Eric Burdon gave a party and nobody came. His Ritz gig was a testament to the ephemeral nature of the music biz and the rock audience, always on the endless quest for the next big thing. Despite heavy pre-concert publicity, Burdon, the next big thing of 1964, pulled in the sparest crowd in recent memory. And that’s too bad because Burdon is still one hell of a blues singer, too good for the golden oldies circuit he has been exiled to.Part of the problem lies in his approach. Ex-next big things have been known to make glowing comebacks (Tina Turner, The Moody Blues, Aerosmith and Deep Purple are good examples), but they’ve done it by adopting a contemporary look, writing new songs with hit potential, developing a sound that borrows from their glory days but adds an ‘80s quality – a whole new n’ improved package which is then troted out by their record company with as much hoopla as possible.
Burdon, currently without the support of a label (a giant disadvantage), has not done this. His show, though competently put together, had the unfortunate feeling of a Las Vegas lounge act. He contributed to the effect by wearing a satiny black jacket, open shirt, and chains around his neck, and by his generally porky, middle aged appearance. The contrast between him and his two backup singers, who were pretty, sexy and young, only made matters worse.
Burdon may have sealed his fate early on in his career. Twenty years ago, his great British Invasion band, The Animals, had a string of hits – mostly inspired covers of blues classics, or new material by Goffin/King and other top songwriters of the time. The Animals bore many similarities to the early Rolling Stones in both attitude, inspiration and sound; however, while the Stones went on to become champion songwriters in their own right, the Animals remained primarily a cover band. These days, original material is nearly always a prerequisite to success. and Burdon doesn’t have it.
Burdon’s frequent use of covers used to have a reason – to bring great black blues music to the attention of white record buyers. He has always had great respect for rock’s Rhythm and Blues roots, which is admirable, but, these days, seems to be taking an ironic twist.
For instance, Eric originally did “River Deep, Mountain High” in the ‘60s to help the then overlooked Tina Turner. Now, it doesn’t come off that way; with Turner a superstar and Burdon scraping by, one thinks of Turner’s version as the definite one, and someone else doing the song seems odd, much like covering “Born to Run.”
Many of Burdon’s 1960’s covers have also been done by other artists after him, and the latter versions are the ones that remain in memory – again producing the reaction “why is he doing this song?” This was the case with “Don’t Bring Me Down” (David Johansen), “On Broadway” (George Benson), and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” (Elvis Costello, and a ‘70s disco hit). To add insult to injury, another one of Burdon’s covers, “Tobacco Road” (a blues classic covered in the mid 1960s by the Nashville Teens) appears on David Lee Roth’s upcoming solo album.
Burdon’s original message is made further irrelevant by the fact that many of the blues artists to whom the Animals paid homage (like Howlin Wolf and John Lee Hooker) receive more respect, attention, and ticket sales than Burdon does these days. And with the Top 20 dominated by the likes of Prince, Patti Labelle and Run DMC, contemporary black music in America is doing just fine, thank you very much, without anyone’s help.
The peace-love-and-flower-power attitude of Burdon’s late -1960s LSD hippie period doesn’t go with his style of music today either. The trappings of the era, minus the politics, have been picked up by the neo-psychedelic bands. Politically conscious young people tend to go for hardcore punk nowadays; rebels without a cause prefer thrash metal; and blue collar kids who identify with the underdog have all their Bruce Springsteen records. (Burdon did give a nod to Bruce, who is in many ways his logical successor, by covering “Factory” at his Ritz gig.)
Burdon's original audience has mostly yuppified, and those that showed up for this concert seemed to there for a trip down memory lane, which is pretty much what they got.
Burdon did make an attempt to somewhat update his material, with synthesizer riffs and dance rock rhythms winding in and out of his basic blues sound. His backup band produced some slick high energy music, that sounded especially good on uptempo numbers like “C.C. Rider.” (One more example of a cover that is identified with other people – Mitch Ryder, who is another talented white ex-blues singer stuck in the same rut as Eric – and Springsteen, who covered the song on “No Nukes.”)
But overall, this concert was depressing as hell. Nowhere was this as apparent as during Burdon's encores (the hundred or so people in attendance were nice enough to applaud like crazy though).
First, Burdon completely blew the momentum of the set by allowing his drummer to do an interminably long solo during the Animals' classic "I'm Crying." Nobody does solos during the encore, and it has by now been conclusively proven that the drum solo is the most boring, annoying, stupid tradition rock n' roll has ever come up with.
The audience was not going to let Eric leave without playing the Animals' biggest hit, "House of the Rising Sun," and he finally did, summing up his career in a bitter outburst that was genuine and very very sad.
"I hate this fucking song!," he announced and sang it with anger and the feeling of a funeral march, which in a sense, it was. Burdon even changed the lyrics in the final verse to "Oh mother, tell your children, not to do what I have done, spend your life in a rock n' roll band."
In a way, Burdon got the order of his set wrong. He should have ended with "We Gotta Get Out of This Place."
This review originally published by The East Coast Rocker on July 16 1986, written by Abby Weissman.
