Animals - The white road to rhythm'n'blues

We were the first band to bring the rough, primitive drive of rhythm'n'blues into pop music

(Eric Burdon)

Many of the British bands that emerged in the early 1960s built their musical identity on blues and rhythm'n'blues, "stars and stripes" genres that reached the land of Albion through imported records and radio broadcasts. Those languages, born in very specific African-American contexts, were absorbed by young English musicians, who studied them closely and reworked them through a different cultural sensibility, more urban and in some cases more aggressive.

Within just a few years, this process of assimilation gave rise to a kind of "return" to the United States: no longer the original blues, but a reinterpretation of it filtered through British experience, enriched by the energy of rock'n'roll and a growing attention to pop song structure. The result was a new sound, more direct and powerful, which in turn went on to influence the American music market.

Driving this phenomenon were, of course, the Beatles, who, starting out from rock and rhythm'n'blues roots, had quickly shifted toward increasingly pop and relatively experimental forms. Around them grew the so-called "British Invasion," a wave that symbolically began in February 1964, when the Fab Four appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, and which went on to conquer the American charts, eventually shifting the balance of the entire international music industry. Among the other key players of that season were the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, the Kinks, the Who and, last but not least, the Animals.

The saga of the Animals, the band that, more than any other on English soil, helped pave the way toward a rhythm'n'blues with a "white" soul, is closely tied to singer Eric Burdon, who from boyhood had shown an unhealthy passion for blues music. Born into a working-class family on May 1st, 1941, in Walker, a south-eastern suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, Burdon had a difficult and troubled childhood. In that northern English town, at the time "dirty, filthy" and perpetually rain-soaked, our man also had to contend with frequent asthma attacks, while his school years only deepened a constant sense of oppression, as if he were living, as he put it, inside "a Dickensian nightmare." His primary school stood in an unhealthy part of town, wedged between a slaughterhouse and a shipyard, and there he was bullied both by classmates and teachers. Despite an environment of rigid discipline and constant obstacles, during his secondary school years he was lucky enough to meet Bertie Brown, a teacher who urged him to enroll at Newcastle College of Art and Industrial Design, where he devoted himself to graphic design and photography without ever losing sight of music. He managed to get hold of records of the most exciting sounds around either through the odd trip to Paris, or thanks to a sailor neighbour who always came back from the United States with a hefty stash of singles and LPs.

The stimulating atmosphere of the College brought Burdon into contact with several young nonconformists (including drummer John Steel), who shared his passion for jazz, folk and film. It was with Steel that he formed his first band (the Pagan Jazzmen, later the Pagans), making a name for himself in 1958 as a singer of real talent in a handful of live shows. After coming into contact with other figures from the English blues scene, between 1962 and 1963 Burdon became, together with Steel, a permanent member of the Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo, a quintet rounded out, besides leader Alan Price (organ and keyboards), by guitarist Hilton Valentine and bassist Bryan "Chas" Chandler.

Alan Price has said he started playing at the age of eleven during a long convalescence from jaundice, learning pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven by ear. He later gravitated toward New Orleans jazz and, after initial reservations about rock'n'roll, had a change of heart thanks to Lonnie Donegan and Chuck Berry. Having fallen for the blues through Burdon, Price adapted his own style to stride piano and, thanks to his knack for teamwork, became a kind of musical "translator" for the singer, who was already a charismatic presence by then.

Having taken the far more fitting name of The Animals (which better reflected their savage onstage sonic assaults), the band carved out a leading role for themselves on the local scene. Their live shows were pure electric shock: a raw, visceral blend of amplified blues and rock'n'roll attitude that, gig after gig, ended up hypnotizing audiences, thanks above all to white-hot reworkings of classics by blues masters such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed. And yet, despite their local success, the confines of the city could no longer contain them.

