1962-1969, 1975-1977, 1983Eric BurdonVocals
Alan PriceKeyboards
Chas ChandlerBass
John SteelDrums
Hilton ValentineGuitar
Formed in 1962 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the Animals were a bluesy entry in the British Invasion. Their gritty, dark, blue-collar sound influenced The Doors, Deep Purple, Bruce Springsteen, Genesis, Tom Petty and many others.
Bob Dylan cited the Animals' first hit and second single, "
The House Of The Rising Sun," as his inspiration for bringing electric rock to traditional folk songs. Dylan had covered the song in a traditional acoustic style a couple of years earlier on his self-titled debut album and thought the Animals' version was better and more exciting than his own.
The band started with college friends Eric Burdon (vocals) and John Steel (drums) playing jazz and blues as the Pagan Jazzmen. Friend Jimmy Crawford provided banjo while Alan Sanderson played drums. Burdon played trombone in addition to singing but soon dropped the instrument to focus on vocals. The Pagan Jazzmen became the Pagans, a rhythm and blues group, with the addition of future Animals keyboardist Alan Price.
The group eventually took on another name, the Kansas City 5, a title that sometimes swelled to the Kansas City 7 or the Kansas City Several through its chaotic rotation of short-term members. The group adopted yet another name when Burdon left Newcastle to live in London. They brought in bassist Chas Chandler and went by the long-winded name Alan Price Rhythm & Blues Combo. In 1963, Burdon returned from London, and the group went by the Alan Price Combo briefly before adopting the Animals moniker by which history would remember them.
Andy Summers, who joined the New Animals in 1968, later joined the Police.
Alan Price left the group because he was dissatisfied creatively and because he had developed a fear of flying - at least, that's one version of events. The other version is decidedly more controversial. Eric Burdon said Price ripped the band off by keeping sole rights to "House Of The Rising Sun."
"The last time I saw Alan Price was at a 1983 reunion show,"
Burdon said in 2016. "We collectively asked him if he was ready to start sharing future royalties for 'House of the Rising Sun.' When he refused, that was the last time I ever spoke to him."
In the 1990s, Burdon made a cameo on the TV show China Beach and worked with David Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer on his 1989 debut solo album Coast to Coast.
The Animals appeared in many cheesy 1960s movies, including It's a Bikini World!. After leaving the group, Price took on more serious roles, including the film O Lucky Man!.
Lore long held that Alan Price Combo fans gave the Animals their name because of the band's raucousness, but Burdon later claimed the name actually came as a tribute to an old friend named Graham "Animal" Hogg.
Ownership of the name has been a source of strife in the group. From 1966 to 1969, Burdon performed with different musicians as Eric Burdon and the New Animals. Then, in 2008, British courts declared that John Steel owned The Animals name because of a trademark registration and because officials did not deem Burdon to have a proper legal case. Burdon won an appeal in 2013 and was allowed to use the name again.
Animals bass player Chas Chandler became one of Jimi Hendrix' managers. It was by no means the first or last time that the lives of Hendrix and the Animals crossed paths.
Eric Burdon's first wife was London fashion model and hippy muse Angela "Angie" King, whom he married in 1967. She left him for Jimi Hendrix within a year, officially divorcing Burdon in 1969. She battled drug addiction for the rest of her life and was murdered in 1992 by an estranged lover. Her son, Jet James, is a
successful painter in Australia.
Through it all, Burdon remained friends with Hendrix. Hendrix' final live performance, in fact, was in 1970 with Burdon and the band War at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London.
Eric Burdon was one of the first to learn about Hendrix' death, and he became the center of a conspiracy theory holding that Burdon scrubbed the room of drug debris before police could arrive. That claim has since been debunked by official records, but Burdon did find a multi-page, handwritten Hendrix lyric sheet titled "The Story of Life" in the room. Burdon assumed it was Hendrix's suicide note and later experienced severe regret at sharing this publicly, as it turned out Hendrix did not commit suicide.
Burdon joined the funk band War in 1969, but his brief time in the band was fraught with tension. Things came to a head in 1970 with the band's album The Black Man's Burdon, which was meant to be a show of racial solidarity but ended up fueling resentment.
