The Animals - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1964-1965

Here's the start of a four volume series of the Animals at the BBC. The Animals are a band that has been particularly poorly served when it comes to archival releases. Virtually nothing new has been released from the 1960s, so everything here is officially unreleased. There are some bootlegs and grey market releases, including a popular bootleg called the "Deluxe BBC Files." But this series is at least double the size of that, at about the same sound quality all the way through.

Note that I previously posted an album of unreleased Animals songs from the 1960s, almost entirely from BBC performances. This new series supplants that. But once I'm done posting all four volumes, I'll update that one for the people who just want the unique songs. I've found some new ones, and others with better sound quality.

It so happens that there never was a good official live album of the Animals from the 1960s. I say "good" because there is an album of them backing Sonny Boy Williamson in late 1963, which has been released under many different names and variants due to some copyright loophole. But that doesn't really count in my opinion, since most of those songs were sung by Williamson, with the Animals just the backing band. I've searched for quality live bootlegs, and there aren't any excellent sounding ones I could find (other than one from 1968, which I probably will post here eventually). So when it comes to live versions from the 1960s, these BBC recordings are basically it.

The Animals hit it big with their classic single "The House of the Rising Sun" in June 1964, which went to number one in the US and Britain. Despite that, and two other Top Twenty hits in Britain that year, I could barely find any worthy recordings from 1964. I'm sure they made many appearances on the BBC and/or other TV and radio shows, but some were lip-synched and other recordings were lost. I particularly had much difficulty finding any non-lip-synched version of "The House of the Rising Sun," period. I've had to resort to a version with some crowd noise.

You may notice six songs in the song list with "[Edit]" in the song titles. That's due to the usual problem with BBC recordings of BBC DJs talking over the songs. And, as I usually do, I edited the songs to get rid of that talking, usually by patching in repeating musical sections from other parts of the songs, or patching in bits from the studio recordings. For this series, I've only included one version of each song. Luckily, I found multiple versions of many songs, so I often was able to pick a version that didn't have the DJ banter problem.

Note that this includes a cover called "Gonna Send You Back to Georgia," originally done by Timmy Shaw in early 1964. When it came time to record this for an album, the Animals changed the title to "Gonna Send You Back to Walker." It's the exact same song, except for the word "Walker" instead of "Georgia."  I looked this up, and it turns out the Animals' lead singer Eric Burdon hailed from the town of Walker, near Newcastle. I've put the other song title in parentheses.

In a similarly confusing vein, the Animals performed the cover song "C. C. Rider," often known as "See See Rider." Generally speaking, when the Animals did it, they called it "See See Rider," but the song is known by both spellings in about equal measure. I looked this up, and it turns out that it should be "C. C. Rider," because that stands for either "church circuit rider," a reference to traveling preachers, or "county circuit rider," a reference to traveling lawyers. So I've put that spelling first and the other one in parentheses.

This album is 45 minutes long. The other albums in this series have similar lengths. The sound quality is generally high, though a couple, like "The House of the Rising Sun," sound a bit rougher.

01 Talkin' 'bout You - Shout (Animals)
02 Around and Around (Animals)
03 The House of the Rising Sun (Animals)
04 Gonna Send You Back to Georgia [Gonna Send You Back to Walker] (Animals)
05 Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood (Animals)
06 Dimples [Edit] (Animals)
07 Mess Around [Edit] (Animals)
08 Boom Boom [Edit] (Animals)
09 Lawdy Miss Clawdy [Edit] (Animals)
10 What Am I Living For [Edit] (Animals)
11 C. C. Rider [See See Rider] (Animals)
12 I Got to Find My Baby [Edit] (Animals)
13 Bring It on Home to Me (Animals)
14 I'm Crying (Animals)
15 Drown in My Own Tears (Animals)
16 Ain't that a Shame (Animals)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123913/TAnimls_1964-1965_BBSessionsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is of the band in 1964.