ERIC BURDON
When Eric Burdon was a young lad in the early 1960’s running wild with his mates on the streets of his working class neighborhood in Newcastle, England, he discovered something which would eventually change his life and alter the course of popular music. “In my late school years and early college years,” Burdon said in a recent interview, “we thought we had discovered our own little secret gold mine, that being black rhythm and blues. At that time folk blues in America had been pushed underground.
I’d have to travel great distances, like to Paris just to buy records. So it became a kind of crusade for us. A kind of new-found religion.” Burdon’s travels to the Paris record shops quickly became a pilgrimage.
Back home in Newcastle, his intense interest in the American rhythm and blues scene drove him to seek out the clubs which featured rhythm and blues artists. “I remember hitchhiking to London to go to a club called Alexis’ Corner,” he said. “When I walked through the door and heard for the first time a real blues band I was blown away completely.
The music had a very special power, an enduring power.
Back then I didn’t think it would endure as long as it has!” After graduating from art school where he studied graphics and photography, Burdon became a musician and joined the Alan Price Combo in 1962. In 1963 the combo became the Animals, one of the original British Invasion bands. Drawing on material heavily influenced by black American rhythm and blues, The Animals went to the top of the pop charts with their No. 1 single “House of the Rising Sun” in 1964.
After a series of world tours which took their toll on the Animals, Burdon moved to San Francisco in 1966 and reformed the band under the title Eric Burdon and the Animals. He aligned with the leaders of the “flower power” movement and transformed his roughneck image into one of a peace prophet. Burden became a spokesman for the young people who were flocking to the Bay Area during the “Summer of Love” in 1967. Songs like “San Franciscan Nights” and “Monterey,” commemorating the legendary Monterey Pop Festival, were anthems for the growing counter-culture movement. His run of success with the Animals ended in 1969 and Burdon shrouded himself in mystery, living in virtual seclusion in Southern California. “People would say to me ‘I thought you weren’t alive. We thought you were dead,” said Burton. “People began to talk about me in the past tense.” He eventually surfaced fronting a band called Night Shift he’d found playing club dates in Los Angeles.
He changed the band’s name to War and they recorded two albums together.
Their debut album, “Eric Burdon Declares War,” featured the hit single “Spill the Wine”. After leaving War in 1971, Burdon recorded “Guilty” with blues legend Jimmy Witherspoon. Several solo projects later, Burdon recorded an Animals reunion album in 1977. A career in acting led to several appearances in European movies during the late 1970’s, including a starring role in ‘Comeback’, a German film for which he wrote the soundtrack score. Burdon has been touring around the world virtually nonstop for the past 10 years. His music has become a staple of classic tracks radio station play lists around the world and he is currently working on a live album from his more recent tours. “Whatever it takes,” said Burton, “I don’t look at my recording being charted as a necessity for being a success. I remember personally, being on the record charts was the beginning of the end for the Animals.
At an early age I found out that if you wake up and find you record high on the charts then the business end of this world starts to take over.” To this day many rockers credit Burdon’s vocal style and soulful delivery as a major influence. The vision which fueled his teen-age dream still lives on in his work and personal philosophy. “I had high hopes way back when that we wouldn’t be just another flash-in-the-pan. I don’t know what the terminology was for me in the 1960’s. I went from a rock and roll bum to a rock and roll icon,” he said laughing. Once considered an anarchist trying to stir up teen-age rebellion, Burdon, now 52, still recalls with pleasure his early days with the Animals when playing rock and roll and living that lifestyle were all that mattered.
“When I first started making this music it was just with my close knit little group of friends. What was great was once you become a part of a small cult like that you soon find out that there’s another subcult that’s exactly the same as yours in another town and place. That came for us as more that a surprise because up until then we thought the only ones doing this was us.”