They doin' the mess around

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts.

12/09/65 : Animal Tracks - The Animals


This is our first visit with The Animals and they're an interesting group because everyone knows "The House Of The Rising Sun", but I'm not sure how much of their other stuff people know. I do know how much of their other stuff I know though...

Well, I wasn't expecting it to start with some honky-tonk piano - and it features quite frequently across the album. It's all very much in an early Stones vein of US R&B tracks and Eric Burdon's voice isn't unlike Mick Jagger's - it's easy to make comparisons with the last visit with had with them. And it comes off pretty well - it's not something I'll be rushing back to, but it's well done. I'm not convinced by the album cover though.

We're at #14 in the charts this week on their final week of an eighteen week run, with #6 being as high as it got in third and fifth weeks, but it came back for another nine week run later in the year. The top five this week were The Beatles, TSOM, Mary Poppins, Andy Williams and Bob Dylan and we have one new entry in the chart for Herman's Hermits (#20).

Wikipedia doesn't have loads on the album - it's their second album and the last one with Alan Price until he rejoined for their '77 reunion album. The only other fact of interest is that every track on the album was written by different people with some quite interesting names in there including Ahmet Ertegun (who was a big cheese in the business for over fifty years), Chuck Berry, Ray Charles and Major Merriweather, who I know nothing about but it's a cool name. One other fact came up about The Animals that I'm not aware I knew - their original bassist was Chas Chandler whose name I recognised but had to be reminded that he's better known for going on to manage Jimi Hendrix and Slade.

"Customers also listened to" The Yardbirds, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks - I can see all the comparisons there. For a first visit with The Animals, I thought this was OK - not exactly what I was expecting but perfectly listenable.

05/09/65 - A lovely voice
19/09/65 - Better than expected

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