In the meantime, they had recorded an EP containing four covers (Willie Dixon's "I Wanna Make Love To You" and "Big Boss Man," John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom Boom" and Bo Diddley's "Pretty Thing"), pressed in a run of just five hundred copies with only local distribution. As luck would have it, those grooves also caught the ear of promoter and producer Giorgio Gomelsky, who, at the end of 1963, travelled all the way to Newcastle to record a couple of their shows, later collected on The Animals Live At The Club A Go Go and The Animals With Sonny Boy Williamson. While the first, rougher and more visceral, captured the band tearing into a vibrant rhythm'n'blues driven by Eric Burdon's intense voice and Alan Price's distinctive organ, the second stands as a perfect example of a spontaneous dialogue between English devotion and American roots.

Encouraged by Gomelsky, the band ended up moving to London, where they began soaking up its exciting, already "swinging" atmosphere. With the backing of manager Michael Jeffery, in the English capital Burdon and co. managed to land a contract with EMI Columbia, which by January 1964 had them straight into the studio with producer Mickie Most. An expert in pop-oriented production, Most advised the band to soften their sound slightly. "Although Mickie certainly had an ear for picking hit songs, I never thought he really deserved the reputation he had as a producer," Burdon recalls. "Naturally, we didn't make his life easy. England was going through a social revolution and it had suddenly become fashionable to be northern and working-class. For those who didn't grow up in England in the Fifties and Sixties, I should point out that there was a clear social divide between those who came from the north and Londoners – and anyone from the north was genuinely looked down upon. The Animals were the rawest thing Mickie had ever had to deal with, and he quickly learned that you didn't control the Animals: sure, he could steer us, offer suggestions, but our basic nature was to be out of control."

The Animals' first single ("Baby Let Me Take You Home"/"Gonna Send You Back To Walker," both covers) made a decent showing (reaching number twenty-one in the charts) thanks to a delightful beat-flavoured twist on r'n'b.

For their second single, the band once again opted to rework someone else's material, this time borrowing the traditional song "The House Of The Rising Sun" (whose origins seem to date back as far as the 17th century), already explored by, among others, Woody Guthrie, Dave Van Ronk and Bob Dylan. Yet the best-known version remains the one the Animals released in June 1964, which shot straight to the top of both the British and American charts — much to the astonishment of Most and Jeffery, who had moved heaven and earth to get Burdon and his bandmates to record something shorter ("The House Of The Rising Sun" clocks in at four minutes and thirty seconds) and, in short, better suited to radio airplay.

Compared to the original version, which tells of a "house of the rising sun" — in other words, a brothel in Storyville, New Orleans' red-light district between 1897 and 1917 — the Animals' take turns the song's protagonist, a prostitute, into a boy, son of a seamstress, raised in the shadow of a father consumed by gambling and by years spent inside that same "house" that had already ruined so many desperate souls before him. After dragging his life through guilt, squalor and bitterness, our hero prepares to return to that great Louisiana city a beaten man, almost like a convict being led to his sentence, chains on his feet and no way out. Out of this defeat comes the heartfelt warning, addressed to his mother, to tell her children never to make his same mistakes.

There is a house in New Orleans

They call the Rising Sun

And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy

Dear God, I know I was one

My mother was a tailor

She sewed my new blue jeans

And my father was a gamblin’ man

Way down in New Orleans

With their electric, dark and solemn arrangement, the Animals transformed a traditional song into something new, effectively helping to show that rock could also be narrative, dramatic and, in short, "adult". But this universal tale of downfall, moral poverty and personal damnation is also one of the signature showcases for Burdon's vocal style, a style distinguished by a rough, intense timbre, where the voice is geared more towards emotional impact than technical polish. Alternating between restraint and sudden vocal outbursts, Burdon turns the singing into a kind of dramatic narration, one that in certain ways anticipates some of the harder, more aggressive sounds rock would later embrace.

Chosen as the B-side of "House Of The Rising Sun" was "Talkin' 'bout You", which, in the name of Ray Charles, is well worth hearing for its healthy soul energy.

