With the recent release of WAR's Why Can't We Be Friends? as an expanded edition for Record Store Day (with a CD edition to follow - links still aren't active), TSD has given a spin to Rhino's most recent WAR CD release: The Complete CD Collection from Eric Burdon & WAR.

"Peace and love was happening, and we figured that nobody would forget the name of the band if we called them WAR.  And we were right," Jerry Goldstein remembered in Dan Epstein's liner notes to the new box set Eric Burdon and WAR: The Complete CD Collection.  This four-disc set, first released in 2022 on vinyl, presents the complete albums discography of Eric Burdon and WAR, including 1970's Eric Burdon Declares "War" and the same year's double album The Black-Man's Burdon as well as the subsequent outtakes collection Love Is All Around.  These may not be the tightest albums in the WAR canon, but as the building blocks of the sound on which the group found greater fame, they're worth revisiting.

British singer Burdon, the former lead singer of The Animals, famously performed "San Franciscan Nights" with that band, but he was actually living in the American city when he teamed with a local group, Nightshift, to form Eric Burdon and WAR.  Nightshift's roots went back some years to their time performing together as The Creators; when producer Jerry Goldstein saw the big band playing at a North Hollywood club in support of football player-turned-soul singer Deacon Jones in 1969, he immediately sensed their commercial potential.  A slimmed-down line-up hand-picked by Goldstein began playing live with Burdon before entering the studio, where the singer-songwriter successfully fused his sensibilities with those of guitarist Howard Scott, pianist Lonnie Jordan, drummer Harold Brown, percussionist Dee Allen, bassist B.B. Dickerson, saxophonist/flautist Charles Miller, and Danish harmonica player Lee Oskar.  The group made their live debut in June 1969 at the Newport 69 festival in Northridge, California, enthralling audiences with their multi-ethnic lineup and Afro-Latin-meets-British-blues sound.

Sounds of whips and chains punctuate "Dedication," the first part of the suite ("The Vision of Rassan") that opens Eric Burdon Declares "War."  The track is driven by Lonnie Jordan's insistently boogieing piano: "Cast your mind back to black Africa," the lyrics go, "Little wooden ships crossing the ocean..."  Such African-American music legends as Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane are then name-checked: "But can you dig on his name now?"

The track set the tone for a melting pot of psychedelia, blues, soul, funk, jazz, rock, and Latin sounds with a spontaneous, improvisatory feel far-removed from Burdon's past work with The Animals.  (The album's very stereophonic mix added to the often-hallucinatory atmosphere.)  There's a tremendous sense of experimentation here which would be refined on subsequent WAR albums; as of the debut, it was more about the joy of the band and singer playing together.  That joy was manifest on the lengthy, multi-part jam based around John D. Loudermilk's "Tobacco Road" and the infectious band original "Spill the Wine," a drolly sung tune with a Fania-inspired groove.  (Frustratingly, accurate tracking for the CD with its many multi-part songs is nowhere to be found on the package.)

Burdon and WAR stretch out instrumentally on "Blues for Memphis Slim," taking up most of Side Two of the original LP (with "Spill the Wine" and the short "You're No Stranger" as bookends); one's mileage, naturally, will vary.  The throwaway "Stranger," which was left off some past CD reissues, is actually a lovely moment, with doo-wop harmonies over Jordan's typically grooving piano.

The octet went even further on their second set: the provocatively titled double album The Black-Man's Burdon.  Clocking in at over ninety minutes in length, it's even more sprawling than the first, with the group indulging in lengthy psychedelic jams like a 13-minute reinvention of The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" - complete with lengthy solos and an eccentric (to put it mildly) spoken word interlude - or bookending renditions of The Moody Blues' "Nights in White Satin."  (The "Satin" medley also includes "The Bird and the Squirrel" led by Charles Miller on flute; the bass-and-percussion "Nuts, Seeds and Life;" and "Out of Nowhere," another ominous spoken/shouted piece, with Miller on saxophone.)

If the album might have benefited from some judicious editing, or at the very least more focus, WAR was instrumentally firing on all cylinders with their joyful Afro-Latin grooves.  Burdon was a sympathetic collaborator, channeling his full-throated Animals voice at times (including on the final appearance of "Paint It Black") and other times seemingly happy to play second fiddle to the many talented instrumentalists in his ensemble.

The original songs were often little more than jumping-on points for extended musical passages and improvisations. "Spirit" (the original Side One closer) and "Jimbo" both sprung from the well of the blues; "Sun/Moon" was a more languid psych exploration.  The chugging "Beautiful New Born Child" is more riff than fully-developed song while the funky "Pretty Colors" brought some tempo to the album.

Once again, stereo was well-utilized throughout, including the musical dialogue of "Gun" (with its list of items to throw away, including hatred, misunderstanding, cocaine, and your gun).  "Bare Back Ride" opens with a "Spirit in the Sky"-esque riff and morphs into one of the album's jauntiest and brassiest invitations, replete with blues harmonica and honking saxophone.  It and "Home Cookin'" are among the more traditionally structured tunes on the double album's second disc.  The single "They Can't Take Away Our Music" is an anthem to the power of song.  But despite its upbeat message, it also marked the end of Eric Burdon and War.  On February 5, 1971, an exhausted Burdon parted ways with the group he helped bring to fruition.  Lonnie Jordan states in the liner notes for this set, however, that "Eric gave us his blessing.  He knew we could do it on our own."

And, under Jerry Goldstein's auspices, the band did.  They successfully moved from psychedelia to funk, weathering changes in taste and personnel alike.  In 1976, with the band riding the crest of the wave of their top 40 success with such hits as "Why Can't We Be Friends?" and "Low Rider," the producer dug into the archives to assemble one final Eric Burdon and WAR LP.  Love Is All Around collected previously unreleased material that today probably would have ended up as bonus tracks on a set such as this one.

The 1970 title track might have been a solid candidate for a single had it been originally released.  The non-LP B-side "Magic Mountain" (the flip of the hit "Spill the Wine") fires up a quintessential WAR groove with rhythmic, funky piano and woozy saxophone.  "Tobacco Road" was a WAR staple; the version here dated to the band's very first studio session - an alternative (and considerably shorter) version to that on Eric Burdon Declares "War."

Perhaps signifying that the vaults weren't exactly overflowing with material, the torrid "Home Dream" was recycled from Burdon's 1971 album Guilty with Jimmy Witherspoon on which WAR had appeared.  The second side of the original Love Is All Around was dedicated to two (more) covers: a live version of the first album's "Paint It Black" and a studio take on The Beatles' "A Day in the Life."  The latter took the parts of the Fab Four original, threw them in a blender, and reassembled them in extended WAR style.

As remastered by Bernie Grundman, the three albums on The Complete CD Collection are presented in superior sound.  The packaging is attractive but no-frills; the small box contains each album in a replica sleeve with a spine.  (The Black-Man's Burdon is a gatefold jacket.)  An eight-page booklet contains Epstein's liner notes, albeit at a type size so tiny you might well strain your eyes trying to read them without a magnifying glass.  Still, The Complete CD Collection makes an essential addition to the growing WAR discography, capturing the band's adventurous early days with the once and future Animals frontman.  It's time to spill the wine, indeed.

Eric Burdon & WAR's The Complete CD Collection is available now at Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada!