{"id":14732,"date":"2018-06-25T05:30:23","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T09:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14732"},"modified":"2018-06-13T14:22:52","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T18:22:52","slug":"the-fire-still-burns-for-the-animals-eric-burdon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/25\/the-fire-still-burns-for-the-animals-eric-burdon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fire Still Burns for the Animals’ Eric Burdon"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Many of the bands considered part of the \u201cBritish invasion\u201d of the mid-sixties drew from American rhythm & blues or soul. Some, like the Beatles, filtered those influences through their own musical sensibilities, creating something completely new in the process. Others \u2013 the Rolling Stones, for example \u2013 built upon a r&b foundation, initially playing mostly their own arrangements of others’ material. But initially, the most faithfully blues-based of all British acts to score on the American charts was the Animals.<\/p>\n

Formed in 1962 in Newcastle upon Tyne, the Animals lit up the American hit singles chart 19 times between 1964 and ’68, including the number-one smash \u201cThe House of the Rising Sun.\u201d Along with the stirring, soulful organ playing of Alan Price, a key to the group’s appeal was Eric Burdon’s deeply expressive, sonorous and gravelly voice. Hits like \u201cIt’s My Life,\u201d \u201cDon’t Let Me Be Misunderstood\u201d and \u201cWe Gotta Get out of this Place\u201d would go on to earn classic status.<\/p>\n

By 1967 the Animals had endured numerous personnel changes, relocating to California. They developed a more psychedelic sound, one exemplified by songs such as \u201cSan Franciscan Nights\u201d and \u201cSky Pilot.\u201d The band members went their separate ways by 1969, with Burdon going on to a solo career.<\/p>\n

In 1970 Eric Burdon took part in a brief but very successful collaboration with Long Beach, California funk band War, scoring the hit single, \u201cSpill the Wine.\u201d In 1994, the Animals were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2008, Rolling Stone<\/i> ranked Burdon #57 on its list of \u201c100 Greatest Singers.\u201d Today, Burdon leads his own group using the Animals name.<\/p>\n

In 2017 Burdon recorded his own version of the 1966 Buffalo Springfield classic \u201cFor What it’s Worth.\u201d The recording \u2013 posted on Burdon’s web site ericburdon.com \u2013 shows that the years have done little to diminish his vocal presence.<\/p>\n

Burdon’s adventures have become the stuff of legend: John Lennon’s lyric \u201cI am the eggman\u201d in the Beatles song \u201cI am the Walrus\u201d is a veiled reference to Burdon’s sexual exploits. In May 2018 he made the news once again: poet\/songwriter Patti Smith personally delivered a cake to Burdon onstage in celebration of his 77th<\/sup> birthday, accidentally setting her hair on fire in the process. The Animals vocalist quickly extinguished the flames with his bare hands, but the fire in his voice still burns brightly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of the bands considered part of the \u201cBritish invasion\u201d of the mid-sixties drew from American rhythm & blues or soul. Some, like the Beatles, filtered those influences through their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,60,62],"tags":[3458,3457],"class_list":["post-14732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-rb","category-rawk","tag-animals","tag-eric-burdon","cat-27-id","cat-60-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14734,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14732\/revisions\/14734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}