Eric Burdon and The Animals with Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison "Live At The Troubadour, 1969" (released 2022)****

More than 30 years ago, I found a record by Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison called Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead. When I went home, I played it immediately, excitedly waiting to hear the musical meeting of two giants. What a disappointment! Hendrix played well as he always did, but Jim was completely wasted and his singing just ruined the songs. Hendrix was recording the session and was initially happy to jam with him, but one could feel his growing annoyance. Famously, the night ended when (also present) Janis Joplin broke her whiskey bottle on Morrison's head to shut him up. It goes without saying that I sold that record a long time ago. Until recently, this was the only collaboration of the two that had seen the light of day. But as it turns out, there was another, much happier affair. It took a common friend of the two musicians to bring them together again after that fiasco: The Animals' Eric Burdon, who had moved to America a few years before, was Jim's drinking buddy at the time. He was in fact the one the other Doors called when they couldn't handle Jim's drunk antics, because he had a calming effect on him. Eric's relation with Jimi Hendrix went even deeper: The Animals' bass player Chas Chandler was the man who ''discovered" and managed Jimi, while the two singers remained close literally until the end: two nights before his death, Hendrix was jamming onstage with Eric and his new band, War. In '69, they talked about collaborating in a side project of some sort, and Eric wanted to bring Morrison along. The three of them tossed ideas around and had fun playing each other's songs in the studio, but the collaboration never took place. The furthest it got was a joint concert at The Troubadour club in West Hollywood; ostensibly an Eric Burdon & The Animals gig, with the other two as surprise guests. Famous artists getting on stage to jam with the band was not uncommon: in California, at least, the rock community was very tight at the time, always hanging around with each other and playing together. I'm sure that the night lived in the memories of the 300 or so people present for a long time, but it was otherwise forgotten until now. Burdon did record the show, but I suppose that he was too busy with his own career to spend energy negotiating a copyright deal with the estates of his two dead rock star pals, so the recording didn't see the light of day, even in bootleg form, until now. A promo copy just found its way to my collection, so I suspect it'll appear at record shops everywhere soon enough. Sound quality is good, although not impressive. The performance is strong, but the real draw is the camaraderie and easy connection the three of them have, the way Jim and Eric trade verses singing each other's songs and Jimi lets loose on the guitar. Their backing band is The New Animals as they appeared on Burdon's Love Is LP from the previous year, minus Andy Summers (later the co-founder of Police). They start off with a bluesy jam which segues into "Tobacco Road", a cover that they had been playing for some time but hadn't recorded yet. Eric would release his own definitive version later, with War. At this point Hendrix joins the band onstage and they launch into a hard rock version of The Animals' "Don't Let me Be Misunderstood". Next up, the audience is up for a rare treat: Jimi sings his own "Are You Experienced?", followed by Eric's answer "Yes I Am Experienced" (originally in his Winds Of Change LP) before the two join together in a -then very new- Doors composition "Roadhouse Blues". This is Jim Morrison's cue to enter. His reputation at the time was at its all-time low following the infamous Miami incident, but L.A. was still his hometown, and he got a warm greeting, if not as warm as Hendrix. Eric introduces him, and Jim makes a small speech about the blues, racism, and the Vietnam War. These are followed by a long distorted bluesy guitar solo by Jimi, which slowly morphs into the familiar arpeggios of "House Of The Rising Sun". Eric and Jim trade verses here, and it's a marvellous combination, while on "Hey Joe" Eric goes play the tambourine or something, leaving the stage to Jim who relishes the chance to re-enact the story, adding a lot of gruesome details about "Joe's" wife's infidelity, murder, and his subsequent arrest; basically he turns the song into a mini theatrical play while Jimi, who obviously had no idea this would happen, is caught off-guard and can be heard improvising in the background. Next up, Eric returns to the front where the two of them perform The Animals' anti-war classic "Sky Pilot" and finish the concert with more slogans against the war in Vietnam. The band are, of course, called back onstage for an encore, which is a fantastic 15-minute rendition of The Doors' "Light My Fire" with all three of them on vocals and Jimi trading solos with The Animals' organist Zoot Money. All in all a great reminder of a bygone era, and a huge, poignant, what if: what if Eric, Jim, and Jimi had gotten to make that album together? What if Hendrix and Morrison hadn't died at the age of 27? Which direction would they have taken and what would they have sounded like in the 70's and 80's? I'm afraid we'll never know, but this album provides a valuable glimpse in exciting possibilities never realized. Highly recommended for any fan of Classic Rock! 