Just when everyone had started to regard the Animals as merely an excellent folk-rock band, along came the third single, "I'm Crying"/"Take It Easy", to set the record straight with a rougher, more biting sound.

In October 1964, the English band also released their first, self-titled LP The Animals, which in its American edition opened with "The House Of The Rising Sun" itself (albeit in its radio edit form), a track that was dropped from the UK edition, whose tracklist instead opened with the diddley beat of "The Story Of Bo Diddley".

Although it couldn't fully capture the sheer impact the band delivered live, the record (dominated by covers of other artists' songs: John Lee Hooker, Fats Domino and Chuck Berry, among others) is, especially in its UK version, far from negligible in its take on blues and rhythm'n'blues ("Dimples", "I'm Mad Again"), often marked by a pop edge ("I've Been Around") or a rock'n'roll bent ("The Girl Can't Help It", "She Said Yeah", "Memphis Tennessee").

At the start of 1965, the Animals were back in action with The Animals On Tour, an album that, despite its title, contains only studio recordings, including new versions of tracks from the UK edition of their first album plus the singles "I'm Crying" and "Boom Boom".

Striking while the iron of their fame was still red-hot, that same September the band released Animal Tracks, a record that falls short of giving a truly faithful picture of their talent, but which nonetheless, especially in its UK version, offers up some generally more inspired tracks, from the rock'n'roll numbers "Mess Around", "Roberta" and "I Ain't Got You", to the shifting dynamics of "Bright Lights, Big City", by way of the romanticized Chuck Berry of "How You've Changed", the show-stealing Ray Charles homage "Hallelujah, I Love Her So" and the vaudeville echoes of "Let The Good Times Roll".

On the American edition of the album, among the most interesting tracks are "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place", with its infectious groove and bright chorus, the tribute to Nina Simone that is "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", and the sparkling "Club A Go-Go", co-written by Burdon and Price.

Sealing the band's huge popularity were also appearances in the films "Get Yourself A College" (1964) by Sidney Miller and "Pop Gear" (1965) by Frederic Goode, in which Burdon and co. perform, respectively, "Around And Around" and the inevitable "The House Of The Rising Sun".

Baby, do you understand me now?

Sometimes I feel a little mad

But don’t you know, no one alive can always be an angel

When things go wrong, I seem to be bad

I’m just a soul whose intentions are good

Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood

Right after recording the single "Bring It On Home to Me"/"For Miss Caulker" (April 1965), Alan Price left the band, citing his fear of flying as an excuse. In reality, what pushed him to that decision were mostly the tensions that, over the previous months, had flared up between him (who, like Most, wanted to keep moving toward more distinctly pop sounds) and the Burdon-Valentine duo, who instead wanted to bring out the band's rawer, more blues-driven soul. But there was something else too, as Price himself would recall: "I was tired and confused. I was the first to give in to the conflict between what was being demanded of us and what we were trying to live. At the start we genuinely had fun doing what we did. Then, once we became professionals and had great success, the demands started to weigh on us, and they never took into account how we felt, what we wanted to play, or our own ideas. Decisions were made for us without our knowing. It had a castrating effect."

Having brought in Dave Rowberry as Price's replacement (after a brief spell with Mick Gallagher on board), the Animals thus freed themselves of Columbia and Most and signed with Decca, the label that had promised them greater control over their own music. The first two singles released for the new label ("Inside – Looking Out"/"Outcast" and "Don't Bring Me Down"/"Cheating"), issued between February and May 1966, not only sold extremely well but also showcased, thanks in part to producer Tom Wilson's work, a sound as energetic as it was abrasive, putting the Animals in direct competition with bands such as Rolling Stones and Yardbirds.

Like its predecessors, the album Animalism (November 1966) also came out in different versions on either side of the Atlantic. Built on a vibrant blend of R&B, soul and rock'n'roll, the Animals captured on this record aren't always memorable, and in the end the tracks worth remembering are mostly the soul-infused "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show", the swaggering stride of "Maudie", the re-recording of the single "Outcast" (with guitar poised between fuzz and surf tones), the handclaps of "Clapping", the pulsing rock'n'roll of "Squeeze Her-Tease Her" and the blazing "That's All I Am to You".

