“I tried to uphold that”: Eric Burdon on how Nina Simone inspired him to be more political
While The Animals weren’t exactly known for having been overtly political in their lyrics, the band’s leader, Eric Burdon, has been known to express a passion for politics and has described himself in interviews as being something of a precursor to the punk movement. There certainly was a rebellious streak in Burdon and a proclivity for sticking to the counter-cultural movements, and between his time in The Animals and his brief stint with California funk outfit War, he would regularly rally against expectations to create in one particular and pre-determined lane.
Initially part of the British Invasion that took America by storm, The Animals would find themselves transitioning regularly throughout the 1960s, from starting life as a blues rock and R&B group and later seeing a switch towards a more progressive and psychedelic sound. Known for a raucous live act, the band would regularly cover songs originally made famous by other blues artists and regularly distorted them in ways that brought the energy up to new levels.
The band achieved notoriety for one cover in particular, and their version of the traditional folk song ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ has since become synonymous with the group despite having been recorded by a number of other artists of note prior to them. One notable performer of the song was Nina Simone, who recorded a version of the track in 1962 for her live album, Nina at the Village Gate, and the band were known to have been fans of hers, having recorded covers of other songs in her repertoire such as ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’.
Simone was much more widely known for her political approach to music, and she gained attention for her work on the civil rights movement in America during the 1960s. Not only was Burdon inspired by her as a performer and political activist, but he seemingly sought and valued her opinions as well, and in an interview with Gary James, he spoke of how Simone shaped his political leanings and encouraged him to pay more attention to introducing his politics to music.
Speaking about how he kept a record of important dates and events, he said that he had a “collection of writings and newspaper clippings and whatever else I was able to get” and that a lot of people regularly borrowed it. When Simone got her hands on it, she apparently kept hold of it for several months before returning it, and Burdon declared that her message to him was a very impactful thing to hear.
“She told me,” he began, “the way she saw what I did in the music business was in the realm of music creativity, a musical journalist. That impressed me. So, I tried to uphold that.” Believing that her work was of great importance and coming away from the interaction inspired him, and this led him to continue working on documenting as much as he could from the music industry and engaging with it in a different way.
“I believed in her and her music so much,” Burdon stated. “She’s probably one of the most heaviest, creative forces around. She was able to produce pop records as well as be very political and radical in her own way. So, I’ve tried to stay there. I’ve tried to keep that alive.”
Burdon went on to discuss how he has continued to write in this manner and write books on the declining state of the music industry, saying that even though Simone’s advice encouraged him to keep going, he stated it was incredibly hard to motivate himself during the 1980s and ‘90s.
Concluding, he confessed that he “became totally bored with the music world and the music business. I really didn’t have anything to say.”