***** for House Of The Rising Sun, Light My Fire

**** for Don't Let me Be Misunderstood, Hey Joe

*** for Blues Jam, Tobacco Road, Are You Experienced? / Yes I Am Experienced (Medley), 

Roadhouse Blues, Sky Pilot

** for Introducing Jim Morrison

Eric Burdon & the Animals "Winds of Change" 1967*****

"The Black Plague" by Eric Burdon & The Animals keeps revolving in my mind since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a lively account of a medieval epidemic, totally out of synch with the rest of the album which is full of warm Summer Of Love vibes. I wonder what prompted Burdon to write something like that. One thing's for certain, neither he nor any of us could have guessed we'd be living through similar times in the 21st Century.

I discovered this album in 1988, and it immediately made my all-time Top Ten. It's still a favorite of mine, though the fact that it reminds me of my freshman year in the university may have something to do with it: many new friends, parties, late nights out, political discussions and discovering a lot of cool music. My (slightly older) girlfriend of the time was a bit of a hippy chick with a penchant for psychedelic rock, she was the one who introduced me to this album. Of course I already knew Eric Burdon, I had even seen him live earlier that year and was impressed by his soulful and energetic performance. But this was a different side of him, mellow and often introspective. You see, in 1967 he had recently met a little chemical called LSD and embraced a whole new philosophy and sound. On opener "Winds Of Change" he half-sings/half-murmurs lyrics drawing a straight line from jazz and blues pioneers to new counter-cultural icons (Zappa, Dylan, Ravi Shankar). This, and the following "Poem By The Sea" feature violin, sitar, gong, reverb-heavy vocals and guitars, and special effects (splashing waves, rustling wind etc). The latter segues into a majestic version of "Paint It Black" that arguably surpasses The Stones' original. Saturated in John Weider's electric violin (reminiscent here of John Cale's viola in early Velvet Underground) it starts off slow and builds in intensity with propulsive drumming and a passionate and dramatic vocal performance by Burdon. Its performance (and the unveiling of the New Animals) at the Monterey Pop festival and film was one of its highlights. It's followed by "The Black Plague", one of the weirdest pop songs in a mainstream rock album. It's a Gothic piece featuring acoustic guitars, Gregorian psalms, chiming bells and the recitation of a tale reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's Masque Of The Red Death: The Black Death comes to a Medieval town and the peasants' bodies pile up everywhere while the rich lock themselves behind the sturdy castle walls hoping they will keep them safe. As big a contrast as one can find to the sunny vibes of "San Franciscan nights", a paean to Haight-Ashbury "flower children" that caught the zeitgeist and became a Top Ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic. "Anything", another mellow ballad, is a love song - to a lover, or to a friend, or to the whole wide world; the new "experienced" Eric Burdon loves everyone and everything, he says so on the album cover. "Yes I Am Experienced" refers of course to psychedelic drugs. It comes as a direct answer to (his friend) Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" and adopts a similar musical style. "Man-Woman" is an everyday tale of (extra) marital love recounted over some funky drumming and sparse electric guitar, seguing into wistful ballad "Hotel Hell" embellished with Spanish guitars and melancholic trumpets. The album's second single is "Good Times", a catchy and beautifully orchestrated tune about "all the good times that's been wasted having 'good' times" - i.e. drinking booze instead of dropping acid. The closing "It's All Meat" is the meatiest track of the LP, a funky hard rocker about one-ness or something similar. I can see why cynics abhor this album's hippy-dippy philosophies, but I applaud Burdon for his earnestness. You can see he means every word and isn't just jumping on the 1967 "Peace & Love" bandwagon (yes I mean you, Mick and Keith!). Musically the album is quite bold, featuring complex instrumentation and trying out many different styles, though not always successfully. 

