Eric Burdon Explains What Love Is...

Original released on Double LP MGM SE 4591-2

(US, December 1968)

It's an eyebrow-raising experience to encounter the cover of "River Deep, Mountain High" that opens the Animals 1968 double album, "Love Is". Clocking in at nearly seven and a half minutes, it's the weirdest version of the song ever cut. Self-produced by the band, it juxtaposes vocalist and bandleader Eric Burdon's staggering abilities as a rhythm & blues singer with few peers with then-modern-day psychedelia. The Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry-penned vehicle for Ike & Tina Turner was never envisioned like this. There are moments of pure greatness in the track, a rough, garage-hewn rock and R&B foundation underscored by Burdon's blues wail is, unfortunately, completely messed over by the sound effects and his insistence on yelling «Tina, Tina, Tina...» ad nauseam in the bridge. And this is just the beginning. This version of Eric Burdon and the Animals contained enough serious players that they should have known better: Burdon, keyboardist Zoot Money, drummer Barry Jenkins, bassist John Wieder, and a young guitarist who'd been booted from Soft Machine after a very brief period named Andy Summers. For those who found charm and even inspiration in "The Twain Shall Meet" and "Winds of Change" - both recorded in San Francisco - "Love Is" may hold some sort of place in the heart. For those who looked back to the Animals catalog that included such dynamic albums as "Animalism" and "Animalization" as well as a slew of killer four-track EPs, this must have seemed like the bitter end. On the other hand, this trainwreck of an album has some interesting moments - mainly for hearing how hard they tried to imitate other acts who were successful while at the same time trying to forge a new identity from the ruins of who they once were as a band whose day had come and gone. 

The utterly awful reading here of "Ring of Fire" is almost laughable. Other covers include a rave-up cum psychedelia version of Sly Stone's "I'm an Animal," Traffic's "Coloured Rain," and the Bee Gees "To Love Somebody." The latter - which has to be heard to be believed - begins with Summers playing Chuck Berry licks as an intro before it slows down into a completely over-the-top Don Covay-styled soul shot with Burdon underscored by a female backing chorus which counters to push him into the stratosphere. Despite its cheesy organ sound, it has enough power drumming, crunchy guitar, and a neat little piano break by Money to make it work. It's easily the best thing here even if it is absolutely mental. Burdon had heard ex-bandmate Chas Chandler's young guitar protégé Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun" from the Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album as well. In fact, he enlisted Money's buddy, guitarist Steve Hammond (of Johnny Almond's Music Machine) to come up with a long-form psychedelic suite that evoked it and some of Pink Floyd's weirder experiments at that time. The end result, "Gemini," is hysterically funny now, and must have just seemed to be ecstatically drug-addled tomfoolery at the time. The closer, "The Madman (Running Through The Fields)," by Summers and Money would have been a killer single if they'd edited the acid-fried middle section out of it. As it stands, "Love Is" was a mess from a band who, once great, had completely lost its way and was on its last legs. (Thom Jurek in AllMusic)

Everyone Of The New Animals

Original released on LP MGM SE 4553

(US, September 1968)

Eric Burdon & the Animals were nearing the end of their string, at least in the lineup in which they'd come into the world in late 1966, when they recorded "Every One of Us" in May of 1968, just after the release of their second album, "The Twain Shall Meet". The group had seen some success, especially in America, with the singles "When I Was Young," "San Franciscan Nights" and "Sky Pilot" over the previous 18 months, but had done considerably less well with their albums. "Every One of Us" lacked a hit single to help drive its sales, but it was still a good psychedelic blues album, filled with excellent musicianship by Burdon (lead vocals), Vic Briggs (guitar, bass), John Weider (guitar, celeste), Danny McCulloch (bass,12-string, vocals), and Barry Jenkins (drums, percussion), with new member Zoot Money (credited, for contractual reasons, as George Bruno) on keyboards and vocals. Opening with the surprisingly lyrical "White Houses" - a piece of piercing social commentary about America in early 1968 - the record slid past the brief bridge "Uppers and Downers" and into the extended, John Weider-authored psychedelic mood piece "Serenade to a Sweet Lady," highlighted by Briggs' superb lead acoustic guitar playing and Weider's subdued electric accompaniment. This is followed by the acoustic folk piece "The Immigrant Lad," a conceptual work that closes with a dialogue, set in a workingman's bar, in which two Cockney workers, voiced by John Weider and Terry McVay, talk about their world and their lives. "Year of the Guru" is another in a string of Jimi Hendrix-influenced pieces by this version of the Animals, showing the entire band at the peak of their musical prowess, and Burdon - taking on virtually the role of a modern rapper - generating some real power on some surprisingly cynical lyrics concerning the search for spiritual fulfillment and leaders. "St. James Infirmary" recalls "House of the Rising Sun," as both a song and an arrangement, and is worthwhile just for the experience of hearing this version of the group going full-tilt as a rock band. 

