The idea came out of a musical post I’d intended for elevenses on All Souls Day and not only I was thinking that The Animals in the early to mid 60s had this uncanny ability to sound “ancient” in some ways throughout their catalogue but many reactors to their music touched on that point … one even called Burdon an Old Soul.

Thought I … hmmmm, maybe that might fit into Tuesday’s posts. Looking back now at the first two Bach musical pieces today … I’m no way comparing in quality … and yet … and yet … within the genre itself of folk, blues, soul, rock, rhythm they carved out for themselves in their short career as a unit … their songs really do stand up as something different … quite expertly, if simply, constructed.

Eric Burdon himself, the Newcastle lad who was the band’s vocalist, said they’d been billed as the second band with Chuck Berry and, realising they could never “out-rock” the man, they decided to go more serious, even a bit otherworldly, certainly harking back to much earlier times, even back a century and longer.

The first song below here was a monster hit across the world, deserved in the eyes of many … but in the opinion of one youtube uploader … in Burdon’s very talent lay the seeds of the band’s doom … we saw similar with CCR and to a lesser extent, Steve Winwood. Creative differences, plus money, tore them apart less publicly than with some other bands of the time.

Pity, because many say they “own” the song with this version, just as CCR “owned” Put a Spell on You. Yes … so many versions of HotRS … and now I get onto another prob besetting me last evening in trying to get this post ready.

That’s the problem of the reactors. Why even bother? Well, I want to see how the songs of that era stand up … do they grab younger listeners/watchers? Do they wow certain demographics today? In the case of The Animals, the answer is a resounding yes! This will continue after HotRS:

There’s another partner reaction here from a demographic who really appreciate jazz, soul, blues.

There’s something I must say at this point … I’ve gathered many “regular” young reactors, not so much Boomer/Gen X and they’re the first go-tos every song I’m looking at. The demographics are mainly black women and men, plus white women.

For some reason, I find white men too emotionless and analytical or if Woke left … weirdos.

White, antiWoke men tend to be systems oriented … building things, seeing if they work … and that’s exactly the criticism of Burdon, Parsons and band. They “construct” a song, they create a feeling, an ambience, they can move like robots … so can I at home. Look at this blog … it’s a construction … yet there’s still an ambience.

Eric Burdon’s a Geordie, an Englishman, yet he can certainly feel soul, the blues … in his life, especially the blues … has a keen sense of musical history, while Parsons is consummate at the ethereal, other worldly, even manic, swirling high in the ether … a unique combination, plus the rest of the band were superb.

Then they had lineup changes and immediately lost that “whole band” effect, never got it back. Three years of The Animals we got … that was it.

Which brings me to the second reactor … Stacey is a stalwart … I’ve not seen her do a bad reaction, plus she’s all woman with those gestures. It was amusing her reaction to the girls screaming, ha ha … she could not stand them. I love her relaxed reactions.

And now we get to the reactor maybe I should avoid … my bread and butter for decades, the eternally sassy, bubbly girl who could either go bad, as they do today … or wunnerful, as I find her reactions … on many of them (not this one), she runs text above, giving much info about band, song, context. She’s a good reactor, though I’m not taken by her playing at the start … not my mysic.

Still, we’re generations apart … she’s crazy, daughter-type kid … let’s get to the song: