Love Is All Around
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Album Summary
By 1976, War had ascended to the upper echelons of American funk and soul, and ABC Records knew good and well that the earlier recordings Eric Burdon had laid down with the group were sitting on nothing short of gold. 'Love Is All Around' arrived that year as a repackaged compilation drawing from the sessions produced when Burdon first joined forces with the Los Angeles collective around 1970 — a union that fused his raw, howling British blues-rock soul with War's deeply rhythmic, Latin-tinged funk groove. The label moved to bring these recordings back into the marketplace with fresh urgency, riding the commercial wave War had built for themselves in the intervening years and reintroducing Burdon's chapter of the group's story to a whole new generation of ears hungry for the roots of something real.
Reception
- The album drew steady interest largely on the strength of War's mid-1970s commercial dominance, with fans of the group seeking out this earlier collaborative work as a window into the band's origins.
- Critical response was measured, with reviewers tending to frame the release as a significant historical document rather than a bold new artistic statement.
- No major standalone chart hits emerged from this release, though it maintained durable catalog appeal sustained by War's devoted and ever-growing fanbase.
Significance
- The recordings captured here represent one of the most compelling cross-cultural collisions of the early 1970s — Eric Burdon's British blues-rock fire meeting War's Chicano-influenced, street-level funk in a way that felt genuinely new and genuinely earned.
- This album stands as a living document of the genre-blending spirit that helped pave the road for funk, blue-eyed soul, and rock crossover movements that would shape popular music throughout the entire decade of the seventies.
- The Burdon-War partnership preserved on this release is rightly recognized as a critical bridge between the psychedelic rock of the late 1960s and the hard, soulful urban funk that War would go on to make their undeniable signature.
Tracklist
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A1 Love Is All Around —
4:12
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A2 Tobacco Road —
6:30
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A3 Home Dream —
7:12
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A4 Magic Mountain —
4:18
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B1 A Day In The Life —
11:05
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B2 Paint It Black —
10:09
Artist Details
Eric Burdon & War was a short-lived but groundbreaking musical collaboration formed in Los Angeles around 1969, bringing together British rock vocalist Eric Burdon, formerly of the Animals, with the Los Angeles-based multiracial funk and soul band War. Their sound was a pioneering fusion of rock, soul, R&B, funk, blues, and Latin influences, characterized by extended improvisational jams and a raw, street-level energy that reflected the social and cultural tensions of late 1960s America. The partnership produced two albums, Eric Burdon Declares War and The Black-Man's Burdon, along with the hit single Spill the Wine, which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970. Although the collaboration ended abruptly in 1971 when Burdon left the group mid-tour, it was historically significant as an early and authentic model of musical integration, blending Black and white artistic traditions at a time of intense racial strife in the United States. War went on to become one of the most successful funk and soul acts of the 1970s, and their collaboration with Burdon is widely regarded as a catalyst for that success.
