13.02 The Animals

Overview

As the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were achieving enormous commercial success in the United States, there were many other British rock and roll bands hard at work back home in the UK. Some of these bands played blues revival music like the Rolling Stones, but others represented other musical aesthetics. In particular, bands such as The Who were influenced by the Mod movement in London youth culture. As we will see, most of these bands had far more commercial success in the UK than they did in the United States, but some of them did chart some significant hits with American audiences.

Objectives

Identify a number of British rock groups that were popular at the same time as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
Recall the roots and artistic inspirations of these groups
Identify a number of figures who will be critical to the development of rock, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, and Ray Davies
Recall factors that made their music popular in Britain but did not necessarily inspire the same commercial success in the United States

The Animals

The Animals

As mentioned in the previous lesson, many bands and musicians in Britain were fascinated by the American blues tradition during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The artists covered blues songs as faithfully as possible. For example, singer Eric Burdon modeled his vocal style on those of blues artists. In 1962, he became the lead singer of the Alan Price Combo, a British blues revival group. The group’s live shows were so wild that fans began calling them the Animals, which became the band’s new name. The Animals covered both blues and rhythm and blues songs by artists such as Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, and Chuck Berry. Burdon could mimic the tonal quality of many different black singers, and Price, using the electric organ, could replicate Bo Diddley’s distinctive style of guitar playing.

The Animals’ first album consisted almost entirely of blues and rhythm and blues covers, but it did include their first hit single, a cover of the American folk song "House of the Rising Sun." The members of the Animals may have encountered it in recorded versions by country singer Roy Acuff or African American blues musician Leadbelly.

During the 1960s, the Animals became less of a blues cover group and more of a rock and roll group whose musical style was deeply rooted in and inspired by the American blues tradition. They even recorded some Brill Building songs, such as Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil’s "We Gotta Get Out of This Place ♫" and Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s "Don’t Bring Me Down ♫."

“Most white Americans only discovered the blues with the British invasion.”

-Ronnie Wood

“It's an often-asked question, 'Why did all these spotty white English boys suddenly start playing blues in the '60s?' It was recognized as this kind of vibrant music and when I first started playing in a blues band I just wanted to bring it to a wider public who hadn't really heard it.”

- Steve Winwood

"In 1969, The Kinks wrote one of the first rock operas: Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire. It was released the same year as the Who's more successful Tommy, so many have forgotten about it."

Songfacts