Well, yeah, at least two people who might read this do know, but for the rest of you, “witness the lovely protectionism of mid-to-late-60’s America”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3833078/:
bq. In 1966 the American Federation of Musicians, convinced that British bands were getting a disproportionate share of musicians income, had the Kinks banned from touring in the United States. The organization finally relented in October 1969.
Presumably the AFM pressured the government to deny them work visas. The part that seems so frigging weird to me is, well…_The Kinks_? I mean, were they worried that if they banned the Beatles or the Stones there would be riots (not that weren’t anyway :), so they picked on someone who was arguably less-popular but still better known than most of their contemporaries?
It seems likely that this ban had a significant effect on the band, “since it kept them from playing the most lucrative market during a critical time”:http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11%3Ajtkku3y5anok%7ET1.
Anyway, here’s a nice little dose of the Kinks, from ??Do You Remember Walter??:
bq. Yes people often change,
but memories of people can remain.
