Rick's Music Trivia

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ERIC BURDON, LEADER OF THE ANIMALS

January 15, 2019 — Leave a comment

 

Eric Burdon was born in 1941 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. His father, Matt, was originally from Tyneside. His mother, Rene, was originally from Ireland and moved to Scotland before settling in Newcastle in the 1930s. He also had a younger sister, Irene. Burdon states he often had a divided loyalty in his sense of place and identity. He was born to a lower working-class family; his father did electrical work in some of the clubs Burdon would later play. Because of his dad’s line of work in electrical repair, the Burdon family had a TV by the time Eric was 10; in his autobiography, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, he recalls the electrifying moment of first seeing Louis Armstrong on TV only beginning his love for the blues. This led him to take up the trombone. However, realizing that he wasn’t all that good a player, he took up singing and went to Newcastle Art College. In a song he wrote, “When I Was Young”, he states he met his first love at 13, who was very experienced while he was not. He also sings he smoked his first cigarette at 10 years old and would skip school with his friends to drink beer.

Burdon describes his early school years as a “dark nightmare”, due to the river pollution and humidity in Newcastle he suffered asthma attacks daily. During primary school, he was “Stuck at the rear of the classroom of around 40 to 50 kids and received constant harassment from kids and teachers alike.” He goes on to say his primary school was “Jammed between a slaughterhouse and a shipyard on the banks of the Tyne. Some teachers were sadistic – others pretended not to notice – and sexual molestation and regular corporal punishment with a leather strap was the order of the day”. 

By the time he got to secondary school, a teacher by the name of Bertie Brown was responsible for getting him into art school and changing his life forever. There he first met John Steel, the original drummer for The Animals. He also met a lot of other “young rebels” who shared his interest in music. This was also the age Eric and his friends would disappear to go to a field or park to drink beer.

Burdon started out his young adult life as one of a bunch of people who hung out at the local jazz club, The Downbeat. He describes his friends as “like a motorcycle gang… without the motorcycles”; they were tough, hard-drinking, and listened to American music. Burdon and fellow rocker and guitarist, American, Jimi Hendrix became very close friends in the mid-sixties and remained so up until Hendrix’s death in 1970; Burdon was in fact the person Hendrix’s girlfriend called when she found him overdosed on drugs.  Burdon was also a good friend of John Lennon and was mentioned in one of his songs,  as “the eggman” in I Am The Walrus. . Eric states, “The nickname stuck after a wild experience I’d had at the time with a Jamaican girlfriend called Sylvia. I was up early one morning cooking breakfast, naked except for my socks, and she slid up beside me and slipped an amyl nitrate capsule under my nose. As the fumes set my brain alight and I slid to the kitchen floor, she reached to the counter and grabbed an egg, which she cracked into the pit of my belly. The white and yellow of the egg ran down my naked front and Sylvia began to show me one Jamaican trick after another. I shared the story with John at a party at a Mayfair flat one night with a handful of others. Lennon, finding the story amusing and hilarious, replied, “Go on, go get it, Eggman,” eventually tributing a song to the unique experience.

Burdon was lead singer of the Animals, formed during 1962. The original band was the Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo, which formed in 1958; they became the Animals shortly after Burdon joined the band. The Animals combined blues with rock and in the USA were one of the leading bands of the British Invasion.

By May 1965, original member keyboardist Alan Price and drummer John Steel had left the band There wasconflict with Price, specifically that Price had claimed sole rights and ownership to “House of the Rising Sun”. Burdon reformed the group as Eric Burdon and the Animals.

In December 2008, Burdon lost a three-year legal battle to win the name “the Animals” in the UK. Since then drummer John Steel owned the rights in the UK only. Burdon still tours as Eric Burdon and the Animals, but was prevented from using the name “the Animals” in Britain while the case was under appeal. Steel was a member in its heyday and left in 1966, before the band split up 3 years later in 1969. Steel later played in various reunion versions of the band with Burdon. In September 2013 Burdon’s appeal was allowed. Eric Burdon is now entitled to use the name “The Animals” in the UK.

In 2016, Burdon formed the current lineup of The Animals, including Johnzo West (guitar/vocals), Davey Allen (keys/vocals), Dustin Koester (drums/vocals), Justin Andres (bass guitar/vocals), Ruben Salinas (sax/flute), and Evan Mackey (trombone).

In 1969, while living in San Francisco, Burdon joined forces with California band, War. During this time Burdon collapsed on the stage during a concert, caused by an asthma attack, and War continued the tour without him.

Eric Burdon and War were reunited for the first time in 37 years, to perform an Eric Burdon & War reunion at the concert at the Royal Albert Hall London on April 28, 2008. The concert coincided with a major reissue campaign by Rhino Records (UK), which released all the War albums including Eric Burdon Declares “War” and The Black-Man’s Burdon.

Burdon began a solo career in 1971 with the Eric Burdon Band, continuing with a hard rock/heavy metal–funk style. In August 1971, he recorded the album, Guilty, which Jimmy Witherspoon and also Ike White of the San Quentin Prison Band.

Here is Eric with his iconic, Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. Enjoy (or not). https://youtu.be/Bw7RTUEZMyg

 

Rick

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