Eric Burdon & The Animals – Monterey (1967-68) *NEW VIDEO

This turned out to be one hell of a New Year’s Eve gift, released on December 30, 1967, Eric Burdon and the New Animals soared on the charts with the jazziest rock tribute to a music festival ever made … a festival they themselves had performed at as well. I hyphenated the year as this would become a major hit for 1968. The song, along with „Sky Pilot“ which would become a smash hit later that year, both appeared on the album The Twain Shall Meet (of which I was a happy owner).

This is probably my favorite song by Burdon due to his style of singing. Each syllable enunciated perfectly with emphasis to a challenging tempo. I have often wanted to make this into a music video, but didn’t quite know how I wanted to go about it. Showing festival footage was one way, but it had been done so many times. It has taken the advent of CGI technology to make it possible to actually insert Eric and the band into the festival scenes. There is good sound quality on the recording as well, all in synchronization.

„Monterey“ quickly reached #15 on Billboard and #10 on Cash Box on January 13, 1968, and #16 on the Canadian RPM charts.