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Thursday 28 May 2020

"When I Was Young: The MGM Recordings 1967-1968" by ERIC BURDON and THE ANIMALS – Including The US Albums "Winds Of Change" (September 1967), "The Twain Shall Meet" (March 1968), "Every One Of Us" (August 1968), "Love Is" (December 1968 2LP set, April 1969 UK as a Single LP) and more (21 February 2020 UK Esoteric Recordings 5CD Box Set Containing Four Albums with Mini LP Card Repro Sleeves (the Mono and Stereo Sleeves of "Winds Of Change" are separate), a Fold-Out Poster and 66-Page Booklet Plus Ten Bonus Tracks – Ben Wiseman Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...








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"...The Twain Shall Meet..."

I've enjoyed a few tasty Box Sets in 2020 (despite lockdowns and other enslavements) - but this has to be one of my faves and an absolute shoe-in for how reissue should be approached. What a humdinger this gorgeous looking thing is. And it sounds the Ben Sherman too.

There's a lot of coloured rain, meetings of twains, winds of change, uppers and downers and a girl named Sandoz to wade through - so without any further sky pilots, let's get all San Franciscan man...

UK released 21 February 2020 - "When I Was Young: The MGM Recordings 1967-1968" by ERIC BURDON and THE ANIMALS on Esoteric Recordings ECLEC 52700 (Barcode 5013929480001) is a 56-Track 5CD Oversized Clamshell Box Set of Remasters covering Four Studio Albums Plus Ten Bonus Tracks that plays out as follows:

Disc 1 "Winds Of Change" STEREO (60:34 minutes):
1. Winds Of Change [Side 1]
2. Poem By The Sea
3. Paint It Black
4. The Black Plague
5. Yes I Am Experienced
6. San Franciscan Nights [Side 2]
7. Man - Woman
8. Hotel Hell
9. Good Times
10. Anything
11. It's All Meat
Tracks 1 to 11 are the album "Winds Of Change" - released September 1967 in the USA on MGM Records SE-4484 in Stereo (Mono variant is Disc 5) and November 1967 in the UK on MGM Records C 8052 (Mono) and CS-8052 (Stereo) – the STEREO MIX is used here. Produced by TONY WILSON - it peaked at No. 42 in the USA (didn't chart UK).

BONUS TRACKS:
12. When I Was Young
13. A Girl Named Sandoz
Tracks 12 and 13 are the A&B-sides of a stand-alone 45 7" single released March 1967 in the USA on MGM Records K 13721 and May 1967 in the UK on MGM Records MGM 1340 - peaked at No. 15 in the USA and No. 45 in the UK

14. Ain't That So
Track 14 is the non-album B-side of "Good Times" - a UK 45 7" single released August 1967 on MGM Records MGM 1344 and December 1967 in the USA as the B-side of "Monterey" on MGM Records K 13868 - it peaked at No. 20 in the UK and with the different A-side at No. 15 in the USA

15. Gratefully Dead
Track 15 is the non-album B-side to "San Franciscan Nights" - a UK 45 7" single released October 1967 on MGM Records MGM 1359. The September 1967 US 45 7" single for "San Franciscan Nights" had "Good Times" on its B-side (MGM Records K 13794) - the UK B-side was exclusive

16. Anything (Single Version)
Track 16 is the non-album B-side to "Monterey" in the UK on MGM Records MGM 1412 - "Anything" was issued as a US 45 7" single in May 1968 on MGM Records K 13917 but as the A-side with "It's All Meat" on the flipside. The UK A-side is Track 11 on Disc 2

Disc 2 "The Twain Shall Meet" STEREO and MONO (56:22 minutes):
1. Monterey [Side 1]
2. Just The Thought
3. Closer To The Truth
4. No Self Pity
5. Orange And Red Beams
6. Sky Pilot [Side 2]
7. We Love You Lil
8. All Is One
Tracks 1 to 8 are the album "The Twain Shall Meet" - released March 1968 in the USA on MGM Records SE-4537 in Stereo (only Promo copies were in Mono) and May 1968 in the UK on MGM Records C 8074 (Mono) and CS 8074 (Stereo) - the STEREO MIX is used here - Produced by TONY WILSON - it peaked at No. 79 in the USA (didn't chart UK)

