Brass Ensemble - Digital Download SKU: A0.883786 Composed by Eric Burdon and Eric Victor Burdon. Arranged by Phil Lawrence. Contemporary. Score and parts. 64 pages. Phillip Lawrence #5287377. Published by Phillip Lawrence (A0.883786). The idea for this arrangement was given to me by an old friend who played in BR Edge Hill band with when we were kids, Christine Humphreys and to do it for bass trombone, the more I looked at it thinking of Eric Burdon’s voice from The Animals with his first verse nearly too low for him to scrape the lower notes and then the later verses near to top of his register suited. The Animals though in A minor, so for BT I dropped it to Ab minor a real shall we say juicy register for bass trombone plus the added attraction of setting it in the lower octave pedal area to show the instrument off. There aren’t may Bass Trom solos in the rep, so now we add one more!An interview with Eric Burdon revealed that he first heard the song at a club in Newcastle, England, where it was performed by Northumberland folk singer Johnny Handle.The Animals were on tour with Chuck Berry and chose him because they wanted to sing something different. The Animals version moves the narrative from the initial point of view of a woman drawn into a life of decline to that of a man whose father is a gambler and a drunk, rather than the adorable person of the previous versions.
