Reprising the keen songs of the Kinks

After putting out his first solo album,

Other People's Lives

, in 2006, at the age of 62, it took Kinks leader Ray Davies only another year to put out the next,

Working Man's Cafe

. But just as he was getting the hang of going solo, Davies is now revisiting his catalog of masterfully observed songs like "Days" and "Shangri-La" with the Crouch End Festival Chorus on his new album,

The Kinks Choral Collection

.

"Ten years ago I was commissioned to write a choral piece for an arts festival with a hundred voices and a small symphony orchestra," explains Davies by phone from San Francisco. Davies, who plays the Tower Theater in Upper Darby on Saturday, continues, "And then two years ago, I was invited to do a BBC concert series called Electric Proms. I remembered the choir and we collaborated on some old Kinks songs, and it was a tremendous success."

Davies, who had his first hit with the Kinks, "You Really Got Me," when he was 19, is an original British invader whose audience is getting younger. That's in part due to the inclusion of Kinks songs in Wes Anderson films such as Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited. It's also, Davies says, because of the spirit with which they approached albums such as The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968).

"The Kinks have got a following among young bands," says Davies, who will perform with a five-man rock band (and no choir) at the Tower. "That's brilliant. I think it's because of a shared sensibility. We kind of had an indie feel. . . . We made the albums we wanted and we didn't kowtow to the industry. A lot of them didn't do that well at the time, but as a result they have a real longevity."

When the Kinks were starting, Davies says, "my influences were American blues and country, but I had to write about my own songs and my own experiences, but with an English sensibility about things I saw and observed. That's what makes the Kinks slightly different than other bands."

He is busy with various solo and Kinks-related projects. Last year, his musical Come Dancing toured England.

Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait is developing a film adaptation of the 1976 theatrical Kinks album Schoolboys in Disgrace, with Davies' blessing. Goldthwait "told me he wanted to make a movie that everyone who hated High School Musical would like," the Kinks-man says.

A Kinks reunion is not out of the question, depending on his brother, with whom he has a famously contentious relationship. Dave Davies had a stroke in 2004, but is again playing guitar. "I try to value it more as we get older," Davies says of the relationship. "But there's no letup in the rivalry, I guess."

At the Tower, Davies plans to mix in solo material with songs that convey a trademark timelessness.

"The England I write about in The Village Green Preservation Society vanished before I was born," Davies says. The songs are "remembrances of a time gone by that I didn't really experience myself."

But along with the wistfulness, there's optimism. "There's a sense that after the Second World War, when kids came along like me, that things could be better," Davies says. "That's what those songs mean to me. It was a time when things were possible. That was the general feeling, certainly in London. The bad times are over, and we're headed for a good time. Better days are around the corner."