Animals guitarist whose inventive playing on hits including The House of the Rising Sun pioneered a new rock’n’roll sound
Although never a posturing guitar hero, Hilton Valentine, who has died aged 77, carved his own niche as a rock’n’roll pioneer with his work with the Animals. A versatile and inventive player, he will always be remembered for the distinctive arpeggio chords he played on the group’s 1964 breakthrough hit The House of the Rising Sun, which topped the British and US charts.
The song, allegedly about a New Orleans brothel, was an old folk ballad of unknown authorship, and among numerous previous recordings of it was Bob Dylan’s version on his 1962 debut album. Valentine maintained that he had simply adapted Dylan’s acoustic guitar chords, in the baleful key of A minor, for the Animals’ electric version. It’s now seen as a landmark in the creation of folk-rock. Dylan was said to be so stunned by hearing the Animals’ version that he promptly decided that he too must embrace electric instruments, a seismic event in rock music history.
