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As a young man growing up in Compton, Lonnie Jordan had to work to find the sounds he loved. He’d walk around, adjusting the dial on the far left-hand side of the radio band, until he located the spot where the signal carried the sound to the speaker clear and uninterrupted: Latin music broadcast from a far-off station, likely a 50,000-watter located outside U.S. borders. His passion for artists like Mongo Santamaría, Willie Colon and the Fania All-Stars, along with American jazz, blues, soul and funk music, drew him into the orbit of likeminded musicians from the nearby towns of Long Beach, San Pedro and Harbor City. Together, they formed the band War, which – with the addition of Danish harmonica player Lee Oskar – filtered those influences through their personal experiences to create classic albums like 1971’s “All Day Music” and 1972’s “The World is a Ghetto” and pulsing, grooving, woofer-blowing hits including “Slippin’ into Darkness,” “The Cisco Kid” and “Low Rider.”
Today, keyboardist-vocalist Jordan is the sole remaining original member in War, but he’ll be joining the band’s three other surviving founders, Howard E. Scott (guitar, vocals), Harold Ray Brown (drums, vocals) and Oskar, at the ceremony honoring the band with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on June 4.
Jordan estimates the last time he saw his former War bandmates was at the funeral of another co-founder, bassist B.B. Dickerson, back in 2021.
“Sometimes some of the guys come to a concert where we’re playing,” says Jordan. “Sometimes I see their children, because I guess they’re busy, but the children are not as busy. So I say ‘hi’ to the kids, and if I haven’t seen them in a long time, give them a big, big hug.”
The core members of War first came together in a group called the Creators, formed in Long Beach in 1962. By the late ‘60s, they were working under the name the Nightshift, backing football star Deacon Jones, famous as a member of the L.A. Rams’ “fearsome foursome” defensive line, in a Las Vegas-style revue that also featured saxophonist Tjay Contrelli from the band Love and a trio of female backup singers known as The Mirettes, who had been Ike & Tina Turner’s original Ikettes.
“Before we played with Deacon Jones, we were experimenting with not acid, but acid jazz music,” says Jordan. “And it was coming along good until we finally found the gig [with Jones] and money to put food on our tables.”
The Nightshift’s bass player at the time, Peter Rosen, had a day job with The Visual Thing, a poster and concert merchandise company owned by Steve Gold and Jerry Goldstein whose clients included Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones.
“[Rosen] kept telling me, ‘You got to listen to my band, man. It’s really, really good and it’s really different,’” recalls Goldstein, who, as a member of the New York-based trio The Strangeloves, co-wrote, co-produced and performed the #11 hit “I Want Candy” (later covered by Bow Wow Wow) in 1964. “This is like for six months. So, finally, one day we booked [a rehearsal at] Studio Instrument Rentals. I go down and I listen to the to the guys and it’s really good, but it’s everywhere – it’s Latin, it’s funk, it’s rock, it’s blues, it’s R&B. It’s everything. So, I’m scratching my head going, I don’t even know what to do with these guys.”
Not long after, Eric Burdon showed up in Goldstein’s office. The British singer told him he had disbanded the latest incarnation of his group The Animals and he was quitting the music business and moving back to England. Goldstein urged him to come with him to see the Nightshift. They were playing that evening at the Rag Doll, a club in North Hollywood owned by Eddie Nash, who went on to earn infamy as the alleged mastermind behind 1981’s Wonderland Murders.
Burton took Goldstein up on his invitation, and he liked what he heard, even though the band mistook his harmonica playing friend Oskar for the Animals singer when he got up on stage to jam. Burton quickly put the band under contract and began rehearsing them in earnest. He cut the five-piece horn section down to one player, saxophonist Charles Miller (the low lead vocal on “Low Rider”), and paired him with Oskar, adding to the band’s unique sonic character.
Billed as Eric Burdon and His Band, they played their first gig at the Newport 69 festival, which drew an estimated 200,000 fans to Devonshire Downs racetrack in Northridge, Ca., in June of 1969. They followed Creedence Clearwater Revival, performing an all-new repertoire devoid of Animals songs and, according to Goldstein, “tore it up.”
With the addition of a returning Dickerson (replacing Rosen, who died of a drug overdose), the band went into the studio in early 1970 and recorded “Eric Burdon Declares ‘War,’” which spawned the No. 3 hit “Spill the Wine” (inspired by Jordan spilling wine on the studio mixing board). The album cover pictured a white and a Black man’s arm, seamlessly connected at the bicep, holding up three-finger salutes.
“That was basically us saying that we call ourselves War, to rage war against wars, and our choice of weapons is our musical instruments that don’t shoot bullets, but shoot rhythms and melodies and, most of all, harmony,” explains Jordan.
After one more album, the two-disc “The Black-Man’s Burdon,” War and Burdon went their separate ways, and the band entered its classic hit-making making era. Following 1977’s “Galaxy,” their period of chart dominance ended, and they suffered several tragic personal losses, including the unsolved murder of Miller in 1980 and the passing of percussionist Thomas “Papa Dee” Allen, who died after suffering a brain aneurysm on stage in 1988. But they continued to draw as live act, and by the 1990s they were enjoying renewed cultural relevance via younger artists either covering (Smash Mouth, Korn) or sampling (De La Soul, Ice T, Tupac Shakur, Janet Jackson) their music.
War has always presented an image of unity to the public with both their words (the 1975 hit single “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” from the album of the same name) and their deeds (interracial lineup, shared songwriting credits and lead vocals, raucous group harmonies). But in 1994 the band split apart, with Scott, Brown, Oskar and Dickerson going off to form the Lowrider Band, while Jordan stayed with Goldstein, who not only produced the band’s albums and co-wrote many of their hits, but also owns the rights to the War name through his company Far Out Prods.
Jordan doesn’t think the Walk of Fame ceremony will lead to a reunion with his ex-bandmates. (“I don’t expect to collaborate with any of my ex-wives, either,” he says.) But the band was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009, 2014 and 2015, and Jordan says he’d be open to jamming with them if and – Goldstein is certain – when the band is finally inducted, or possibly in a more casual situation.
“If the moment’s right, I’d be happy to,” he allows. “But as far as getting back together like glue, that could never happen.
Drummer Brown says that. a while back, he threw some pie at Jordan during a show after he effusively praised his new War bandmates from the stage, while failing to acknowledge his presence in the audience. But Brown says he holds no animosity for Jordan or Goldstein today. In fact, he’s considering showing up at the ceremony with a peace offering.
“I should probably get a ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’ pie and let him smash it in my face,” laughs Brown.
Tipsheet
WHAT War receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
WHEN June 5, 11:30 AM
WHERE 7000 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
WEB http://www.walkoffame.com
English (US) ·