BONUS TRACKS:
9. Sky Pilot (Part One)
10. Sky Pilot (Part Two)
Tracks 9 and 10 are the A&B-sides of a Stereo 45 7" single released January 1968 in the UK on MGM Records MGM 1373 and May 1968 in the USA on MGM Records K 13939 - it peaked at No. 14 USA and No. 40 in the UK

11. Monterey (Mono Single Version)
Track 11 is the A-side of a May 1968 UK 45 7" single on MGM Records MGM 1412 (the B-side is Track 16 on Disc 1)

Disc 3 "Every One Of Us" STEREO (49:04 minutes):
1. White Houses [Side 1]
2. Uppers And Downers
3. Serenade To A Sweet Lady
4. The Immigrant Lad
5. Year Of The Guru
6. St. James Infirmary [Side 2]
7. New York 1963 - America 1968
Tracks 1 to 7 are the album "Every One Of Us" - released August 1968 in the USA on MGM Records SE-4553 in Stereo (only Promo Copies were in Mono on MGM Records E-4553) - the STEREO MIX is used. Produced by ERIC BURDON and THE ANIMALS - it peaked at No. 152 in the USA (this LP had no UK release).

BONUS TRACK:
8. White Houses (Single Version, Stereo Mix)
Track 8 is the A-side of a November 1968 US 45 7" single on MGM Records K 14013 (the B-side is "River Deep, Mountain High" – Track 10 on Disc 4)

Disc 4 "Love Is" STEREO (73:54 minutes):
1. River Deep, Mountain High [Side 1]
2. I'm An Animal
3. I'm Dying, Or Am I?
4. Ring Of Fire [Side 2]
5. Colored Rain
6. To Love Somebody [Side 3]
7. As The Years Go Passing BY
8. Gemini
9. The Madman
Tracks 1 to 9 are the US double-album "Love Is" - released December 1968 in the USA on MGM Records SE-4591-2 in Stereo only and April 1969 in the UK as a 'single album' on MGM Records CD 8105 in Stereo. 
The 6-track UK LP can be sequenced from this CD as follows - Side A: 1. River Deep, Mountain High 2. I'm An Animal 3. I'm Dying, Or Am I? Side B: 1. Ring Of Fire 2. Coloured Rain 3. To Love Somebody 

BONUS TRACK:
10. River Deep. Mountain High (Single Version, Stereo Mix)
Track 10 is the B-side of "White Houses - a November 1968 US 45 7" single on MGM Records K 14013 (the A-side "White Houses" is Track 8 on Disc 3)

Disc 5 "Winds Of Change" MONO (43:53 minutes):
1. Winds Of Change [Side 1]
2. Poem By The Sea
3. Paint It Black
4. The Black Plague
5. Yes I Am Experienced
6. San Franciscan Nights [Side 2]
7. Man - Woman
8. Hotel Hell
9. Good Times
10. Anything
11. It's All Meat
Tracks 1 to 11 are the album "Winds Of Change" - released September 1967 in the USA on MGM Records E-4484 (Mono) and MGM SE-4484 (Stereo) and November 1967 in the UK on MGM Records C 8052 (Mono) and CS-8052 (Stereo) – the MONO MIX is used here – Stereo CD Variant is Disc 1. Produced by TONY WILSON - it peaked at No. 42 in the USA (didn't chart UK).







Substantial to hold and pretty to look at - the glossy outer hard-case Box Set has a pull out tray that offers five Mini LP Card Repro Sleeves of the American Artwork – Discs One to Five as listed above with the Stereo versions of "Winds Of Change" and "Love Is" being gatefolds while the other three are single sleeves (as per their original MGM Records artwork). The one-sided six-leaf foldout poster is fact an advert for the Box Set (very cool looking) and is a nice touch.

But the 66-Page Booklet is a straight-up work of art, a veritable feast of info and images. There are so many Psych-based posters of the period, concert and festival flyers, rare ticket stubs, trade adverts, live photos, promotional material and more. But surely the piece de resistance is Pages 56 to 63, each offering up a huge array of foreign picture sleeves for both singles and albums – France, Germany, Brazil, Japan, Norway, Yugoslavia, USA, UK demos – and all in gorgeous colour. Combined with the preceding text that is in itself peppered with rare period stuff – it doesn’t half make an impact.

