Newcastle upon Tyne · British rhythm-and-blues band fronted by Eric Burdon
The Animals were five months past “The House of the Rising Sun” when the song reached them, and Eric Burdon later said of it that it was “never considered pop material.” Mickie Most produced; the band recorded it on 16 November 1964 and turned a slow orchestral ballad into a hard, driving blues-rock single of two and a half minutes. Their version reached No. 3 in the UK, No. 15 on the US pop singles chart and No. 4 in Canada. The record is genuinely great and its arrangement is the one nearly every later cover follows — the only error is chronological.