Legendary rock ‘n’ roll singer Eric Burdon is celebrating his 75th year on this planet the same way he has for much of his life: out on the road with The Animals.
Eric Burdon & The Animals
Sept. 24 | 7:30 p.m. | $51.37
Harrah’s Lake Tahoe | Stateline, NV
“It’s been pretty much nonstop for over 50 years now,” he says. “Sometimes I get tired of it all, but when I hit the stage and my band begins to play behind me, I know I’m where I belong. I can feel their energy behind me and I’m lifted up by it.”
Playing music is simply who he is and always will be.
“I’m a traveling bluesman,” he says. “This is what I do. I think about slowing down or even stopping altogether at times, but the love of the audience propels us forward. It’s a feeling you just couldn’t get from anything else.”
Burdon honed his rugged, powerful voice as a young man growing up in the 1950s in Newcastle, England, where he was inspired by the great singers of the day.
“They say I came out of the womb singing the blues,” he says. “I was thrown out of the choir for singing too loud. I discovered music as a means to escape from a black and white world in post World War Britain. I tried playing the trombone as a teenager but soon discovered after being allowed to sit in onstage at one of the jazz clubs in Newcastle, that my voice was my real instrument.”
“I still carry a dream and a belief that if you want to know the truth in life, don’t pass music by. … I still believe in the power of music to change the world.” -Eric Burdon
Burdon credits a myriad of influences for helping him find his way in the world of blues and rock ‘n’ roll.
“My parents bought me a record player at an early age and that opened the gates for me,” he says. “My downstairs neighbor was a merchant seaman and I would plead with him to bring me records by the great black musicians in the U.S. We were fortunate enough to have many of the greatest black artists performing live at Newcastle City Hall, where I got to hear Muddy Waters and even met Louis Armstrong face to face.”
In the 1960s, Burdon rose to fame as the lead singer of The Animals whose hit cover of “The House of the Rising Sun” influenced a generation of musicians from Bob Dylan to The Rolling Stones. As a fixture in the 1960s countercultural rock scene, he hung out with many well-known artists of the time. Memorably, he was John Lennon’s muse for The Beatles’ song, “I Am the Walrus,” after gaining renown for a peculiar fetish he enjoyed with his Jamaican girlfriend.
“I’ve told the wild story many times, of John Lennon witnessing a certain affair and dubbing me ‘The Eggman’,” he says. “But the side of John which is not as well known is a tenderness I witnessed, one evening at Brian Epstein’s home, which was near my own and the place where we hung out a lot of the time. In the midst of this scene, filled with the gods of rock and roll, mid-60s London, all drinking and carrying on, I came upon John, sitting on the floor with one of Klaus Voormann’s kids, speaking in German and keeping her company.”
Burdon’s music has always reflected his love of traditional blues, while addressing contemporary political issues. A number of his songs still carry relevance to this day.
“For many soldiers, ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place,’ beginning during the Vietnam War, but again, in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he says. “A veteran once told me that that song saved his life. At first I thought he was speaking rhetorically, but he insisted that it really saved his life. He explained to me that he had left the trenches for a moment to grab a cassette tape and when he returned his company had been blasted and he was the only survivor.”
Despite the turbulent times we now live in, Burdon continues to believe in the promise of music to inspire peace and harmony in the world.
“I still carry a dream and a belief that if you want to know the truth in life, don’t pass music by,” he says. “There’s been some progress in the past 50 years but we still have a long ways to go. I still believe in the power of music to change the world — or, at least, people’s hearts. I’ve seen it happen before and it could always happen again.”
When asked about his legacy, Burdon remained humble in spite of his lasting contributions to the history of popular music.
“I’m proud of what I’ve done but I try not to think of my legacy,” he says. “That is for others to assess. I’ve just tried to keep it real and connected to the roots of why I chose music as a path in the beginning.”
For more information or for tickets, visit harrahstahoe.com.
