Look at this photo from 1968, featuring some young-looking music stars of that era. Do you recognise them?
L to R: Eric Burdon, John Mayall, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Winwood, Carl Wayne
Eric Burdon, lead singer of The Animals, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne (England). He will turn 83 in a couple of days’ time (11 May).
He is regarded as one of the “British Invasion’s” most distinctive singers with his deep, powerful blues-rock voice. Burdon is also known for his intense stage performances.
The Animals’ big hits were “The House of the Rising Sun”, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", "Bring It On Home to Me" and "We Gotta Get Out of this Place".
“The House of the Rising Sun”, about a whorehouse in New Orleans, is simply sensational. Eric Burdon now [Wikipedia]
Listen to it here: The Animals - House Of The Rising Sun (Music Video) [4K HD] (youtube.com)
Eric Burdon's school life was difficult. When he got to secondary school, a teacher by the name of Bertie Brown took the young Eric under his wing and was responsible for getting him into art school and changing his life forever. There, Eric first met John Steel, the original drummer for The Animals. He also met lot of other "young rebels" who shared his interest in jazz, folk and movies.
Burdon and fellow rocker and guitarist, American Jimi Hendrix, became very close friends in the mid-sixties and remained so up until Hendrix's death in 1970. Burdon was the person Hendrix's girlfriend called when she found him overdosed on drugs.
Burdon was also a good friend of John Lennon and, claims Burdon, was mentioned in one of their songs, "I Am the Walrus" as "the eggman".
In 1969, while living in San Francisco, Burdon joined forces with California funk rock band War. In April 1970, the resulting studio album was titled Eric Burdon Declares "War".
Burdon began a solo career in 1971 with the Eric Burdon Band, continuing with a hard rock-heavy metal–funk style. He also dabbled in film acting playing several minor roles.
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John Mayall, Godfather of the British Blues, hails from Macclesfield in Cheshire, but grew up in Cheadle Hulme, also Cheshire.
Now aged 90, he was a blues pioneer back in the 60s, and his band The Bluesbreakers, was a “finishing school”, or better said, a “nursery”, for many a famous musician, eg Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Hughie Flint, Keef Hartley, John McVie, Jack Bruce, Mick Taylor, Mick Fleetwood, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Jon Hiseman, Stephen Thompson, Harvey Mandel, Larry Taylor, and many more. John Mayall now [Stuttgarter Zeitung]
He moved to Laurel Canyon, California, in 1970, where he lived for some 15 years, and where he recorded some of his best work, such as the album entitled "Blues From Laurel Canyon".
Always keen to experiment and push the boundaries, he introduced brass, had a spell as a quartet without percussion, and jammed with all and sundry.
I saw him live three times. The first occasion was in 1968 at The Free Trade Hall in Manchester. As an 18-year-old university student in the city, I got an interview with John Mayall for the student rag. I was so nervous, I forgot to press the record button on my cassette recorder. Fortunately, Mr Mayall noticed and put me right. Phew!
What a gentleman!
The second time was to witness his landmark shift in style. “The Turning Point” with just four musicians and no drummer. That was in the ABC cinema in Exeter (Devon, UK) in 1969. "The Turning Point" remains one of my favourite Mayall albums.
Here is a sample track: California (youtube.com)
The third live concert was in 2004 at The Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on a shared bill with Peter Green, who was making a comeback tour after years in the wilderness recovering from extreme drug addiction and schizophrenia.
Sadly, because I loved Green's guitar-playing and singing with the original Fleetwood Mac, he was a shadow of his former self. John Mayall's Bluesbreakers were altogether more polished.
In 2005, John Mayall was appointed an OBE in the Queen’s Honours List.
At the age of 90 John Mayall is still touring.
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Jimi Hendrix was a black left-handed American virtuoso blues and rock guitarist. Born in Seattle, he moved to Clarksville, then Nashville, Tennessee, where he backed several musicians, including The Isley Brothers, Little Richard and Curtis Knight.
Within months of moving to England in late 1966, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with his band the Jimi Hendrix Experience: "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze", and "The Wind Cries Mary".
He achieved fame in the US after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and in 1968 his third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, reached number one in the US. Jimi Hendrix aged 27 [Entertainment Weekly]
The double LP was Hendrix' most commercially successful release and his only number one album.
At that time the world's highest-paid rock musician, Hendrix headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970.
Sadly, he joined "The Class of 27", when he was found dead of barbiturate-related asphyxia at that age in his accommodation in London in September 1970.
Click here for a performance of: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Purple Haze (Live at the Atlanta Pop Festival) (youtube.com)
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Stevie Winwood was the lead singer in The Spencer Davis Group, whose biggest hit was “Keep on Running”, now a classic. He then moved to Traffic and subsequently to a short-lived Blind Faith with Clapton, Ginger Baker and Ric Grech.
Winwood achieved fame during the 1960s and 1970s as an integral member of three major bands: The Spencer Davis Group (1964–1967), Traffic (1967–1969 and 1970–1974) and Blind Faith (1969).
