Some teachers were sadistic – others pretended not to notice – and sexual molestation and regular corporal punishment with a leather strap was the order of the day." īy the time he got to secondary school, a teacher by the name of Bertie Brown was responsible for getting him into art school and changing his life forever. During primary school, he was "stuck at the rear of the classroom of around 40 to 50 kids and received constant harassment from kids and teachers alike." He goes on to say his primary school was "jammed between a slaughterhouse and a shipyard on the banks of the Tyne. He also says he smoked his first cigarette at 10 years old and would skip school with his friends to drink Newcastle Brown Ale.īurdon describes his early school years as a "dark nightmare" that "should've been penned by Charles Dickens." Due to the river pollution and humidity in Newcastle he suffered asthma attacks daily. In his song "When I Was Young," he states he met his first love at 13, who was very experienced while he was not.
Realizing that he was not that good a player, however, he took up singing and went to Newcastle Art College. In his autobiography, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, he recalls the electrifying moment of first seeing Louis Armstrong on TV which began his love for blues music. Because of his father's line of work in electrical repair, the Burdon family had a TV by the time Eric was 10. He was born to a lower middle class family his father did electrical work in some of the clubs Burdon would later play. Burdon later recalled that his middle name "Victor" had been chosen after encouragement from the Lord Mayor, who offered new mothers £25 if their new-borns were given a patriotic "war name." īurdon states he often had a divided loyalty in his sense of place and identity. His mother, Rene, was originally from Ireland and moved to Scotland before settling in Newcastle in the 1930s. His father, Matt, was originally from Tyneside. Eric Burdon was born in 1941 in Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
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