And then there is "New York 1963 - America 1968," an 19-minute conceptual track with a center spoken word section featuring not a group member, but a black engineer named Cliff, who recalls his experience as a fighter pilot during World War II, and tells of poverty then and now - although the opening section starts off well enough musically, amid Burdon's sung recollections of coming to America and his fixation on the blues and black music in general, and the closing repetition of the word "freedom" anticipates Richie Havens' famed piece (actually an extension of "Motherless Child") from Woodstock, the track is too long and unwieldy for any but the most fanatical listener to absorb as more than a curiosity of its time. In fairness, it must also be said that Burdon's mixing of politics and music, social criticism and art, however inappropriate as pop music for a mass audience, was out in front of most of the competition during this period, in terms of boldness and reach, if not grasp. The extended jamming on this and the other songs also highlighted a fundamental problem that afflicted this version of the Animals from the get-go, the fact that they were touring too much to write enough songs to properly fill their albums, which meant extending the instrumental portions of everything that was on them, in order to fill up the running time; this group had the musicianship and talent to pull it off totally successfully in all but one instance here. This album would be one of the last times that this lineup of the group would appear on record - Briggs and McCulloch would leave later in the year, both to be replaced by Andy Somers (aka Andy Summers), and the group as a whole would pack it in with the waning of 1968. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

ERIC BURDON & THE ANIMALS: "The Twain Shall Meet"

Original released on LP MGM SE 4537

(US, May 1968)

The mix of topical songs, surreal antiwar anthems, and diffuse psychedelic mood pieces on "The Twain Shall Meet" is extremely ambitious, and while much of the group's reach exceeds its grasp, it's all worth a trip through as a fascinating period piece. In fact, the mood pieces predominate, mostly underwritten and under-rehearsed, and recorded without the studio time needed to make them work. "Just the Thought" and "Closer to the Truth" are dull and unfocused, even as psychedelia, while "No Self Pity" and "We Love You Lil" are above average musical representations of mind-altered states. "We Love You Lil" opens with a clever play on the old popular tune "Lili Marlene" that leads to an extended guitar jam and ethereal backing that rather recalls the early work of Focus, among other progressive rock acts. "All Is One" is probably unique in the history of pop music as a psychedelic piece, mixing bagpipes, sitar, oboes, horns, flutes, and a fairly idiotic lyric, all within the framework of a piece that picks up its tempo like the dance music from Zorba the Greek while mimicking the Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'." On the more accessible side are "Monterey," a distant precursor to Joni Mitchell's more widely heard post-festival anthem "Woodstock," with some clever musical allusions and a great beat, plus lots of enthusiasm; and the shattering "Sky Pilot," one of the grimmest and most startling antiwar songs of the late '60s, with a killer guitar break by Vic Briggs that's marred only by the sound of the plane crash in the middle. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

ERIC BURDON & THE ANIMALS: "Winds Of Change" (mono + stereo)

Original released on LP MGM CS 8052

(UK, October 1967)

"Winds of Change" opened the psychedelic era in the history of Eric Burdon & the Animals - although Burdon's drug experiences had taken a great leap forward months earlier with his first acid trip, and he and the group had generated some startlingly fresh-sounding singles in the intervening time, it was "Winds of Change" that plunged the group headfirst into the new music. The record was more or less divided into two distinctly different sides, the first more conceptual and ambitious psychedelic mood pieces and the second comprised of more conventionally structured songs, although even these were hard, mostly bluesy and blues-based rock, their jumping-off point closer to Jimi Hendrix than Sonny Boy Williamson. The band's new era opened with waves washing over the title track, which included sitar and electric violin, while Burdon's voice, awash in reverb, calmly recited a lyric that dropped a lot of major names from blues, jazz, and rock. "Poem by the Sea" was a recitation by Burdon, amid a swirl of echo-drenched instruments, and it led into one of the group's handful of memorable covers from this period, "Paint It Black" - driven by John Weider's electric violin and Vic Briggs' guitar, and featuring an extended vocal improvisation by Burdon, their approach to the song was good enough to make it part of the group's set at the Monterey International Pop Festival that June, and also to get a spot in the documentary movie that followed. "The Black Plague" opens with a Gregorian chant structure that recalls "Still I'm Sad" by the Yardbirds, and was another vehicle for Burdon's surreal spoken contributions. There were also, as with most of the group's work from this period, a few easily accessible tracks that could make good singles, in this instance "Good Times" and "San Franciscan Nights," a Top Ten record in various countries around the world in the last quarter of 1967, although, as Alan Clayson points out in his notes, the latter song was overlooked in England for nearly 12 months after its release elsewhere, and then appeared as the B-side to the relatively straightforward, brooding, moody rocker "Anywhere." Burdon was so inspired by Jimi Hendrix's music that he wrote one of the psychedelic era's rare "answer" songs, "Yes I Am Experienced," as an homage to the guitarist; the latter's influence could also be heard in "It's All Meat," the LP's closing track, and a song that calls to mind an aspect of this band that a lot of scholars in earlier years overlooked - the fact that Briggs, Weider, et al. had the skills to make music in that style that was convincing and that worked on record, on their terms. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

"Ring of Fire" By ERIC BURDON & THE ANIMALS

BURDON & WITHERSPOON: "Guilty!"

Original released on LP MGM SE 4791

(US, December 1971)

ERIC BURDON Debut Solo Album

Original released on LP MGM SE 4433

(US, April 1967)

Made during the transition between the original Animals and the new line-up, the title of Eric Burdon & the Animals is sort of a misnomer. For the most part, the songs were Eric Burdon backed by the Horace Ott Orchestra, although I have read that some of the original Animals may have played on a few of the songs. I have to admit to finding a lot of enjoyment from this release. The first of the Eric Burdon overload albums but this has some campy charm. The musical climate was so odd and lost in transition in 1967 that an album like this wasn't so different from what was going on with a lot of older artists trying to find their way. I will admit Eric's voice doesn't always suit this music but he's doing what he was into at the moment and its honest. I really like "Help Me Girl" the song is the closest track to a classic Animals sound. It captures the psychedelic sounds of the time but retains the pure Animals of the first three albums. This does happen a couple more times on the album. "It's Not Easy" & "Losin' Control" both merge the two sounds together in a way that they work to a degree. The blues swagger of "It's Been A Long Time Comin'" sounds great with the orchestral production making a pretty basic blues tune sweetly complicated with all sorts of colouring from the musical rainbow. (in RateYourMusic)