He's in the Rock & Roll HOF as a member of The Animals and his short stint with War from 1969-71 was what sealed it for me, even as a pre-teen. God, how I was into "Spill the Wine" and "Tobacco Road" at the age of twelve. I loved their take on "Paint It Black" better than the original! To this day I've always preferred Burdon's voice to Jagger's. Last year at SXSW, Burdon and The Animals received a substantial vote of praise from this guy...
Later that same evening...
The man is in his early 70's and gets renewed interest...awesome! Hasn't translated into many sales, which is a crying shame, because this album is far superior to the David Bowie release.
One of EB's strengths is his songwriting, and there are plenty of fine examples to be heard here, even though there are a couple obviously written with "single" in mind, and that's OK, but they have a bit of that Joe Cocker-syndrome, somewhat forced and formulaic...
Opening riffs could have been a John Hiatt start... Here is one of the superior tunes in a live setting...
A major plus for this album is the band, which includes the rhythm section from Backstreet Crawler, and after Kossoff died, just plain Crawler. Now that may not mean much to you, but for me and a few others I know, that's a big deal. Separately, the pair have since played/written/produced with/for artists such as Delbert McClinton, Paul Rodgers, Ana Popovic, Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt and Buddy Guy. They collaborated on six of the ten tracks Burdon wrote. There are just two covers, one by Marc Cohn and the other by one of EB's idols, Bo Diddley. This is probably my second favorite version of "Before You Accuse Me" after the CCR cover from Cosmo's Factory in 1970.
If you love any of his songs from days gone by, like "House of the Rising Sun," "Sky Pilot," "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," etc., then pay your respects for the man and pay for the record. You will not be disappointed, I promise.
No comments:
Post a Comment