The Animals

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Alan Price (keyboards) started out as a northern British bluesman, playing with a combo - Hilton Valentine (guitar), Chas Chandler (bass) and John Steel (drums) -that was making a name for itself on the Newcastle club circuit. Price played a mean set of keyboards and had a soul-tinged voice that was sexy but standard, lacking 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; he 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 <a href=>John Lee Hooker</a> and <a href=>Sonny Boy Williams</a> 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 frontman Eric, and the first signs of resentment soon began to show. In 1964 they moved to London, where they teamed up with then-unknown 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 #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 "(Please) 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 the ex-Nashville Teen Barry Jenkins.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, ex-Steampacket 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, 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 (re-issued onCastle 1997), and issuing Rip It To Shreds, a live hits compilation. They then, once again, returned to solo projects. Castle have also recently released Greatest Hits - Live recorded on tour in 1983 and frankly, one for the obsessive devotee only. &mdash; Al Spicer

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