Hilton Valentine
May 21, 1943 – January 29, 2021
The creator of one of the most famous opening guitar riffs in popular music has died at the age of 77. Hilton Valentine was a co-founder of the Animals, whose revision of the blues standard The House Of The Rising Sun topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic in 1964. Cause of death was yet to be revealed as we went to press.
Former Animals singer Eric Burdon paid tribute on Instagram, writing: “The opening opus of Rising Sun will never sound the same! You didn’t just play it, you lived it! Heartbroken by the sudden news of Hilton’s passing. We had great times together, Geordie lad. From the North Shields to the entire world… Rock In Peace.”
Once heard and never forgotten, the arpeggio intro to …Rising Sun became one of the most iconic pieces of music in history, some experts believing that it played a role in causing Bob Dylan to go down the electric path the following year, influencing the sound of rock’n’roll for decades to come.
However, the part concerned almost ended up on the cutting room floor – the band’s producer Mickie Most initially considered the song too lengthy for radio play.
According to Valentine, even from within the band there was some initial resistance to the song’s the famous Am-C-D-F chord sequence. He told an interviewer: “As we started rehearsing, I came up with my arpeggio bit and Alan Price said: ‘Can you play something different because that is so corny?’ So I told him: ‘You play your damn keyboard and I’ll play me guitar!’ Then, after a few rehearsals, he started playing my riff and we recorded it.”
Down the years there has been much consternation that Price alone is credited with the song’s arrangement.
“Our manager, Mike Jeffrey, said that we couldn’t put all of our names on the record because it wouldn’t fit, so he just used Alan’s name,” said Valentine in the same interview. “It was understood that the royalties would be shared among everyone. We were all so gullible that we just believed that. With nothing in writing to this day only Pricey gets royalties. Talk to him now and he’s actually convinced himself that that he arranged it.”
Valentine had taken up the guitar at the age of 13, inspired by Lonnie Donegan and the skiff le craze then sweeping the British Isles. He caught the attention of bassist Chas Chandler, keyboard player Alan Price and Burdon who recruited him to join a new group they were forming in 1963. Adding drummer John Steel they became the Animals. Burdon would credit Valentine with bringing a more hard-edged sound. “It really was Hilton who made the early Animals a rock band because I don’t think the element of rock was in the band until we found him,” the singer told Guitar International.
The band’s other hits included Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, It’s My Life and Don’t Bring Me Down.
Three years after their break-up in 1966 Valentine moved to America and released a solo album, All In
Your Head. He would reunite with the Animals three times, appearing on their 1977 album Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted. In recent years Valentine lived in Connecticut and renewed his love affair with skiffle music, forming the band Skiffledog. He also joined Burdon on a solo tour in 2007.
Along with the remaining originals from the
Animals – Burdon (who was on tour and didn’t attend), Chandler, Price and Steel – Valentine was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1994. At their induction, Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum described the Animals as a “key link in the evolving transition from black R&B to punk rock”.
Bruce Springsteen once called the music of the Animals “a revelation”, adding: “They were the first records with full-blown class consciousness that I’d ever heard.”