MALCOLM DOME also puts together a fantastic history of the period – his liner notes liberally dosed with recent conversations and remembrances on sessions and tours from band member Antion Meredith (the new name for Vic Briggs), guest Zoot Money (talking about future Police guitarist Andy Summers), producer Keith Olsen and more. There are even lists of live dates on the final pages that show the band criss-crossing the UK, Europe and the States. Although there are loads of snaps and warm recollections of his talent and charisma, conspicuous is the absence of EB in the notes? Also Esoteric forgot to put in the catalogue numbers I’ve provided above for any of the releases. But these minor points don’t stop "When I Was Young..." from being exemplary in every way.

The transfers are care of the vastly experienced Audio Engineer BEN WISEMAN – 24-bit digital Remasters from original tapes done at Broadlake Studios in Herefordshire. Those of us who have had to pick at the bones of these recordings across the decades will marvel at these punchy little beasts – only the BGO CD reissue of "Every One Of Us" gets close to how good these CDs sound. To the music...

After the dissolution of the R&B phase of the Animals with November 1966's "Animalisms", Burdon relocated to San Francisco and soaking up the hippy Psych counter-culture exploding there, he relaunched as Eric Burdon & The Animals. Drummer Barry Jenkins remained from the old line-up and in came the trio of John Weider on Guitar, Violin and Bass, Vic Briggs on Guitar and Piano (now known as Antoin Meredith) and Danny McCulloch on Bass. Wasting no time, the band launched their MGM contract with the Eddie Kramer engineered 45 times were very hard "When I Was Young" in April 1967 with the heavy fuzz-guitar Psych-based "A Girl Called Sandoz" on the flipside. Also recorded at that session was "And Just That" - a tune used in the 1967 James Mason, Geraldine Chaplin and Bobby Darin movie "Stranger In The House" (all three turn up in the Bonuses on Disc One). Burdon's new incarnation of The Animals hit big and fast - the single peaking at No. 9 in the USA while his native England seemed less interested with a No. 45 placing (Tina Turner, The Ramones and The Smashing Pumpkins have subsequently covered "When I Was Young"). To the mish-mash that was their MGM debut...

The "Winds Of Change" album is a product of Tom Wilson's one-take lackadaisical Production and the band's have-no-material, let's-make-it-up-right-here approach. But it did give way to experimentation with styles - the Tex Mex trumpet on "Hotel Hell", strings and Jazz moments on the ballad "Anything", Music Machine Bassist and future Producer Keith Olsen playing Bass on "Winds Of Change" and "The Black Plague" and Piano on "Good Times" because McCulloch had broken his wrist. A patchy album anyway, but when MGM put Burdon’s liner notes (a eulogy to acid) on the front cover instead of the inside (without his permission) – the band hated it and the public thought he was a preachy git. So even with good tunes like "San Franciscan Nights" and the Ray Charles, Ravi Shankar praising "It's All Meat" – stupid moves like Producer Wilson tricking the band into recording a substandard cover of "Paint It Black" by The Stones and then putting it on the album without their knowledge or permission – left a ranker.

And of course it's a period piece so stuff like the Tabla 'n' words experimentation of "Man - Woman" sound a tad trite 52 years on – but with this cracking audio – tunes like the sitar-driven eternity song "Winds Of Change", the I took a walk and wrote a "Poem By The Sea" song (with crashing percussion) and the take you under my wing "Anything" sound ahead of their time and not bound by it. I also rejigger the track list of the LP – drop "Man - Woman" and "Paint It Black" to include the Cream-sounding British B-side "Gratefully Dead" and "When I Was Young" – to get the album I really want (but that's just me!).

Ravi Shankar, The Who, Hugh Masekela, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix all get praised in the cool sounding "Monterey" – a fab groover about the famous 60ts Festival. With Guitar, Sitar and Horns ripping along like the theme song to some Tarantino movie about car chases and drugs – that sexy opener for "The Twain Shall Meet" album from March 1968 quickly segues into the Summer of Love swish and sway flower song "Just The Thought" (fab audio). Clever cross channel panning of the vocals and guitars opens the equally wicked "Closer To The Truth" and already three songs in and the album feels like the masterpiece the first LP struggled to be. Burdon advises that no matter how low you are, there is always someone lower in the philosophically dodgy and sound (at the same time) "No Self Pity" – a be what you are piece given hippy nuances with the Harpsichord and Sitar doing battle with the Bass and Burdon's otherworldly delivery. The seven minutes and thirty-six seconds of "Sky Pilot" is all flanged vocals and guitars - soldier's blood and crying mothers back home filling up the anti-war song with genuinely well-written lyrics. Another near eight-minute piece ends this excellent album - "All Is One" - opening with an uncredited Royal Scots Guards giving in some highland moaning bagpipes before we embark on a very-Doors we're all one and the sun is your son hippy trip. Yeah baby...

