Hilton Valentine, original guitarist and founding member of The Animals, died at the age of 77.
The news was confirmed by the record label ABKCO, which said: “We, along with the entire music world, today mourn the loss of Hilton Valentine, a founding member of The Animals. Valentine was a pioneering guitarist influencing the sound of rock and roll for decades . His death was revealed by his wife, Germaine Valentine. “
Valentine was born in North Shields, Northumberland, in 1943 and, like many musicians of his generation, was influenced by the growing craze for skiffle music.
“What attracted me to the guitar was seeing Lonnie Donegan doing Rock Island Path on television, in a program called The Six Five Special, “Valentine said Modern Guitars in 2006. “I wanted to play the guitar after seeing this and, of course, after listening to Chuck Berry and watching him do the duck walk.”
In 1963 he was recruited to join The Animals alongside Chas Chandler, Alan Price and John Steel. He went on to play classics like Baby, let me take you home, Do not let Me Be Misunderstood, We have to get out of this Place, put, This is my life and Don’t bring me down, and in the number one transatlantic cover of the traditional band The House of the Rising Sun.
While the song helped launch the band to stardom, it also typified the chaos behind the scenes that would lead to their eventual breakup.
“I was coming up with my arpeggio part [the famous Am-C-D-F chord sequence] and Alan Price said to me, ‘Can you play something different because it’s so tacky?’ “Valentine said Guitar International in 2010. “So I said to him, ‘You play your damn keyboard and I play the guitar for myself!’ Then, after a few rehearsals, he started playing my riff and we recorded it.
“Our manager, Mike Jeffrey, came and said that since the music was in the public domain, we needed to give credit to an arranger. He said that we couldn’t put all of our names on the album because it wouldn’t fit, so he just put the name of Alan saying that he understood that royalties will be shared among everyone.
“We were all so credulous that we simply believed we would get our share. But we never put anything in writing and to date, only Pricey has received royalties on it.”
In 1966, the band’s business “was a total mess,” according to Chandler, and they split up. Valentine moved to the USA, where he recorded a solo album, Everything in your head, in 1969.
He would not release another album until he returned to his original love, skiffle, in recent years. In 2004 came It’s Folk ‘N’ Skiffle, mate! with Remains drummer Chip Damiani, and Skiffledog in Coburg ST followed in 2011. He released a Christmas album the following year, Merry Skifflemas !, recorded with Peter Miller, also known as Big Boy Pete, a former member of British Invasion companion Peter Jay & the Jaywalkers.
“It was really Hilton who made the first Animals a rock band, because I don’t think the rock element was in the band until we found it,” said Eric Burdon Guitar International. “Hilton wasn’t just playing rock’n’roll, he He looked rock n Roll. Here was a guy with a wisp of greased back combed hair, a cheap leather jacket, black leather shoes, black jeans and a smile on his face playing through an ecoplex, which was a secret weapon at the time. “
A future star who paid attention was Bruce Springsteen, who credited the band with a central influence on his own career in his speech at the music industry’s SXSW conference in 2012. “They weren’t cool, you know?” Springsteen said. “They didn’t please me, you know? They were like personified aggression. It’s my life, I’ll do what I want. They were cruel. They were cruel, which was so liberating. It was so liberating.”
“We were among those responsible for taking white America to the blues music that was already in its own backyard,” said Valentine. “They just didn’t know that.”
The cause of death has not yet been announced.