The Animals
 Alan
Price started out as a northern British bluesman, playing with a combo
of Hilton Valentine, Chas Chandler and John Steel on the Newcastle
club circuit. Price played a mean set of keyboards and had a
soul-tinged voice that was sexy but lacked the ferocity to cover the
grubbier end of rock.
However, in 1962 they recruited a suitably mean lead singer to fill
out the sound and beef up the image. Eric Burdon had one of the
grimiest voices in the business and would throw himself into the
songs, whip the band into overdrive and slaughter the audience. The
original name of the group, The Alan Price Combo, had to go and The
Animals came into being.
Supporting older, black musical legends like John Lee Hooker and
Sonny Boy Williamson as they toured the UK, the band grew into a
professional unit, with Eric perfecting his skills as a rabble-rouser.
The only dark cloud on the horizon was the rivalry between Alan and
new front man Eric, and the first signs of resentment soon began to
show. In 1964 they moved to London, where they teamed up with producer
Mickie Most, and signed to Columbia. They blasted their way through
Price's arrangement of the traditional House Of The Rising Sun,
which went to Number 1 in the UK, the USA and around the world.
 For
the rest of the 60s, The Animals hit the charts regularly, most
famously with Don't Let Me Be
Misunderstood and We Gotta Get Out
Of This Place. However, it wasn't long before ego
problems resurfaced, and only two LPs, The Animals
(1964) and Animal Tracks (1965), were recorded before
Price left to pursue a more mainstream solo career.
He was quickly replaced by Newcastle's Dave Rowberry. Steel had
also left the band by the release of its third album, Animalism
(1966), the new drummer being Barry Jenkins (ex-Nashville Teens). In
the limbo of these personnel changes, Burdon recorded a solo single
and an LP (Eric Is Here) and moved his base to
California. There he formed a second incarnation of the band, Eric
Burdon & The Animals, comprising Burdon, Jenkins, guitarist Vic
Briggs, John Wieder (guitar/violin) and Danny McCulloch (bass). This
line-up produced two LPs with a different style from the R&B stompers
they'd kicked around in the clubs of London and the north of England.
1967's Wind Of Change featured tracks with
titles such as Poem By The Sea, It's All Meat,
and Yes, I Am Experienced, Burdon's reply to the title of Jimi
Hendrix's just-released debut album. The new, 'psychedelic' Animals
did fairly well, with chart successes at home and in the USA
(including Monterey and San Franciscan Nights),
but not well enough to avoid McCulloch and Briggs being replaced by
bassist Zoot Money and guitarist Andy Summers. This final line-up was
packed full of skilled musicians, each of whom had his own musical
statement to make. Expecting them to function as a unit was demanding
too much and after two minor LP releases, The Animals folded.
 Alan
Price was by now an 'all-round entertainer' having done TV, novelty
songs, and worked briefly with fellow British bluesman Georgie Fame in
a kind of R&B supergroup.
Chas Chandler had hung up his bass to reinvent himself as a
producer, working with Hendrix and British glam-popsters
Slade. Wieder
went on to become part of Family, Zoot Money went solo, and Andy
Summers worked with Kevin Ayers and Kevin Coyne, before joining The
Police. Eric Burdon kept on rocking, digging back down into the dirt
for his next venture, War.
War's urban, Latin-tinged funk had to be put briefly on hold while
the original Animals re-formed in early 1976 , releasing an album,
Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted, which generated some
interest on the nostalgia circuit. However, Price left almost
immediately to continue his solo career and nothing more was heard
from The Animals until they briefly re-formed again in 1983, recording
a studio LP, Ark and issuing Rip It To Shreds, a live
hits compilation. They then, once again, returned to solo projects.
| The
Band |
Eric Burdon
Vocals
Alan Price
Keyboards & vocals
Chas Chandler
Bass
John Steel
Drums
|
Hilton Valentine
Guitar
Dave Rowberry
Keyboards
Barry Jenkins
Drums
Vic Briggs
Guitar
|
John Wieder
Guitar & violin
Danny McCulloch
Bass
Zoot Money
Bass
Andy Summers
Guitar |
|
|