The Double CD Edition of "Winds"..." and "The Twain..."

There's a CD reissue adding two nice R&B rockers in classic Animals style ("Ain’t That So" and "Gratefully Dead") which, while good, sound out of place here. Another reissue (which I have, no bonus tracks) couples this with its similarly-sounding successor The Twain Shall Meet. Usually if I owned an album both on vinyl and CD form, I'd sell the vinyl (yeah, I know...OK? No use rubbing it in now!). These two Animals albums, though, are among the few that survived the great vinyl purge - that shows appreciation! At best this is a psychedelic masterpiece, at worst it's a time capsule that transports you straight to the "Summer of Love" - in any case I don't see how you can go wrong with adding it to your collection.

***** for Paint It Black, San Franciscan Nights, Hotel Hell, Good Times

**** for Winds of Change, The Black Plague, Anything, It's All Meat

*** for Poem by the Sea, Yes I Am Experienced, Man-Woman

Eric Burdon & War "The Black Man's Burdon" 1970*****

This was, for a long time, the record I had spent the most money ever for. You see, I started collecting Eric Burdon's records after witnessing the man give a soulful performance in one of my first rock concerts at Rodon Club in '88 (hard to believe it's been 30 years already). There sure was something special in the air - Burdon himself has mentioned Rodon as the best club he's ever played in, and his concerts there were historic enough for one of them to form the backdrop of Greek movie My Brother And Me. Some of his LP's were easy enough to get - for example 1967's Winds Of Change which became an instant favourite. It contained a psychedelic version of my favourite song, The Stones' "Paint It Black". I thought he had managed the impossible, to improve on what was already perfect. And then, I heard the Latin version on The Black Man's Burdon. Oh my God, could this be even better? I immediately decided I had to have it, but couldn't get it in any of the usual record shops. It hadn't yet been re-released on CD, as a matter of fact it had barely been re-released on vinyl during the previous 20 years. I had to search second-hand shops for an original copy, which I eventually found in Monastiraki for a budget-crushing 5000 drachmas, original U.S. vinyl being ridiculously rare in Greece at the time before internet shopping. With my allowance I could afford a nice-price LP per week (then 750 drachmas), two if I kept my expenses low, but 5000 drachmas? It took a few weeks to save the money, visiting the shop regularly to check if the record was still available and to hide it at the back of the row. 

War would later become famous on their own right, but when Burdon hooked up with them he was a pop star and they were an unknown live band called Night Shift, mixing black funk and latino music to promote brotherhood in the gang-ridden respective L.A. ghettos. I initially thought the title to be somewhat paternalistic on Burdon's behalf, but apparently it's a wordplay with The Black Man's Burden, a classic anti-racist book on slavery and white imperialism. The provocation continues with the risqué album art: Burdon poses with a black woman on the back cover, the black band with two naked white ladies in the inner gatefold. Imagine how that went down at the South, where even mixed-race bands like The Allman Brothers were a matter of contention.

