Eric Burdon: After The Animals and War, there was "Sun Secrets" in 1974
Written: Nov 29 '06 (Updated Dec 12 '06)
Product Rating:
Pros: A 2-for-1 CD featuring the albums Sun Secrets and Stop.
Cons: Nothing major.
The Bottom Line: A 2-for-1 CD featuring two mid-1970s albums by The Eric Burdon Band, featuring the former lead singer of The Animals and War. Features a stunning remake of It's My Life.
Don_Krider's Full Review: Sun Secrets/Stop by The Eric Burdon Band
If nothing else, I'm a child of the 1960s and the 1970s. A kid raised on Top 40 radio when today's designated "classic rock" was still being called "new music."
I was born in 1957. The Beatles hit "The Ed Sullivan Show" when I was seven years old. The rockers of The British Invasion rolled over and crushed me. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, Herman's Hermits and The Small Faces introduced me to sounds that suddenly made me question my love of Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys and The Four Seasons.
Eric Burdon & The Animals
It was a revolution, baby. On those British landing craft that hit stateside shores was a truly unique, cocky, swaggering band known as The Animals.
Right from the start of Britain's retaking of her former colonies in 1964, The Animals were at once in-your-face with their reformulation of American rock 'n' blues via their single House Of The Rising Sun.
It was one of those tunes, as a 7-year-old, that I'd turn down on the radio in my room and listen to. It was a song about a house of prostitution, but I had no understanding of that at the time --- I just liked the music and the way lead singer Eric Burdon sang the lyrics. My Navy father wasn't real keen on these various British invaders, so one enjoyed such music quietly as a small child ("...there is a house in New Orleans / they call the Rising Sun...").
Not only did House Of The Rising Sun conquer the Billboard magazine music charts, but it went to #1 for three straight weeks during it's 11 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1964.
As the war in Vietnam heated up, my dad's ships would sail to support the mission in Vietnam and elsewhere (does anyone remember 1965 when President Johnson sent 42,000 U. S. troops to the Dominican Republic "to prevent another Cuba"? My dad's Navy destroyer was on that mission for fire support of the landing force.).
So, with dad away, I cranked the music on the radio in my room up a bit. It was an ancient radio that had belonged to my father's father. My mom, the piano player, would also turn on Top 40 radio to listen to with dad away, so things began to loosen up around the house, and my radio in my room got turned up even louder.
As our black-and-white television set showed images of war while we watched from the dinner table in the mid-1960s, with newspaper photos in the daily news showing people burning their draft cards and protesting in the streets against an increasingly unpopular war, the music on the radio in my room changed with the times, too.
Like most of us seeking understanding in a crazy world, the Animals made the musical plea of 1965, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, which peaked at #15 on the U. S. charts.
The Animals were way ahead of the game here, too, for in 1965 they came out with We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, which rose to #13 on the U. S. charts. I heard a lot of military personnel singing this little tune even as the president sent hundreds of thousands of U. S. troops into combat in Vietnam.
We Gotta Get Out Of This Place echoed things my dad was already starting to say around the dinner table when his ship was in port in Newport, Rhode Island. He would watch the television and complain aloud, unusual for him, "Why are we there? We should either go in massive or get out of there!" --- sometimes in language too colorful to repeat here.
As the personnel in The Animals changed during the 1960s, the band's charismatic lead singer became the band's main focus point, leading to a name change for the band to Eric Burdon & The Animals. Ever-so-tall bassist Chas Chandler soon found other interests, including producing acts such as Jimi Hendrix and Slade.
Towards the end of the group, one of the later members of The Animals was a very young guitarist named Andy Summers (who later joined a character named Sting in The Police).
Among The Animals' hits before exiting the musical stage in 1968 were Don't Bring Me Down (which hit #12 in 1966), See See Rider (#10, 1966), When I Was Young (#15, 1967), San Francisco Nights (#9, 1967), Monterey (#15, 1967-68) and Sky Pilot (Parts 1 & 2) (#14, 1968).
Between 1964 and 1969, The Animals also scored on the Billboard Top 200 Album charts with 13 albums, including The Best Of The Animals, which peaked at #6 in 1966 and spent an amazing 113 weeks on the charts.
The Animals surfaced again with the album Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted in 1977 (which hit #70) and Ark (which peaked at #66) in 1983. Their live album from 1984, Rip It To Shreds - The Greatest Hits Live!, peaked at #193.
