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Hilton Valentine, Animals guitarist who played the famous intro to House of the Rising Sun – obituary

Hilton Valentine in 1965 - Monitor Picture Library/Avalon
Hilton Valentine in 1965 - Monitor Picture Library/Avalon

Hilton Valentine, who has died aged 77, was the original guitarist with the Animals, who strode out of the North East into the forefront of the English pop invasion of the US; his intro to their first and biggest hit, House of the Rising Sun, became arguably the most famous arpeggio in the history of popular music.

Valentine remained modest about his contribution, saying that he simply took the opening chords from the version on Bob Dylan’s debut album and played them as an arpeggio; but its dramatic simplicity made it the perfect opening to the traditional song about a New Orleans brothel.

The Animals’ singer Eric Burdon later credited Valentine as being the band’s catalyst: “Hilton made the early Animals a rock band because I don’t think the element of rock was in the band until we found him. In those days, Hilton wasn’t just playing rock’n’roll, he looked rock’n’roll.”

Hilton Stewart Paterson Valentine was born on May 21 1943 in North Shields, Northumberland (now part of Tyne and Wear), and as a teenager was hit by the skiffle bug of the 1950s. When he was 13 his mother bought him a guitar and he set to work with the book Teach Yourself a Thousand Chords.

With friends at Tynemouth High School he formed a skiffle band, the Heppers. Then as the clamour of rock’n’roll began to drown out the sound of washboards and tea-chest basses they morphed into the Wildcats, who became a local draw in church halls and working men’s clubs and even recorded a 10-inch acetate, Sounds of the Wildcats.

Valentine, left, with Chas Chandler in 1964 - Fox Photos/Getty Images
Valentine, left, with Chas Chandler in 1964 - Fox Photos/Getty Images

Orphaned at 16, Valentine threw himself into his music, and tales of his wild playing – as well as his habit of stripping to the waist and writhing around on stage – soon spread, reaching the ears of Bryan “Chas” Chandler. The bass guitarist asked him to join what was then called the Alan Price Combo, with the titular organist alongside Eric Burdon on vocals and drummer John Steel.

Renaming themselves the Animals, they moved down to London in 1964, preceded by a reputation for performing gritty, no-nonsense blues covers. Signing to EMI, and produced by Mickie Most, they recorded their first single, Baby Let Me Take You Home, which reached No 21 in the UK charts.

The follow-up, House of the Rising Sun, was recorded in a single take. Described by one critic as “the first folk-rock hit”, it went to No 1 on both sides of the Atlantic – and according to legend, when Dylan heard it on his car radio he stopped the vehicle, got out, banged on the bonnet in delight and decided there and then to go electric.

The Animals, l-r, John Steel, Eric Burdon, Dave Rowberry, who had replaced Alan Price on keyboards, Valentine, and Chas Chandler - Dezo Hoffman/Shutterstock
The Animals, l-r, John Steel, Eric Burdon, Dave Rowberry, who had replaced Alan Price on keyboards, Valentine, and Chas Chandler - Dezo Hoffman/Shutterstock

On the back of its Stateside success, in October 1964 the Animals touched down in New York and were driven from JFK Airport in a motorcade of Sunbeam Alpine Series IV soft-tops, hoods down, each carrying one of the band accompanied by a model. They took The Ed Sullivan Show by storm, and two months later featured alongside the Dave Clark Five in the movie Get Yourself a College Girl.

Despite rapturously received gigs, however, and further chart success – Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, We Gotta Get Out of This Place and It’s My Life were among their Top Ten hits – the usual personal tensions and chaotic finances tore the band’s classic line-up apart, and Valentine quit in 1966.

He became the manager of his former Wildcats bandmate Keith Shields, who recorded a few singles for Decca without marked success. Then in 1970 he made his own solo debut album, All In Your Head, which mixed folk with psychedelia but was not counted among his finest work, even by Valentine himself.

Over the years, he signed up for several reunions of the Animals’ original line-up: there was a benefit gig in Newcastle in 1968, then in 1977 the album Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted, which was critically lauded but sold few copies. In 1983 came another album, ARK, accompanied by a world tour, and the following year a greatest hits live LP, Rip It To Shreds.

In 1994 Hilton was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the Animals. He took a new band on the road, the Animals II (soon joined by John Steel on drums), which toured until 2001, when there was another brief reunion of the original band.

In the new century Hilton continued recording, under the name Skiffledog, and also toured for a few months with Eric Burdon. In 2011 he released the album Skiffledog, playing the songs that had originally inspired him to pick up a guitar.

In 1997 Hilton Valentine married Germaine, an American women with whom he lived in Connecticut. She survives him with a daughter.

Hilton Valentine, born May 21 1943, died January 29 2021