The provocative inner gatefold

The music mix was then still unheard of: a melange of jazz, latin, blues, funk and rock. Instead of dominating as lead singer, Burdon just improvises while the band jams, singing. shouting or rapping along to the melody. It's all very rhythmical, which lots of percussion which brings it close to Santana territory albeit looser with less prominent guitar. "Paint It Black" is the album's jewel, a 13.5-minute medley in 7 parts. Some of them are percussion and flute solos, while another called "PC3" was apparently removed from certain U.K. copies as it contained an obscene spoken word fantasy about catching the Queen "with her knickers down". Another highlight was the "Nights In White Satin" medley, where the atmospheric Moody Blues ballad is interspersed with  improvised latin passages. "Spirit" is a jazz-soul piece with beautiful sax, "Bare Back Ride" the album's sole boogie rock and "Sun/Moon" an over-long slow number. "Home Cookin’" is an earthy ballad with nice harmonies and cool harmonica by Lee Oscar (the other white member of the band), while the album ends with the wonderful politically inclined gospel of lead single "They Can’t Take Away Our Music". The rest of the album is a series of Latin funk jams, best of which being the perky "Pretty Colors". Despite the evident good vibes, the musician's instinctive interaction and enthousiastic playing, the album wasn't a success - it peaked at No.82 while their debut had gone to No.18. It'd get minimal radioplay due to its long duration and absence of a catchy single like its predecessor's "Spill The Wine". War would later perfect their sound and become hugely successful, primarily but not exclusively with black audiences - their World Is A Ghetto LP was 1973's best-selling album of the year. The first two records with Burdon are often dismissed, although I personally find them very original and exciting. I wonder if they could have grown together or if War had to ditch the Brit in order to play some truly black soul music. Oh well, no point in talking about paths not taken...

***** for Paint It Black Medley (Black On Black In Black/Paint It Black I/Laurel & Hardy/Pintelo Negro II /P.C. 3/Black Bird/Paint It Black II), Spirit, They Can’t Take Away Our Music

**** for Nights In White Satin Medley, Pretty Colors, Gun, Jimbo, Bare Back Ride, Home Cookin 

*** for Beautiful New Born Child, Sun / Moon 

Eric Burdon "Power Company" 1983**

I used to have this LP, but I sold it during the great vinyl purge. Seeing it recently at a used records store brought a surge of nostalgia and I went and bought it again. I became a big Burdon fan since my late teens, after seeing him give a passionate performance at Rodon Club, Athens, back in '88 - one of my first rock concerts. He was no haughty rock star, more like a working musician earning his living by shouting the blues at the top of his lungs night after night, club after club. Which is, I guess, the way his black idols lived, back in the 50's and 60's. Among his peers in the British blues boom, Eric Burdon alone turned out to be a true bluesman, as opposed to someone just singing blues music. Whether he's playing blues, hard rock, funk or whatever, he brings that gritty intensity to the table. This album has The Voice, and a decent band backing him up. What it's missing is, as was often the case with Burdon's albums of that period, the songs. With the exception of "Power Company" a potent blue-collar R&B anthem in the vein of The Animals' "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" and yet another version of "House Of The Rising Sun". Different than his other recordings of the song, solo or with The Animals, this one starts with a long acapella intro, followed by the familiar arpeggio and a short electric solo. It doesn't matter which way he sings it, the man may not have written the song but he sure owns it. Unfortunately, Burdon sings, screams, growls and raps his way through the rest of the album without managing to produce anything else memorable. Except if you count the profanity on heavy R&B "Who Gives A Fuck". The sinister "Sweet Blood Call" and "Devil's Daughter" have a more swampy feel, while "Do You Feel It" is a Status Quo-like boogie. "You Can't Kill my Spirit" and the rockabilly-ish "Comeback" feature some nice barroom piano, and "Wicked Man" and "Heart Attack" are closer to hard rock. This run-of-the-mill bluesy hard rock nature of the album reminded me why I chose to part with it in the first place. It's worth mentioning that about half of the album is recorded live and that it's apparently tied to a film project called Comeback, starring Eric Burdon in the role of a fading rock star making a comeback in the music scene - a bit autobiographic it seems: at the time Burdon retained a following in Holland and Germany, but couldn't get arrested anywhere else. Other English R&B singers of his generation were selling millions of records in the 80's, but to be honest, I prefer even a rough and unexceptional gutsy album like Power Company to any sterile big budget album by the Claptons and Rod Stewarts of that time.