The "Every One of Us" LP divides people – I think its part genius and part crap. It starts out so well too. Eric thinks people better get straight in "White Houses" – a rather good jaunty tune tail-ended by cool guitar soloing. "Uppers And Downers" is a 20-second piss-take on the Grand Ole Duke of York melody of olde. Better is the John Weider instrumental "Serenade To A Sweet Lady" – a polished toe-tapping piece of Rock-Jazz music for the woman who would become his wife of the next 50 years (she sadly passed in 2019). Seagull screeches begin "The Immigrant Lad" – a very Donovan/Dylan strummed acoustic song - the Remastered audio gorgeous as Eric sings of coal and old sailors and the waters of time. Side 1 then ends with a tambourine-shaking shuffling rocker called "Year Of The Guru" that could have been a kick-ass single - clever follow-your-leader warning lyrics backed by brilliant piano fills and sexy overdubbed guitars.

Side 2 opens with "St. James Infirmary" – a brilliant Eric Burdon groove that is quickly side-swapped by the beast the album is most remembered for - the infamous near 19-minutes of "New York 1963 – America 1968" playing out Side 2 and overstaying its welcome big-time. Starting out well with sung lyrics about arriving in New York in 1963 where EB goes to the Bronx and the Apollo theatre – his Newcastle mind blown by multicultural parts of the city and the possibilities it offered. But of course assassinations in the news and the riots that followed soured the dream. Throughout this social commentary workout that then extends into 1968, John Weider plays a stormer on guitar while Zoot Money (credited as George Bruno) plays Organ and Piano. About 6:16, the music stops and becomes a spoken dialogue about a Government-abused pilot only to return to a slow-build of I Feel Free chants and music. You can either love it or hate it – and like most – you'll probably feel a bit of both.

Ex Dandelion's Lion and future Police axeman Andy Summers joined EB, Zoot Money, John Weider and Barry Jenkins for the double-album "Love Is" from December 1968. In an interesting aside, Eric Burdon & The Animals would join a very minimalist set of ranks - bands or artists who released three studio albums in the same year or three albums of original material in the same year (Creedence, Fleetwood Mac and Fairport Convention in 1969, Canned Heat and Matthews Southern Comfort in 1970, Nilsson in 1971, James Brown in 1973 to name but a few - my list is on-going and presently has only 22 names on it). Another cover of the Ike & Tina Turner classic "River Deep, Mountain High" might induce a yawn amongst listeners - but EB and his newly infused band go at it with Rocking R 'n' B gusto for seven and half minutes - his love for the lady boundless. Sly Stone's "I'm An Animal" gets an almost DIY punk ethic going on - hey hey hey, they shout - before it gets all mellow yellow and Soul-Rock-ish.

Their cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring Of Fire" sees EB give it some welly on those burns-burns-burns lyrics. But one of the double's undoubted highlights is the nine and half minutes of "Coloured Rain" where Summers and the other guitarists in the band get to stretch out with chops and changes on the Traffic cover that are almost Prog in their structure. Seven minutes of "To Love Somebody" does The Bee Gees proud - a daring re-working of their catchy hit made into an epic Rock tune. Don Robey's "As The Years Go Passing By" has Eric waxing lyrical about Blues Music and its effect - a fantastic ten-minute piano-and-guitar Blues Rock shuffler than got left off the single British LP when "Love Is" was finally released April 1969 in Blighty. "Gemini" gets eleven minutes of Psych blissed out free form brilliance - an obscure Steve Hammond song that would eventually show up on the lone self-titled Quatermass LP in May 1970 on Harvest Records (Hammond has also been in the ranks of Fat Mattress). It ends on the huge chunky doomy riffage of "The Madman" - a song that soon becomes a bopper as Eric ponders the world.

I'm fairly sure that 'outsiders' who do not know this part of Eric Burdon and The Animals story might wonder what all the fuss is about. But do I love you (my oh my) - bet your life baby. Well done to all the good bods who brought the legacy of "When I Was Young: The MGM Recordings 1967-1968" to life...

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