. Quaife then left both the band and the music industry. He subsequently moved to Denmark, and did not appear on Mapleoak's only album, which was released in 1971.

''Mapleoak" 1971