Customer Reviews

Every One of Us

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great album, but, the best thing about it, and what really gets it five stars out of me is the first song on side two, in it's original format, otherwise known as the sixth song, St. James Infirmary.

St. James Infirmary is quite possible the finest original blues song to come out of the British Invasion. It would have some competition from their earlier hit, Maudie, which, is probably even better than St. James infirmary but it is a cover of John Lee Hooker's song to his wife. So, disqualified for being a remake.

St. James Infirmary is a song about devastation, in the vein of Tim Rose's Long Time Man, not just about love gone wrong, but about the lover dying. You gotta hear it.

You just gotta.

I am so old that I remember when this recording was first released on vinyl. This recording of St. James Infirmary is the guts of the blues; and it is unforgettable. The entire album pretty well captures the essence of those times. Pretty somber rock and roll.

When this was first released, I was in my junior year of high school. To my fellow classmates it was either: 'House of the Rising Sun" or "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", this was NOT the Animals! Too bad, this is great album.

Gone is the bass of: Chas Chandler, the 'tiny' Vox organ of: Dave Rowberry, etc., and new members: Vic Briggs (bass/guitar/bagpipes,vocals), John Wieder (guitar, violin), Barry Jenkins, Dan McCollough (guitar, bass, vocals), and Victor Bruno (organ, piano), join "fearless leader" Eric Burdon for 'full-fledged' 'psychodelic Animals' re-incarnation that would be a welcome addition to anyone's collection, who can say they remembered the 60's (with or without the 'psychodelics'!)... Just listen to "Uppers-and-Downers", "Immigrant Lad", and a beautiful (yes, beautiful) instrumental ballad: "Serenade to a Sweet Lady". Truly a 'head-turner".

Hey don't take my word for it- turn out the lights, light a candle, light some incense, put on the CD and be transported back to a time when peace was in the air, hair was long, bras were burned, and Eric Burdon and the Animals were at their most interesting and creative!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm quite the Eric Burdon apologist, especially in the New Animals years, but this album stretches things to the limit.

The seven tracks that make up Every One of Us consist of three solid post-psych rockers, a gorgeous instrumental, two meandering spoken word numbers (one being of epic length) and a little dinky one minute blurp. What makes this album essential to the completist is that with the exception of "White Houses", you won't find these tracks anywhere else. "White Houses" is the big single taken from the album and it's one of their best, featuring the one and only Zoot Money, now an bonafide Animal.

"Uppers and Downers" is a minute of weird, pretty much to get the listener to track 3, "Seranade to a Sweet Lady" which is my personal favorite of the bunch. It's a instrumental, so Burdon sits on the sidelines while Vic Briggs & co. go through the quiet six-minute jazz number. Then we get "The Immigrant Lad" - huh? About half the track is a confused dialogue, complete with the bad words bleeped out! How considerate.

Luckily we get back in the grove with the hard rocking "Year of the Guru" which shows that this lineup could be hard hitting. Same deal with "St. James Infirmary". I've heard many version of this standard and the New Animals pull off one of the finest renditions.
You can pretty much stop the disc at this point, but for those who dare, keep going into "New York 1963/America 1968" - a 19 minute ramblethon that almost casts the a pall on the entire album. There's a huge spoken word chunk smack in the middle of the track. It's a nice story, but my biggest problem with spoken word recordings is that they tend to only be interesting for the first listening. Then you just start fast forwarding to get to the groove-olympics jam session which is pretty cool, but I was pretty winded from the monologue.

All in all, this is a pretty good album as long as you can navigate around the filler. It's tough to be profound and pull it off without sounding full of yourself and Eric Burdon walked a dangerous path through this album. He essentially abandoned the "high-psychedelic" style of the previous two albums for a more stripped-down approach, but it came at a time where the band was dissolving around him. The following album, another Animals rarity called "Love Is" introduced a new New Animals with Zoot Money providing most of the musical direction (and stealing a bunch of vocal spotlight from Eric). The Vic Briggs era ends here, with this album, and it is quite apparent on this recording that the times and the sounds were changing.

This CD is incredibly difficult to find. Hopefully this track by track summary will be useful to anyone lucky enough the have the option to purchase this disc.

This has got to be the best album by Eric Burdon and The Animals. I can remember the first time I heard this and I still can't believe how good it is. This album was recorded just after Eric Burdon and The Animals got through their psychedelic period.
The best song here has got to be their version of "St. James Infirmary". This version just oozes blues. It's one of the best of many versions of this song. Also included here is a great smooth instrumental track entitled "Serenade To A Sweet Lady". When you listen to it the first thing you say to yourself is "This can't be The Animals!" Well, my fellow music comrades it is The Animals and definitely at their best. Also it's worth checking out the other great tracks on here. If you ever find this on a CD it's definitely worth picking up. You don't have to be a big fan of Eric Burdon to like this you just have to be into good music.

The Repertoire label has just released this on CD, currently available through Amazon UK. Sound quality is amazing, far outstripping the One Way and Japanese Toshiba versions.
This album has been one of my personal favorites for years, coupled with Eric & the Animals' last gasp, "Love Is". The two have a completely different sound and feel, however. Whereas "Love Is" is in large part extended, novel interpretations of cover songs loosely based on the various aspects of love, "Every One of Us" is more of a psychedelic British folk album with lyrics relating to Burdon's personal experiences.
As with my review of "Love Is", I'm giving 4 out of 5 stars based on filler tracks. "Uppers & Downers" is totally unnecessary, "Year of the Guru" is witty but dated (great riff, though), and the "America-1968" jam gets a might tedious. However, as others have stated, "Serenade to a Sweet Lady" is an incredible instrumental and "St. James Infirmary" is one of Burdon's best vocal interpretations, sort of a bookend to "House of the Rising Sun".

One of my alltime favorite animals. More than blues &psycedilia. Acollection of introspective and insightful words &sounds. Immigrant Lad tells us of Saturday night . How else would you descibe it? Uppers&Downers seems to explain Viet Nam & the U.S. involvement sort of Sky Pilot part2. The treatment of St.James Infirmary takes the listener to old Joe`s bar and you want to buy that guy a stiff drink.