On the American version (released three months earlier), the band even found themselves working with Frank Zappa, who wrote, produced, and probably also played on the opening track, "All Night Long", as well as on the cover of Fred Neil's "The Other Side Of This Life". Also worth mentioning is "See See Rider", a reworking of a traditional song probably tied to the African-American vaudeville circuit, which the Animals, drawing on Ma Rainey's 1924 version, turned into a crackling blues-psychedelic march driven by Rowberry's organ.

Meanwhile, the line-up had been shaken up again with the departure of drummer John Steel, whose place was taken by Barry Jenkins, who immediately threw his support behind lider maximo Burdon's idea of steering the Animals toward psychedelic territory, in keeping with the trend that, right around that time, was taking hold in pop and rock circles. But not everyone agreed. Tensions within the band became so unbearable that its members decided to put an end to the whole venture. Burdon, however, had no intention of sitting idle. So, after trying to find new members on English soil, he packed his bags and, once he'd convinced Jenkins to join him, flew off to California, where the psychedelic sound was in full bloom.

"Back in '64, during the Animals' early tours, John Steel and I were lucky enough to see San Francisco shortly before the psychedelic explosion. Those were the days when Lenny Bruce was doing his stand-up shows at the Hungry I, but also the days of the West Coast jazz and poetry scene. Going back in 1967 and seeing the city's new face was truly staggering. The conflict in Vietnam had begun in the early '60s, but by 1967 tension was sky-high across the United States. There was no middle ground: you had to pick a side. In California I sensed something that was missing in England, something my friends back there struggled to grasp. It was a feeling, an underlying conviction that encouraged a new outlook, a psychedelic sense of humour, new ways of living and dressing. I didn't want to become American, but I wanted to become Californian."

Having signed a deal with MGM, Burdon recorded new material together with Jenkins and the orchestras of Benny Golson and Horace Ott (the latter a co-writer, along with Bennie Benjamin and Sol Marcus, of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", whose cover by the Animals had enjoyed decent success as a single in 1965). The result of these new sessions was Eric Is Here (March 1967), stuffed with covers. Released under the name Eric Burdon & The Animals, it's a far from memorable work, torn between psychedelic pop ("In The Night"), soul ("Mama Told Me Not to Come", "I Think It's Gonna Rain Today"), rhythm'n'blues ("That Ain't Where It's At") and watered-down Rolling Stones impressions ("Losin' Control", "It's Not Easy", "The Biggest Bundle Of Them All").

With the new line-up completed by the arrival of bassist John Weider and guitarists Danny McCulloch and Vic Briggs, Burdon managed to record a first, convincing example of the new sound, poised between blues roots and fresh psychedelic leanings, with the single "When I Was Young"/"A Girl Named Sandoz", whose B-side also boasted guitar so distorted it could already be called proto-hard rock. Two more successful singles followed, "San Franciscan Nights"/"Good Times" and "Monterey"/"Ain't That So", with which the English singer paid tribute, among other things, to the acid-soaked nights of the cradle of psychedelic culture (San Francisco) and to the first great festival of the rock era (the Monterey Pop Festival), held between 16 and 18 June of that unforgettable year 1967 (for the record, Eric Burdon & The Animals played on the opening day).

"For me it was almost a religious festival," Burdon recalls. "A real high point of the '60s vision of uniting music and spirituality. Ravi Shankar told the crowd to put out their joints, and they did. I didn't see much because I was busy at the hotel, but I went out for Otis Redding, and it was incredibly moving, because he was right in the middle of the Black Power moment and had an all-white audience in front of him. It was pouring rain, but I wasn't cold. I stood next to a girl I didn't know — I later found out she was an English actress — and we held hands. Everything felt unreal. And Hendrix was incredible."

