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