The Animals – The Animals (1964/2016) [US Version]
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 41:49 minutes | 764 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Digital Booklet | © ABKCO Records
The Animals made an immediate impact on the US charts in 1964 with this self-titled debut, propelled by the number one hit single The House Of The Rising Sun. The first of three Animals albums produced by Mickie Most (Herman’s Hermits, the Yardbirds, Donovan), The Animals has never been available in any digital format. Now remastered using transfers from the original first generation mono tapes, this reissue includes the full seven minute version of Talkin’ ‘Bout You as a bonus track.
Released a month ahead of its U.K. counterpart, with which it shared only seven of its 12 tracks, the Animals’ first American album is an entertaining assortment of the recent LP sessions, plus both sides of their first two singles (“Baby Let Me Take You Home” and, of course, “House of the Rising Sun”) and one further B-side, “Blue Feeling” (from the newly released “Boom Boom” single). The presence of that latter track, incidentally, would see British collectors spend much of the next 27 years searching for American pressings, before it finally found its way onto a full U.K. release; that matter notwithstanding, however, both permutations of the album offer up a handsome representation of precisely what the Animals meant at this time, a drawling, dirty R&B (with the emphasis on the B) sound personified in the three assaults on the Chuck Berry songbook. The bread and butter of virtually every band on the circuit of the time, the Animals’ versions of “Around and Around,” “Memphis,” and “Talkin’ ‘Bout You” are far removed from the clear-cut visions served up elsewhere in the British Invasion. Eric Burdon’s gleeful retelling of what, by Berry’s normal standards, is the somewhat cutesy tale of “Memphis,” is still second only to the decade-later Faces’ version in terms of fashioning drama from the document, while it would take a souped-up Bowie and the Spiders to bring more sense of movement to “Around and Around.” The remainder of the set sees the group moving further afield in search of material, with Fats Domino’s “I’ve Been Around” also extending their studio prowess by recruiting a female chorus to chase Burdon through the lyric. Another Domino number, “I’m in Love Again,” reinforces the band’s obvious admiration for the New Orleans scene – although the fact that the same city plays host to the action of “House of the Rising Sun” was probably more fortuitous than intended. That latter song, of course, dominates the album, even in the cruelly truncated edited version that is included here. What has to be admired, then, is the manner in which The Animals refuses to try and follow it up – indeed, the only other “trad. arranged by” credit in the band’s recorded repertoire, “Bury My Body,” was among the U.K. album tracks omitted from the American set.
Tracklist:
01 – House Of The Rising Sun
02 – The Girl Can’t Help It
03 – Blue Feeling
04 – Baby Let Me Take You Home
05 – The Right Time
06 – Talkin’ ‘Bout You
07 – Around And Around
08 – I’m in Love Again
09 – Gonna Send You Back To Walker
10 – Memphis, Tennessee
11 – I’m Mad Again
12 – I’ve Been Around
13 – Talkin’ ‘Bout You (full version)
Personnel:
Eric Burdon – vocals
Alan Price – keyboards
Hilton Valentine – guitar
Chas Chandler – bass
John Steel -drums
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