The Eric Burdon Band
Between incarnations of The Animals, Eric Burdon appeared with Eric Burdon & War in 1970, scoring with the album Eric Burdon Declares War (#18, 1970) and the single, Spill The Wine, which spent 21 weeks in the Hot 100, peaking at #3 in 1970. As a 13-year-old, I loved that song for some reason.
Always the restless kind, Burdon soon disappeared from public view, at least from mine. I'd kind of forgotten about him until one late night in 1974.
It was a Friday night. I didn't have a date. I was a skinny high school senior, rebellious as anything, and I was watching NBC's glorious "The Midnight Special" TV series, which followed the Johnny Carson "Tonight Show" on the network.
Shows like NBC's "The Midnight Special," ABC's "In Concert" and the syndicated "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" were mandatory viewing for me as a teenager. I learned to love acts who were little-known to most Americans by watching these shows, including some who became successful and some who didn't.
It was the days of live rock on late night TV, and on the screen that night came a not-so-familiar band lineup with a very familiar face. It was a face from my youth. It was Eric Burdon.
The song was familar, too. But this version rocked! This version was harder than the original Animals performance of the same tune.
The band was The Eric Burdon Band. The song was It's My Life, the old Animals' Top 30 hit from 1965-66. It was 1974, and this song sounded fantastic. As Janis Ian might say, "at 17 I learned the truth;" I found someone saying what I wanted to say:
"...it's my life and I'll do what I want / it's my mind and I'll think what I want / show me I'm wrong, hurt me sometimes / but some day I'll treat you real fine..."
It wasn't just the way Eric Burdon could belt out the song as if someone was sticking a knife in his back, it was the man's attitude. Burdon had the look of a guy who could size you up in a moment. Here was a guy saying take me as I am, and as long as you don't mess with me, we're cool, baby. But mess with me, and, well, we won't be cool any more.
"...it's my life and I'll do what I want - don't push me..."
Put the Burdon warning of a message on top of an absolutely searing, nasty, catch-me-if-you-can lead guitar solo by the man with one name, Aalon, mix it with some throbbing funky bass by Randy Rice and toss in the out-of-his-mind skin bashing of drummer Alvin Taylor, and you've got a real song; nothing manufactured or phony about these guys.
Put that song on TV, and you've sold an album, at least in my case.
The song was on The Eric Burdon Band's first LP, Sun Secrets, which reached #51 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart during a 16 week run on the chart that began four days before Christmas in 1974.
In 1975, the group's follow-up album, Stop, which was actually recorded before Sun Secrets, peaked at #171. Neither album produced the desired hit single, and soon the Capitol Records group was no more (other Eric Burdon Band's would follow, but not with the same personnel). Such is fame.
This album
The people at Avenue Records/Rhino Records have released a 2-for-1 CD containing both the Capitol Records' vinyl albums by The Eric Burdon Band, Sun Secrets and Stop. You probably won't find it in stores, so searching online is a good bet (I got mine from Amazon.Com).
The two albums combined have a total of 16 tracks with a total running time of 76 minutes and 38 seconds, all on one CD. One song, Be Mine, from the Stop album, wasn't included on this release due to "time restrictions," according to the liner notes.
The 8-page CD booklet includes a cover photo by rock photog Norman Seef (whose lens captured many an album cover for artists including Eric Carmen and Carly Simon back in the 1970s).
The liner notes in the CD booklet are by Barry Alfonso and detail the brief history of The Eric Burdon Band. The booklet does not include lyrics, the biography is very brief, and the only photo of the band is the cover shot from Sun Secrets.
The sound production by Jerry Goldstein with John Sterling, which was great in 1970s analog, sounds better in digital (which I haven't always found to be the case). The instruments and vocals sound clear, with delicate textures easily heard and enjoyed.
The tracks
Sun Secrets/Stop features 16 tracks, with a total of 18 songs (two tracks are each medleys of two songs):
From Sun Secrets: It's My Life, Ring Of Fire, (medley) When I Was Young/War Child, The Real Me, (medley) Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood/Nina's School, Letter From The Country Farm and Sun Secrets.
From Stop: City Boy, Gotta Get It On, The Man, I'm Lookin' Up, Rainbow, All I Do, Funky Fever, The Way It Should Be and Stop.