Steve Winwood now [Die Welt]
During the 1980s, his solo career flourished and he had a number of hit singles, His 1986 album "Back in the High Life" marked his career zenith, with hit singles including "Back in the High Life Again", "The Finer Things", and the US Billboard Hot 100 number one hit "Higher Love".
Although his hit singles ceased after the 1980s, he continued to release new albums up to 2008.
In 2004, Stevie Winwood was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Traffic. He has won two Grammy Awards and an Ivor Novello Award, and has been honored as BMI Icon. In 2008, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Winwood number 33 on its list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Have a listen to this: The Spencer Davis Group (feat. Steve Winwood) - Keep On Running (1966) (youtube.com)
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Carl Wayne was principally known as a member of The Move in the 1960s.
Wayne was born in Birmingham in 1943. Inspired by the American rock'n'roll of Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent, he formed the G-Men in the late 1950s, and joined local band The Vikings, where his powerful baritone voice and pink stage suit helped make them one of the leading rock groups in the Midlands.
Carl Wayne before he died [Facebook]
In 1963 they followed in the footsteps of The Beatles and other Liverpool bands by performing in the clubs of Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Nuremberg. On returning to Birmingham, in the wake of the Beatles' success, record companies were keen to sign similar guitar bands. The Vikings signed with Pye RFecords, but all three singles failed to chart.
Wayne won first prize when he represented England at the prestigious Golden Orpheus Song Festival in Bulgaria.
In December 1965 he joined The Move, a Birmingham beat group drawn from top local bands. They enjoyed three years of hits with singles such as "Night of Fear", "I Can Hear The Grass Grow", "Flowers in the Rain", "Fire Brigade", and their number one success "Blackberry Way".
In their early years The Move had a stage act which occasionally saw Wayne taking an axe to television sets or chainsawing a Cadillac to pieces. The group was banned for a while from every theatre venue in the UK.
Wayne went solo and made several singles and record albums, some including songs written and produced by Roy Wood (Electric Light Orchestra). Among his singles were a cover of the John Lennon song "Imagine", plus a cover of the Cliff Richard hit "Miss You Nights".
He was originally offered the chance to record "Sugar Baby Love" but rejected it as "rubbish"; it was promptly given to a new band, The Rubettes, and it launched their career with a number one hit.
As well as his work on television, including "Hi Summer", he sang the theme songs to the talent show New Faces, one of which, "You're a Star!", was a minor hit for him in 1973.
Wayne also made a few recordings with the Electric Light Orchestra as guest vocalist, though these remained unreleased until they appeared as bonus tracks on a remastered re-issue of the group's second album, ELO 2 in 2003.
He never made the charts after leaving The Move, but still enjoyed a steady career in cabaret and on television, recording versions of songs from the shows of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, as well as voiceovers and jingles. He sang backing vocals on Mike Oldfield's Earth Moving, released in 1989.
In his acting career he had a small role in the Birmingham-based soap opera, Crossroads, and in 1974 married Susan Hanson, another member of the cast.
His most acclaimed stage role was as the narrator in Willy Russell's Blood Brothers between 1990 and 1996. Later he became a presenter on BBC Radio WM, in the course of which he interviewed several of his former colleagues from The Move, among other guests.
He was also a fund raiser for leukaemia research, and ran several London Marathons for charity. He also made an appearance on The Benny Hill Show in 1985, in which he played the "Face" character in a parody of The A-Team.
From 1983 to 1988 he appeared in various Emu TV programmes, in the segment Boggles Kingdom alongside Susan Maughan and Rod Hull. Wayne performed several songs during the show, including renditions of Puttin' On the Ritz and Greensleeves.
In 2000, on the retirement of lead vocalist Allan Clarke, he joined The Hollies, touring Europe and Australasia with them, as well as playing venues all over the United Kingdom. They recorded a new song, "How Do I Survive", in February 2003, which appeared as the only previously unreleased item on a 46-track compilation CD of the Hollies' Greatest Hits later that year.
In addition to most of The Hollies' songs, they included "Flowers in the Rain" and "Blackberry Way" in their live repertoire. Their drummer Bobby Elliott described Carl Wayne as "a fearless performer and powerhouse singer".
Wayne played what turned out to be his last concert with the group on 10 July 2004 at Egersund, Norway. Shortly afterwards he was admitted to hospital for tests; he was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer and died a few weeks later, aged 61. He left a widow (Susan Hanson) and their son, Jack.
Because of poor sales, none of Wayne's solo releases remained on catalogue for long during his lifetime. In 2006 an album of his performances, remastered with the involvement of Wood and some previously unreleased, was issued under the title Songs From The Wood And Beyond 1973–2003.
Two tracks by Wayne and Choral Union appear on the two-CD set Friends & Relatives, a compilation of tracks by Electric Light Orchestra and associated acts.
Here is a track from his time with The Move: The Move - Flowers In The Rain 1967 (youtube.com)
© The Culture Vulture
Acknowledgements:
Die Welt
Entertainment Weekly
Facebook
Stuttgarter Zeitung
Wikipedia
YouTube
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