The "winds of change" blowing through youth culture were finally captured by the band on the album Winds Of Change (November 1967), split between a side A dominated by psychedelia and a side B where the songs are structured in a more conventional way. Burdon was keen to point out that he hadn't abandoned the blues, but that he was now offering up the blues of his own mind. On the cover, under the name The New Animals, he had a message of sharing, vulnerability and hope printed, whose underlying point is that you have to accept your own emotions and turn them into something that can connect with and give meaning to others.

Winds Of Change opens with the hypnotic litany, complete with Indian-style violin, of the title track, which could almost be mistaken for a heavily slowed-down version of the "Tomorrow Never Knows" by the Beatles. Next comes the aching ballad "Poem By The Sea", which gradually dissolves into a din of echoes and thuds, out of which, alone, the anguished sound of Weider's violin still emerges.

After the "raga-rock" cover of "Paint It Black" (Rolling Stones), the record slides into the sinister textures of "The Black Plague", with Burdon reciting surreal verses while bells toll all around and fragments of Gregorian chant materialize. And while "Yes I Am Experienced" pays tribute, right from the title, to the Jimi Hendrix of his memorable debut, the job of closing out side one falls to a reprise of the single "San Franciscan Nights". Side two, overall less interesting, opens with tribal rhythms and an incantatory spoken part ("Man–Woman"), then splits between the folk textures and Morricone-esque moods of "Hotel Hell", the beat of "Good Times", the somewhat baroque and altogether forgettable love-song "Anything" and, to close, the soul-rock of "It's All Meat".

What Winds Of Change had set in motion found full realization on the follow-up, The Twain Shall Meet (May 1968), an even more ambitious record. The album's title comes from a line by Rudyard Kipling (“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”), taken from his famous 1889 poem (“The Ballad Of East And West”). In the view of the great Indian-born poet, two vastly different worlds, East and West, were destined never to meet. Burdon's chosen title, however, points to exactly the opposite. It was a meaningful choice, one that reflected the spirit of the Sixties, a period when people sought to overcome cultural divides and bring different experiences into contact with one another. It's no coincidence, then, that the album opens with the “Monterey” already released as a single at the end of 1967.

Young Gods smiled upon the crowd

Their music being born of love

Children danced night and day

Religion was being born

Down in Monterey

The birds and the airplane did fly

Oh, Ravi Shankars music made me cry

The Who exploded into fire and light

Hugh Masakela's music was black as night

The Grateful Dead blew everybodies mind

Jimi Hendrix baby, believe me, set the world on fire, yeah

His Majesty, Prince Jones, smiled as he moved among the crowd

Ten thousand electric guitars were grooving real loud, yeah

Drawing on the more introspective side of his creativity, Burdon paints a smooth, dark ballad in “Just The Thought” (handed over to Danny McCulloch's voice), then gives free rein to blues-rock with “Closer To The Truth”, which surely owes something to the Doors as well. Both “No Self Pity” and “We Love You Lil” focus on depicting a psyche altered by psychedelic drugs, while “Orange And Red Beams” (again sung by McCulloch) leans on soul-pop orchestration, and “All Is One”, still in raga-rock mode but with a more pronounced trance effect, raises an ode to the oneness of everything.

The record's most epic moments, however, lie within the more than seven minutes of “Sky Pilot”, which, with bagpipes, sounds of war, supersonic ascents and pop baroque flourishes, launches yet another indictment of all wars, so often backed by the Church, here symbolized by the figure of the chaplain (the “sky pilot” of the title), whose main job is to make sure the soldiers are also “soldiers of God”.

He mumbles a prayer and it ends with a smile

The order is given, they move down the line

But he’ll stay behind, and he’ll meditate

But it won’t stop the bleeding, or ease the hate

As the young men move out into the battle zone

He feels good, with God you’re never alone

He feels so tired as he lays on his bed

Hopes the men will find courage in the words that he said

Sky Pilot

Sky Pilot

How high can you fly?

