Hilton Valentine, the founding guitarist of the English rock and roll band The Animals, who is acknowledged to have come up with one of the most famous opening riffs in the 1960s, has died
LONDON – Hilton Valentine, the founding guitarist of the English rock and roll orchestra The Animals, who is acknowledged to have come up with one of the most famous opening riffs of the 1960s. He was 77.
The group’s label ABKCO Music confirmed that Valentine passed away on Friday and said that his wife, Germaine Valentine, had told of his death. The cause of death was not given.
“Valentine was a groundbreaking guitarist who influenced the sound of rock and roll for decades,” the label said in a statement.
Valentine recorded the guitar at 13 in his hometown of North Shields in the north-east of England and then became involved in the skiffle rage – a kind of fusion of American folk, country, jazz and blues – that swept the UK. His skiffle band The Heppers developed The Wildcats, a rock and roll orchestra that became popular in the north of England, in part because of Valentine’s habit of rolling on the ground while playing his guitar.
After learning his trade, The Animals co-founded in 1963 with singer Eric Burdon, bassist Chas Chandler, organist Alan Price and drummer John Steel.
The group’s most famous hit took place in 1964, when the rock song of the folk song “The House of the Rising Sun” was at the leading spot in the United Kingdom and the USA.
The song, whose opening period has since been a rite of passage for budding guitarists around the world, has had such an echo in the US that many people were surprised to hear that the group comes from the industrial heartland of England.
Burdon paid tribute to Valentine on Instagram and wrote: “The opening opus of Rising Sun will never sound the same! … You not only played it, you lived it! Sad about the sudden news of Hilton’s passing. ‘
Valentine stayed with the group for four years and is also heard by other groups through the group, including ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’, ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place’ and ‘Don’t Bring Me Down.’
Valentine then released solo work and returned frequently to the orchestra, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
In recent years, Valentine has been living in the US state of Connecticut and returning to skiffle music with the founding of his band Skiffledog.