**** for Power Company, House of the Rising Sun

*** for You Can't Kill my Spirit, Do You Feel It, Wicked Man, Sweet Blood Call, Comeback

** for Devil's Daughter, Heart Attack, Who Gives a Fuck

Eric Burdon "Til Your River Runs Dry" 2013****

I got this book in, from all places, Bratislava, Slovakia. I was in town for one day only and went into this bookshop, mostly with the intention of looking for Czechoslovakian rock CD's (which I found - to be presented here sometime). Of course I also spent some time in the English book section, browsing the classics. I had never read (Nobel prizewinner) Sinclair Lewis and thought I'd amend for it. Reading the synopsis on the back covers, this one's plot seemed strangely familiar. Written in 1935, soon after Hitler's rise to power, this book was intended as a warning to U.S. citizens about the danger of fascism. It is the story of "a demagogue who becomes president of the United States by promising to return the country to greatness and by demanding law and order. Lewis describes (President) Windrip as vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his “ideas” almost idiotic". Because of its topical interest (1930's America, fascism) it is considered a lesser work by the author, critics arguing that "Windrip is less a Nazi than a con-man-plus-Rotarian, a manipulator who knows how to appeal to people's desperation". Indeed, that fellow doesn't sound much like Hitler, he sounds more like... Donald Trump. When I bought this book the race for the Republican party nomination was still at its early stages, but a huge what if was already in the air. Well, we're about to find out pretty soon. Europeans associate Trump's victory to an exotic cartoon-figure American singularity "affectionately" known as a redneck. But the rise of populist, often openly racist, parties in Europe proves otherwise. The people are tired of being ignored, of feeling trapped and insecure. They're angry at the system which is obviously not working for them. So who is it working for? Some say the bankers, capitalists and politicians. Some blame the lazy "welfare rats", people whose religion, nationality or skin colour marks them out as "different" and thus prone to who-knows-what depravity, or immigrants and foreigners in general. It seems that the simpler the answer is, and the weaker the target, the more people it convinces. We have gotten so used to corrupt lying politicians advocating beautiful ideas they obviously do not believe in, anyone different seems new and refreshing. Under these circumstances rudeness can be mistaken for sincerity, vulgarity for authenticity, violence for dynamism. I'm afraid we haven't seen the worst of it yet. As frequent readers know, the red text in this blog contains personal thoughts irrelevant to the main subject, in this case Eric Burdon who, as an America-loving Englishman, must feel very frustrated with the election results. One thing's for sure, when he was fantasizing about an "Invitation to the White House", he didn't have Trump on his mind.

I've always liked Burdon and the Animals, but I became a big fan ever since I first saw him perform live - at Athens' Rodon Club in 1988, one of my first rock concerts. He sang with rare passion when you'd expect him to have grown tired of these songs he had been performing daily for 30 years. His voice was also in great form, powerful and emotive even though he never had much of a vocal range. At the time he seemed to be forgotten by everyone, playing small clubs and making albums that went unnoticed by the media and barely got released outside continental Europe where he still had some following. I, of course, tried to collect them all - I'll grant you not every single one stands up well next to his LPs with the Animals and War, but the voice was there and the songs weren't half bad either. Others, less deserving, of his generation made their big comebacks with the help of hip producers, star duets and lots of promotion. It seemed that the music establishment would ignore him forever, until Bruce Springsteen used a highly publicized appearance to talk in length about what a great singer Burdon is, and how he's influenced every last song he (Bruce) had ever written. With the spotlight turned on him for the first time since '71, Burdon seized the opportunity to release his first album in almost a decade... and, all of the sudden, rock critics discovered what was under their nose for 30-odd years. They started obsessing over meaningless details like the record label being the same one that released The Animals' albums (half a century ago) and tapped into the usual writing angles: The Rock Survivor, The Wizened Bluesman, The Unrepentant Hippie etc. He is, no doubt, all that and more. But when I last saw him perform, in The Hague a few years ago, it seemed to me that recognition had come too late: He looked tired and far from the vocal powerhouse I remembered from his concerts of the 80's and 90's. Listening to this album, though, and watching recent clips, I have to suppose I just probably just caught him on a bad day because he sure still has it. His stellar R&B band manages to achieve the warm Southern Soul sound we loved by the giants of black music (those horns and B3 Hammond organ will do the trick every time!) And don't you dare tell me Eric Burdon doesn't play black music. More importantly, don't tell him: he's the man who, 45 years ago, made an album he named The Black-Man's Burdon. Opener "Water" being a bit of an exception, closer to 80's AOR than Soul. Electric guitar and backing vocals may sound a bit dated but he carries it off as he sings with conviction and intend. Apparently inspired by a conversation he had with Mikhail Gorbachev, it's as much a plea for ecological water use as much as it is a personal statement of defiance: "This world is not for me/ I'll make a new one, wait and see/ Hopelessness has seized the land/ I will not beg, I will demand!" Doesn't sound like the words of a septuagenarian, does it? Take some lessons, boys!

