the Animals

the Animals, five-piece rock group from northeastern England whose driving sound influenced Bob Dylan’s decision, in 1965, to begin working with musicians playing electric instruments. The principal members were Eric Burdon (b. May 11, 1941, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England), Alan Price (b. April 19, 1942, Fatfield, Durham), Hilton Valentine (b. May 21, 1943, North Shields, Tyne and Wear—d. January 29, 2021), Chas Chandler (byname of Bryan Chandler; b. December 18, 1938, Heaton, Tyne and Wear—d. July 17, 1996), and John Steel (b. February 4, 1941, Gateshead, Durham).

Released in 1964, the group’s first single was a version of Eric Von Schmidt’s folk-blues song “Baby Let Me Follow You Down,” which had appeared on Dylan’s first album. Retitled “Baby Let Me Take You Home,” it featured Burdon’s hoarse rhythm-and-blues-inflected singing. Their second single, the traditional “House of the Rising Sun,” was brilliantly rearranged to feature Price’s electric organ and Valentine’s guitar, playing ornate arpeggios beneath Burdon’s dramatic vocal. A number one hit on both sides of the Atlantic, this was the record that persuaded Dylan to take the plunge into electric music. The group’s later hits, such as “I’m Crying,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” and “It’s My Life,” developed a formula of tough, dramatic, hard-driving rock shaped by an awareness of folk music and the blues.

Though Price left the group in 1965, the rest stayed together long enough to record Animalisms (1966) and its hit single “Don’t Bring Me Down,” after which the remaining musicians also departed; Chandler went on to manage Jimi Hendrix and Slade. Burdon put together a new lineup, billed as Eric Burdon and the Animals, which incorporated psychedelia into its sound, notably on the double album Love Is (1968); the band’s last big hit, also in 1968, was “Sky Pilot.” The original Animals reunited briefly in the mid-1970s to record Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted (1977) and again in 1983 for a more successful album, Ark, followed by a short tour. In 1994 the Animals were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.