You’ll never, never, never, reach the sky

Less striking, but still charming, was the follow-up Every One Of Us (July 1968), featuring Zoot Money on keyboards and vocals, who, for contractual reasons, had to be credited under the name George Bruno. Satirizing the explosive situation the United States was going through in that scorching 1968, “White Houses” raises the curtain with latin-folk flavors, giving way to the very brief interlude of “Uppers And Downers”, followed by the pensive bossa nova-flavored instrumental “Serenade To A Sweet Lady”, which does little, however, to justify its six-plus minutes. Even longer is “The Immigrant Lad”, which relies on acoustic folk interspersed with the sound of sea waves and seagull cries, before a spoken-word coda drastically lowers its overall quality. After the vibrant-grooved hard-blues of “Year Of The Guru” and a reprise of the twelve-bar classic “St. James Infirmary”, comes the record's most interesting moment, the long jam (roughly nineteen minutes) of “New York 1963-America 1968”, which drags along further references to the social inequalities and injustices of America at the time.

After replacing Briggs with Andy Summers (yes, the very same guitarist who, years later, would find success with the Police!), Eric Burdon and The Animals returned to the fray with the double album Love Is (December 1968), through which the singer gave free rein to his passion for rhythm'n'blues, a genre he showcased exuberantly in his rendition of “River Deep, Mountain High”, taken from the repertoire of Ike & Tina Turner.

Made up almost entirely of extended covers – with the exception of the self-penned “I'm Dying (Or Am I?)”, which plays the card of a fine folk-rock full of elusive harmonies – the record is, overall, stronger than its predecessor, thanks to sturdy versions of “I'm An Animal” (which, tracing back to its Sly Stone source, blends blues-rock with funk and psychedelia), “Ring Of Fire” (a song Johnny Cash had in turn borrowed from the Carter Family, which the Animals transformed into an epic, moving blend of choral hymn and searing tension), a stretched-out version of Traffic's “Coloured Rain” (complete with a mile-long guitar solo, horn counterpoint and backing vocals by Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine), “To Love Somebody” (written by the Bee Gees back when they were still a baroque psych-pop band), “Madman” (an almost note-for-note rendition of “The Madman Running Through The Fields”, written by Summers during his earlier stint with the Dantalian's Chariot) and an anguish-laden “As The Years Go Passing By”.

To close out the record, Burdon asked guitarist Steve Hammond, a friend of Zoot Money, to write a long psychedelic piece evoking both Jimi Hendrix's most acid-drenched experiments (think of “Third Stone From The Sun”) and Pink Floyd's astral探索 — rather, their astral explorations. The result, “Gemini”, is one of the most inventive tracks in the Animals' catalogue, combining hard-psychedelic progressions, progressive digressions and sidereal wanderings, with Summers following in the footsteps of Syd Barrett's “Interstellar Overdrive”.

The band had reached another creative peak, but the winds were shifting once again. “We'd become one of the bands of the late-60s counterculture, and wherever the freak flag was flying, we were there to have our say,” Burdon would later recall. “On the home front, a war of youthful rebellion was raging, and it was an exciting, extraordinary time to be alive. The birth of the Black Panthers, the Native American movement, the start of the feminist movement, the be-ins, the love-ins, the drive-ins: all of it seeped into our skin and then resurfaced through our clothes, our language, the music, the drugs — everything. The 'death of the hippie' had been predicted in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, a couple of years earlier, but it was only in '69 that things truly began to fade out.” And further: “In rock and roll, innocence is always the first casualty. It was the same with Jimi. By the time he got to Woodstock, there were no more guitars being set on fire. By then, the rainbow had already faded. That's why the Woodstock film is so misleading: Jimi didn't play to a crowd of four hundred thousand people at the peak moment. He played early in the morning, in front of the freaks and hills covered in garbage. His 'Star Spangled Banner' wasn't a battle cry — it was a funeral lament announcing the death of the dream. He took the illusion of American patriotism and used it to conjure bombed villages and children burned by napalm.”