The music
Sun Secrets remains a great album for its time. Its follow-up, Stop, recorded before and released after Sun Secrets, isn't as good, but it is worth listening to --- where the former is a classic hard rock album, the latter is a loose, jazz-tinged, funky experimentation. I prefer the rockier sounds on Sun Secrets myself.
Another attraction of Sun Secrets for Animals' fans is to hear Burdon a decade after The Animals first U. S. hit doing alternate versions of a few Animals classics such as the previously discussed It's My Life.
The energy that filled my veins watching The Eric Burdon Band's energetic, gutsy take on It's My Life on "The Midnight Special" is present throughout the album.
An older Burdon singing When I Was Young, sounding a bit like Mick Jagger here, is interesting. He's experienced more of life, had the fame and the glory, and now he's an older man trying for yet another "come back." He's a white guy not afraid to admit loving someone of another color:
"...met my first love at thirteen, she was brown and I was so green, I learned so very much when I was young..."
I guess, as the son of a military man, this Burdon-penned tune resonates for me with lines like "the rooms were so much colder then, my father was a soldier then, and times were very hard, when I was young."
As a kid whose first eight years were spent in a trailer home moving state to state whenever my dad was transferred to a new Navy base, I get what Eric Burdon is saying. As an older man, losing family members and friends in combat and seeing the world grow less sane, I also understand lyrics like "when I was young, my faith was so much stronger then, I believed in my fellow men." Faith is easy to give; shattered faith removes trust.
On another Animals' remake, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, Burdon's older statesman of rock take on the song from his youth has a renewed energy that again reveals the artist's soul, with painful, soulful lead guitar lightning bolts stabbing at the listener over a slowed, funky drum beat and slowly plucked bass rhythm pattern.
Again, it's what Burdon's begging for in the lyrics that grab me:
"...if I seem edgy, I want you to know / that I never mean to take it out on you / life has its problems, and I get my share... / I'm just a soul whose intentions are good / oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood..."
Burdon and his musical conspirators do equal justice to all the songs here. Especially memorable is their take on Johnny Cash's Ring Of Fire which, while the arrangement and instrumentation remain close to the original version, sounds made for Burdon's truly unique, husky vocals ("bound with wild desire, I fell into your ring of fire").
Final recommednation
Emotion --- pure, unfiltered feelings, is what Burdon brings to his songs.
On the Sun Secrets album he and the outstanding musicians in his band convey those feelings as few other artists can. The magic of rock 'n' roll for me is its gut impact; it's ability to make me move without thinking about it --- to tap my fingers and feet in time to the music, to make me want to sing along, and hopefully with lyrics intelligent enough to also make me think.
The Eric Burdon Band does all of the above on this CD. These two albums offer the listener good material with a mix of rock, jazz, blues, soul and funk that pleases this listener. The lyrics often make you think; they are intelligent enough to help one escape from life's troubles for over an hour in time.
Listening is such a unique journey for the listener. This isn't the best CD I've ever heard, but it is darn --- d-a-r-n --- good. If you've ever liked Eric Burdon, I think you'll enjoy his work on Sun Secrets here.
The second album in the set, Stop, I frankly don't care for very much --- it's a looser, jazzier, more experimental collection of songs, but they are so far removed from Burdon's usual sound that I find them not as enjoyable for me to listen to.
To the Burdon fan or classic rock music buyer, buy this 2-for-1 CD for the great performances on Sun Secrets (look at Stop as a free bonus album; you might enjoy it more than me).
As far as Sun Secrets goes at least, this album was worth the price on vinyl in 1974 and it has certainly proven to be a worthy buying decision again on CD in 2006, though the experience of holding a tiny CD jewel case is still not as much fun for me as holding the large vinyl LP covers were in 1974 (I will admit that putting a CD in its player is easier than trying to not scratch an old vinyl LP with a record player needle, though; man, I'm getting old).
Eric Burdon today
If you are wondering, Burdon released a new studio solo album, Soul Of A Man, in 2006 and he also launched a tour as Eric Burdon & The Animals in 2006 (details are at his website at EricBurdon.Com).
His book autobiography, Don"t Let Me Be Misunderstood, is also in print worldwide (the German and Australian editions have included a 3-song bonus CD).
Because you probably want to know: Burdon was born May 11, 1941, in England, which makes him a rockin' 65-years-young at this writing.
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