After doing some hitchhiking and opening a record shop, Davies became a recording studio intern/engineer at Island Studios. His first full session was on Brian Eno's 1973 LP, Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy). An appreciative Eno granted Davies a royalty on that album and his subsequent innovative releases with Davies. The two pioneered the "playing the studio like an instrument" concept: tape loops in pop music and using a rhythm box to lay down the beat during basic recording, then adding a live drummer later.

In 1990, Ray Davies left the music business to pursue other business interests, while still privately creating music.

Some Rhett Davies-related CDs are As Time Goes By, Mamouna by Bryan Ferry, More Than This: The Best of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, Popular Favorites 1984-1992: Sand In the Vaseline, More Songs About Buildings and Food by Talking Heads, Time Capsule: Greatest Hits by the B-52's, Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Another Green World, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Before & After Science, Music for Films by Brian Eno, Dire Straits by Dire Straits, Selling England By the Pound by Genesis, Avalon by Roxy Music, Legend [1985], Natural History: The Very Best of Talk Talk, Discipline, Beat, The Compact King-King Crimson, the movie soundtrack to 9 1/2 Weeks, Welcome Home, Everything's Different Now, Coming Up Close: A Retrospective by 'Til Tuesday, Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley by Robert Palmer, and the second TV soundtrack volume Miami Vice II.