Psychedelic Rock at its best. Deep, Dark & Melancholic, forcing you to look in parts of your soul you would rather not. Impossible not to listen to.. The RJs on AIR were connoisseurs – they brought to us the most amazing music to feast upon. I remember hearing this gem from 1964 – I was one year old when this was released – on the radio quite often, usually towards the end of the one-and-half hours of requests as the mood turned away from lovelorn ditties. This one always stood out from the rest of the music for its “night of the soul” lyrics and arrangement, and marked a change in the mood of the program towards rock and heavy metal.    

This ancient song has been recorded by the who’s-who of music through the years including Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, Pete Seeger & Joan Baez. But it was the Animal’s take of the song from 1964 that has become the all-time definitive version. In a period when the Beatles were ruling the world – this psychedelic rock anthem hit #1 song on Billboard. The Animals were from Newcastle, where are the coal came from. You can hear the cold, dark despair of the North East’s ice-cold winters in Eric Burdon’s lead vocals. He totally kills it. But it was Alan Price’s organ that really makes the song – the mournful rhythm sets the base on which the entire story unfolds in Bourdon’s voice from hell.

There’s been a lot of discussion about whether New Orleans ever really had a house of ill-repute called House of The Rising Sun. No one knows but it’s a nice legend and it actually doesn’t matter – for those of us listening in Delhi, The Animals made it very real. The song was arranged by all members of the Group but arranging credit went only to Alan Price. For the simple reason that the label on the LP wasn’t large enough to carry all the names and – and Alan Price’s first name was first alphabetically. However, this has meant that over the years Price is the only one who has received the royalties on this huge hot. As you would expect, this this has led to quite some strife through the years.