"Memorial Day" is a blues rock lament for the casualties of war with an anti-establishment message: "We’ve all been dehumanized/A generation of the same old lies/Security is the alibi...It's a rich man's war but the poor will pay". It's followed by "Devil And Jesus", a smooth Latin funk number about Man's dual essence. Tasty guitar licks and organ reminiscent of his days with War. "Wait" is unexpectedly sensitive: a love song to his Greek wife Mariana, sporting a sensual tango rhythm and sweet acoustic guitar. "Old Habits Die Hard" is another personal number, the unrepentant hard rock sound of an old rebel refusing to act his age and mellow down. "Bo Diddley Special" is a tribute to the rock'n'roll hero of his youth. Of course it utilizes the trademark Bo Diddley beat. Towards the end Burdon is almost rapping instead of singing - old white guys sound embarrassing when they rap, but he's been doing it very naturally since "Spill The Wine" back in 1970. "In The Ground" sees him testifying over a gospel groove and backing vocals, while "27 Forever" is a ballad ruminating over fame and mortality, a heartfelt letter to the rock stars who died young and joined the 27 club. No names are named, but Burdon was friends with both Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. "River Is Rising" is inspired by the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and the (false) rumor that his musical idol Fats Domino was among its victims. Recorded with members of Domino's band, it has an authentic New Orleans funereal feel, also reminding me of  Dr. John and (more unexpectedly) Nick Cave in "Tupelo" - something about the apocalyptic imagery I guess. Marc Cohn's ballad "Medicine Man" echoes The Animals' big hit "House Of The Rising Sun" without shamelessly copying it. On the bluesy "Invitation to the White House" (half-spoken over a Muddy Waters beat and nocturnal jazz piano) he dreams that the president of U.S. asked him for advice. Obviously not Donald Trump, as he's apparently declared he doesn't need anyone's advice on how to run the country. Let's say it's Obama. Eric answers him he should open the country's borders, pull out of all wars and call off the American soldiers he's scattered around the world. Thankfully it was just a dream, because any real U.S. president (Obama included) would have the Secret Service kick Burdon's ass out of the White House. The album ends with a Bo Diddley cover "Before You Accuse Me". It's a sturdy and workmanlike performance, but I've heard that song so many times it's hard to be impressed by any new rendition of it. If I had to use a headline for my review, it'd be better late than never. Now that the world has woken up to how lucky we are to still have rock and soul giants like Eric Burdon among us, let's hope he still has a few touring years and a couple more albums in him. He's not the kind to ever give up, that much is certain. 

**** for Water, Devil And Jesus, Wait, Old Habits Die Hard, Bo Diddley Special, In The Ground,

*** for Memorial Day, 27 Forever, River Is Rising, Medicine Man, Invitation to the White House, Before You Accuse Me