"The only time it dominates is during a solo, or when we play a low blues and I put figures in behind Eric's vocals. There's never any real problem fitting guitar and organ together"
About this Quote
Alan Price is doing that very musician thing: insisting the magic is actually just good manners. On the surface, he is talking about instrument balance, but the real message is about ego management inside a band - especially one orbiting a star voice like Eric Burdon. The organ, in early-60s R&B rock, isn’t wallpaper; it’s a competing lead instrument with sustain, volume, and harmonic density that can swallow a mix whole. Price reassures you it doesn’t, because he knows the unspoken accusation: keyboards can crowd guitars, and organists can hog the emotional center of a song.
Notice how he defines the organ’s “domination” as permissible only in two sanctioned spaces: the solo (where everyone expects the spotlight to shift) and the “low blues” moments behind the vocal (where the job is to deepen the groove, not steal attention). That’s arrangement as diplomacy. “Figures” is the giveaway - concise, repeating motifs that punctuate a vocal line without stepping on it. He’s describing restraint as craft, and craft as loyalty.
The context is The Animals’ tough, minimal sound: guitar, voice, and Price’s Vox Continental carving out that urgent, working-class atmosphere. His confidence that there’s “never any real problem” is less naive than strategic. It frames potential internal friction as a technical issue with an easy fix: listen, leave space, know your role. In a genre built on swagger, Price is quietly arguing that taste is the real power move.
Notice how he defines the organ’s “domination” as permissible only in two sanctioned spaces: the solo (where everyone expects the spotlight to shift) and the “low blues” moments behind the vocal (where the job is to deepen the groove, not steal attention). That’s arrangement as diplomacy. “Figures” is the giveaway - concise, repeating motifs that punctuate a vocal line without stepping on it. He’s describing restraint as craft, and craft as loyalty.
The context is The Animals’ tough, minimal sound: guitar, voice, and Price’s Vox Continental carving out that urgent, working-class atmosphere. His confidence that there’s “never any real problem” is less naive than strategic. It frames potential internal friction as a technical issue with an easy fix: listen, leave space, know your role. In a genre built on swagger, Price is quietly arguing that taste is the real power move.
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| Topic | Music |
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