House of the Rising Sun
The Animals 1964
(traditional arrangement by Price)
Chart - UK No.1, US No.1

House of the Rising Sun is a song so steeped in American folklore and tradition that it’s almost impossible to put a date on its origins. It is possible however to trace back the exact moment when it stepped into 20th century popular culture, that date was September 15 1937 and it all happened in Middlesboro, not Middlesbrough in the north east of England, although the north east of England does play it’s part in the story some three decades later. No, it all began in Middlesboro, Kentucky when a music historian by the name of Alan Lomax arrived at the doorstep of a poor miner’s daughter by the name of Georgia Turner. Lomax was making recordings of popular folk songs sung by ordinary people in their natural environments for the Library of Congress and his travels brought him to little Georgia who was just 16, he hulked out his cumbersome presto reproducer recording machine and she sang her favourite sad song for him, an old bluesy folk tune about living a life of sin called Rising Son Blues. It had been about for years but never committed to tape before, indeed Lomax believed it dated back to 1600’s England while others dated it to the American Civil war, either way history had been made!

The song was recorded in 1937, from there the legendary Lomax put the song in a songbook and it spread like wildfire through the folk music scene on the east coast with versions springing up in the 1940’s from the likes of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and bluesman Josh White. Not bad for a song warning about the perils of prostitution eh? The House of the Rising Sun was traditionally a euphemism for a bordello in English circles, and the song is really little more than a tale of woe concerning a woman’s decline into the oldest profession in the world. Amazing that no one really picked up on that and censored the whole thing from the start! With every passing year the songs fame grew until Bob Dylan covered it on his debut album (calling it House of the Rising Sun) and in 1964 a band of R&B reprobates from Newcastle in the north east of England called The Animals came to record it and the face of modern music was changed for ever.

Apparently Chas Chandler of the band heard the Josh White version, not the Bob Dylan version as is often thought. Eric Burdon has famously been quoted as saying the band’s famous producer Mickie Most did nothing but nod his head when the song was being recorded something that Most himself doesn’t really deny.

It was a revolutionary single, it was over four minutes for a start - a length unheard of in pop circles. But more than anything, it was the wonderful arrangement that really sold it as something different. The Animals electric version of Georgia Turner’s favourite tune swept across the world taking them to number one at home and also hitting the top spot Stateside on Sept 5th 1964, replacing the Supreme’s ‘Where did our Love Go’ at number one on the billboard charts. It was arguably the first folk rock tune, Bob Dylan loved it so much he decided to drop the acoustic sound he was famous for and took up the electric sound for his next album Bringing it All Back Home - pop music thus changed forever. The song has also got more than its fair share of celebrity fans, it’s Melvyn Bragg’s favourite tune ever.

In the years since, The Animals version has caused any amount of legal wrangling because Alan Price took the arrangers credit for the keyboard refrain he added to the song, arguably Hilton Valentine’s guitar work is just as influential (just ask anyone who’s ever learned guitar and they’ll tell you they learnt that famous riff!) but he never made a penny from it, the band still hold grudges about the credit to this day.

Ever since that break through hit in 1964, the song has been recorded in disco style, Cajun style, there are punk, jazz, even easy listening versions of it - even the hip hop world has embraced the tune with Wyclef Jean recently recording a version.

Needless to say every old building in New Orleans claims to be that fateful House of the Rising Sun, but in reality it’s impossible to judge if it’s all just to get publicity and encourage tourism.

As we remember the song with that immortal opening line “there is a house in New Orleans…” its worth remembering that the woman who sang that very first recorded version Georgia Turner died penniless of emphysema in 1969. She was just 48 years old, she made just 117.50 dollars from the song in royalties, a sobering thought when you think how famous the song is now.

Written by Ralph McLean