With the flower-power dream now over, at the start of 1969 Eric Burdon and The Animals decided to call it a day. The reasons for the split, however, weren't only down to the shifting times. A disastrous tour of Japan also played a part. It was originally supposed to start in September 1968, but was pushed back to November due to visa problems. After just a few dates, the promoters - who, in fact, turned out to be members of the yakuza (!), Japan's fearsome mafia - kidnapped the band's manager and, with a gun pointed at his head, forced him to sign a promissory note for $25,000 to cover their losses. Realizing the crooks couldn't read English, the manager added a note stating he was signing under duress. He was then released, but given an ultimatum: leave Japan by the next day or face the consequences. The band left immediately, abandoning all their equipment.

After that episode, the members went their separate ways: Money and Summers pursued solo careers, Weider joined Family, while Burdon, driven by his love of black music, joined War, a Long Beach, California outfit known for its hybrid of funk and rhythm'n'blues. The lineup at the time was Howard Scott (guitar), Lee Oskar (harmonica), Charles Miller (tenor sax, flute), Lonnie Jordan (organ, piano), Bee Bee Dickerson (bass), Harold Brown (drums) and Dee Allen (conga, percussion).

Credited to Eric Burdon and War, Eric Burdon Declares "War" came out in May 1970, marked by doses of soul and psychedelia but no particular flashes of creative inspiration.

The follow-up, the double album The Black-Man's Burden (December 1970), fared better, its tracks forming a "progressive" continuum of jazz-funk and Latin-tinged grooves, tribal flights, bluesy stretches and recitations somewhere between the surreal and the satirical - well exemplified by the album's thirteen-plus-minute centerpiece, "Paint It Black Medley", in which the reworking of the classic by the Rolling Stones is really just an excuse to throw caution to the wind.

Alongside other long meditations chasing Doors-like mirages ("Spirit", with a fine sax solo), blues sensuality ("Sun/Moon") and soul flare-ups ("Pretty Colors"), there's also room for songs that move from encounters of "acid" poetry and jazz ("Out Of Nowhere") to romantic moods (the saccharine two-part reprise of the Moody Blues' "Nights In White Satin" and the closing "They Can't Take Away Our Music"), not to mention the raucously drunken "Beautiful New Born Child". Mostly thanks to its use of flute, "The Bird And The Squirrel" brings to mind Jethro Tull, while "Bare Back Ride" hollers and hops along in boogie mode, and "Home Cookin'" still has the Rolling Stones in mind.

In 1971, for reasons never fully explained, Burdon left War to their own devices, soon after striking up a partnership with singer Jimmy Witherspoon, with whom he recorded a forgettable electric blues album, Guilty!, released in December of that same year.

Having recruited Aalon Butler (guitar), Randy Rice (bass) and Alvin Taylor (drums) for the Eric Burdon Band, and after recording a couple of albums poised between hard rock and psych-rock (Sun Secrets, 1974, featuring a martial-sounding version of "Ring Of Fire" and the sprawling blues meditation "Letter From The County Farm"; Stop, 1975, with the jazzy "Gotta Get It On"), by the end of 1975 Burdon had returned to the roots of his musical journey, reassembling the old Animals lineup. The result was Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted, which, however, wasn't released until August 1977, right in the midst of the punk era, and credited to The Original Animals. "It was a casual, one-off thing," John Steel would later recall. "I was working with Chas, Eric had moved back to Europe, Alan was free. I think the idea came from the head of Polydor and it just took off. We got Hilton over from California and used the Rolling Stones' mobile studio. But nobody really wanted to promote it, so we recorded it and put it out just to see if anyone would buy it, then went back to our own things."

Made up entirely of covers, Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted ranges from the country-rock of "Brother Bill (The Last Clean Shirt)" to the rock'n'roll of "Fire On The Sun" (Shaky Jake), from the blues of "As The Crow Flies" (Jimmy Reed) to the languid ballad "Please Send Me Someone To Love" (Percy Mayfield). There's also room for folk-rock, as in the fine version of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". The album stalled at No. 70 on the US charts, but still deserves credit for sparking renewed interest in the band, who, remarkably, found themselves brushing up against the UK Top Ten in 1982 with their old warhorse, "The House Of The Rising Sun".

