Hoo boy, Eric Burdon was (and still is) a crazy guy. Even as far back as 1964's "The Story of Bo Diddley" Eric was showing the world he was a different kind of front man in the British R&B explosion, different than the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Ray Davies, Roger Daltrey, Keith Relf or any of those other wannabes.
In 1966 he took a hard left turn, first singing a clutch of Randy Newman songs backed by an orchestra, then reconfiguring this old band into a psychedelic group which tackled subjects like peace, love, Jimi Hendrix, the Black Plague and the history of music. He burned through the psych era pretty quickly and disbanded the "new" Animals officially at the top of 1969 following the release of Love Is. Other than "Sky Pilot" and the violin drenched cover of "Paint It Black", the hits were receding into the past very quickly and it seems like Eric was going to fizzle away as he entered the 1970's.
Surprise, surprise. He wasn't done yet. Not quite. The two albums he did with War represent the perfect cross of a 1960's legend with an up and coming 1970's phenomenon. The results are...strange. There are only five songs on their first album together. The opening track is pure Eric paying homage to Roland Kirk and (again) the history of music, naming checking Jelly Roll Morton and Charlie Parker ("Winds of Change" part two, anybody?). Next is the most bizarre version of "Tobacco Road" you will ever hear. Back in 1966 the Blues Magoos added a freakout bridge to the song. Not to be outdone, Eric added the whole weird dream sequence where he's playing a game of cosmic "Deal or No Deal" with some deity and right at the last second (spoiler alert!) decides the crappy life depicted in "Tobacco Road" is preferable to martyrdom to escape the misery. Following this is the big hit Eric had been thirsting for: "Spill the Wine". I'm sure you've heard that one. War takes over for the most part on the track "Blues for Memphis Slim", a multi-part mini-suite that would foreshadow many releases to come. Finally, the coda, "You're No Stranger" is mainly a gong played forward and backward before going into a little ditty that reminds me of the vocals passages of Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan", only shorter. Much shorter.
Following this album, Eric had every reason to believe he had been born again musically, this time into War, but the corporate powers had different plans. Not able to see any synthesis between the two, the suits split them into two labels. Stuck on the weaker MGM label, Eric floundered throughout the 1970's. Even the reunion of the original Animals mid-decade did not bring back the good times. Meanwhile, War slammed their way through the 1970's and continue on to this day (albeit with numerous lineup changes).
A few years back I saw Eric down at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. While he did the set sitting down and mainly stuck to the old Animals hits, he remained a formidable frontman. Although he did a lot of crazy stuff that probably hurt the bottom line (money, alas), it seems a shame that he never returned to the lofty heights of the days of the Animals and War.
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