Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Animals: House Of The Rising Sun

Since I’m in New Orleans this week, I thought I might feature some New Orleans’ related music. For Tasty-Licks Tuesday, Alice Price’s organ solo on “The House of the Rising Sun” is par excellence. It is the quintessential rock keyboard lead as Price beats it out on a Vox Continental organ. Hilton Valentine’s guitar is not to be overlooked as well as his arpeggios inspired a generation of young guitarists. It was the third song I learned on guitar. Although writer of the arrangement, Price was given full songwriting credit for this traditional song.


Not only was it number one hit in Britain and the US, it was the first non-Beatles related British invasion record to place in the number one spot in 1964 – which it did for three weeks in September. Although Peter & Gordon had a number one with “World Without Love” in June, Lennon and McCartney wrote the tune.

Only one other UK act placed in the #1 slot in 1964 – Manfred Mann with “Do Wah Diddy Diddy.” The Beatles were in the #1 slot for 18 weeks during the year and if you add “World Without Love,” that number becomes 19 weeks in the top slot. Only one other group had multiple number one records that year – The Supremes with “Baby Love” and “Come See About Me.”

While the song was about a brothel in New Orleans, musicologists believe it originated with a 16th century English ballad about brothel in Soho, London. It was suggested that when the song crossed the Atlantic, the location changed to “The Big Easy.”





4 comments:

  1. I love tasty licks Tuesday! HOTRS is just one more of the seemingly endless run of classics released during the '60s. What a musically creative decade . . . and lucky you, in New Orleans.

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  2. Glad you like TLT. Loved the 60s - so much great music and the whole music business changed with The Beatles and their success. Not really getting to hear much music, but what I've heard has been good.

    Jim

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  3. The original recording of this song has ben waxed in the early 30's by Clarence Ashley who is in fact responsible for this song being so widely known. He learned this song from black sharecropper neighbor and at that times it really was a song confined to a remote area of North Carolina. The Ashley version was used by several new york folklorists and through them reshaped by Josh White who recorded it in 1944 and then by the torch singer Libby Holman around the same time.
    If you are interested by the original version you can get it at

    http://www.amazon.com/House-The-Risin-Rising-Blues/dp/B004PX7O02/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342063494&s=dmusic&sr=1-1

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  4. Thanks Gerard for the additional information. We appreciate it.

    Jim

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