Meanwhile, Burdon on his own, helped by old friend Zoot Money, wrote new material for his first solo album, slated for release in March 1978. Survivor, as the LP was titled, softens blues-rock with hefty doses of pop sheen, rounding everything off with radio-friendly production. In short, among its grooves are some well-played tracks (on "The Kid", the ghost of Lou Reed seems to haunt Burdon's voice), but ones clearly aimed at an audience with none-too-demanding tastes.

Slightly more successful was Darkness – Darkness, recorded a couple of months after the release of Survivor but not put out until 1980. It too consisted entirely of covers, starting with the Jesse Colin Young track that gives the album its title.

In 1981, the film project Comeback took shape, directed by Christel Buschmann and centered on Eric Burdon, who starred in it. Alongside it, a new lineup of his band was put together (Louisiana Red, Tony Braunagle, John Sterling and Snuffy Walden), which recorded live material between Los Angeles and Berlin. During the German leg, however, the lineup changed considerably, leaving John Sterling as the only steady member.

The film's soundtrack came out in 1982.

A year later, having signed with Irs (the label that had, not long before, signed Rem), Burdon - once again backed by Zoot Money and his lifelong bandmates - dusted off the Animals name, even venturing into new wave territory with the uneven Ark (August 1983), which also flirts with reggae ("Love Is For All Time") alongside a delightful slice of power-pop in "Being There".

In 1984, after a successful world tour, Burdon entered a critical phase due to drug-related problems. It would take a full four years before he could get back on his feet with the eminently dispensable I Used To Be An Animal, on which he was backed by some fifteen musicians who helped him navigate between pop, rock, new wave, glam, disco-music, electronics and whatever else.

In 1991, together with keyboardist Brian Auger, he formed the Eric Burdon – Brian Auger Band, responsible for the live album Access All Areas – Live (1993), buoyed by the modest success of the title track.

The whole of the Nineties went on, then, amid the launch of new bands (the Eric Burdon I Band), various collaborations and a few new albums caught between nostalgia for the past and the desire to still look ahead.

His most recent work to date, ‘Til Your River Runs Dry, dates back to 2013. Blues and rock are its mainstays, as if to underline the inescapability of a past — his own, but also the past of the music we love most.

Having moved to Greece, in 2021 Eric Burdon collaborated with local artists Alex Sid and Quasamodo on the track “Don’t Ever Leave”, which in 2024 found a place in the TV series “I Paralia”. During the recording of that track, Burdon faced serious health problems and was hospitalized for pneumonia shortly after laying down the vocal parts. “Don’t Ever Leave” also marked his return to recording after more than ten years since ‘Til Your River Runs Dry. Despite his age, he kept on devoting himself to music: “I never stopped writing and exploring new musical directions, letting inspiration guide me along the way,” he told “American Songwriter”. “Writing remains a fundamental part of my creative expression, acting as a cathartic outlet for my thoughts, emotions and experiences”.

In August 2024, he played with a new incarnation of the Animals at the Fool in Love Fest in Inglewood, California, sharing the stage with, among others, Diana Ross, Santana, Smokey Robinson, Lionel Richie and Al Green. It was a brisk set, which still found room for immortal classics such as “Spill The Wine”, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and, of course, “The House Of The Rising Sun”.

In 2025 there was some excited talk of a possible recording comeback for Eric Burdon, with the announcement of a new album, his first in over a decade, and a new tour planned for 2026. So far, however, those prospects remain more statements of intent than actual projects underway.

Meanwhile, Burdon has turned 85, and the legend of the Animals lives on among those who experienced it firsthand or who, in any case, still keep alive the memory of one of the most unforgettable eras in rock history.

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