Edna Gurewitsch

DATE January 3, 2002 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Edna Gurewitsch discusses her book "Kindred Souls" and
her late husband's friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

A new book sheds light on the personal life of Eleanor Roosevelt, the former
first lady who worked for human rights and social justice around the world.
The book "Kindred Souls" is about the friendship between Mrs. Roosevelt and
her physician, Dr. David Gurewitsch. He was her most intimate friend during
the last 15 years of her life. She was 18 years older than he was and appears
to have had romantic feelings toward him, which he didn't share, although he
treasured their close friendship. He became Mrs. Roosevelt's doctor in 1948
and her friend. Ten years later, he married my guest, Edna Gurewitsch. Dr.
Gurewitsch died in 1972, 10 years after the death of Mrs. Roosevelt.

Edna Gurewitsch, his widow's new book, "Kindred Souls," reprints many of the
letters that Dr. Gurewitsch and Mrs. Roosevelt wrote each other. Edna
Gurewitsch was urged to write this book because it would reveal more about a
relationship that has been the subject of much speculation. I asked her how
her husband and Mrs. Roosevelt first met.

Ms. EDNA GUREWITSCH (Author, "Kindred Souls"): David was making a house call
on a patient during 1945 in New York City, and when he rang the bell, the door
was opened by the wife of the president of the United States, which somehow
was surprising. In any case, she saw how he approached the patient and so on,
because Mrs. Roosevelt was so observant. But then shortly after the
president died, she moved back to New York and she asked him would he be
willing to be her doctor. And he wrote in his journal, `I agreed.' And then
she said, `I shall try not to bother you too much.'

But two years later, they were both on the same flight to Switzerland because
he was going to--for a tuberculosis cure for himself, and she was going to
Geneva to the United Nations meetings. And she thought going over would make
the trip easier for him. And it was a four-day journey--air flight from New
York to Switzerland, because they were fogged in for three days in Shannon.
And in that suspended time, they got to really know each other. He had been a
polio specialist, and I really believe that that had to connect them. And
they exchanged their life stories and they started to be friends, and that's
when the correspondence--she wrote him almost every day following that trip.

GROSS: Was David aware that she had romantic feelings toward him?

Ms. GUREWITSCH: Yes, I think he knew everything, but they both treated it
very maturely. And also, he was, first of all, a doctor, and in the olden
days a doctor was an authority figure. So she looked up to him as someone who
took care of her. He was the only one who did.

GROSS: There's a letter that she wrote to David in 1948; this was just a
couple of years after they met. You begin your book with this letter. Would
you read it for us?

Ms. GUREWITSCH: This letter had been circulated by the Smithsonian
Institution in 1984 for two years around the country because it shows Mrs.
Roosevelt--the motivation of her life.

`The people I love mean more to me than all the public things, even if you do
think that public affairs should be my chief vocation. I only do the public
things because I really love all people. And I only love all people because
there are a few people whom I love dearly and who matter to me above
everything else. These are not so many, and of them you are now one, and I
shall just have to try not to bother you too much.' It's dated April 17, 1948.

GROSS: Before we talk about how you and your husband met, and how well you
got to know Mrs. Roosevelt, I'm going to ask you to read a letter that she
wrote in 1956, and this was shortly before you met your husband, David.

Ms. GUREWITSCH: It's dated February 8th, and I think it's--I'm sure it's
1956. It says, `David, my dearest, I've been sitting here thinking of you
tonight and wondering why I make you feel shy. I want you to feel at home
with me, as you would with a member of your family. And I can't achieve it.
There's something wrong with me. I'd love to hear you call me by my first
name, but you can't. Perhaps it is my age. I do love you, and you're always
in my thoughts, and if that bothers you, I could hide it. I'm good at that.

You read me a lecture and I thought you really cared, and so I'm being very
careful, but it is a good deal of bother. Anyway, I'll see if I can go on for
a while. In the meantime, love me a little, and show it if you can. And
remember to take care of yourself, for you are the most precious person in the
world. All my love.'

GROSS: Now when you met your husband, David Gurewitsch, you didn't know much
about his relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt. You knew they were good
friends. And you write in your book that you think it's a good thing that you
didn't know more, because it might have made you self-conscious. Can you talk
about that a little bit?

Ms. GUREWITSCH: Oh, it would have made me extremely self-conscious. Also,
the friendship had been established by the time I came into the picture, and
therefore there was nothing really much for him to tell me. While he
respected her confidences and he respected her altogether, he wasn't going to
gossip about her; never gossiped about really anybody. And he certainly
respected who she was, and I took it at face value, and it was very easy to do
so.

GROSS: Now Mrs. Roosevelt was 18 years older than your husband, and how much
older was she from you?

Ms. GUREWITSCH: Well, Mrs. Roosevelt was four decades older than I, and she
was older than my mother, and therefore it was easy for me to see her not only
as Eleanor Roosevelt, but after a while, you know, I saw her only as Mrs.
Roosevelt. If I may interject a thought here, I want you to know that people
who knew Mrs. Roosevelt well and closely always refer to her in life as Mrs.
Roosevelt. And those who didn't know her, or knew her not well, or didn't
know her at all always refer to her as Eleanor, expect those who knew her when
she was a girl, and they're not around much anymore.

GROSS: Is there a good explanation for that?

Ms. GUREWITSCH: Yes. Because she was--in spite of her simplicity, and in
spite of her directness and her openness, she was an awesome person, and you
felt it, and there's no way around it. She wanted David to call her by her
first name, of course, and he couldn't. And he couldn't for more reasons than
one. I mean, he wanted to establish a boundary in their relationship, and
calling her by last name enabled him to do that. But in addition, her
presence and the kind of dignity that she had in private, the kind of
authenticity she had, which is so unique, really, I think is the answer to
your question. You couldn't call her by her first name.

GROSS: How much time did the three of you spend together after you were
married?

Ms. GUREWITSCH: Oh, we spent a good deal of time. She called David every
morning. He was the first one she called every morning. To her, time was a
treasure, so she spoke for about a minute. Before we were married, she told
me that she called him every morning, and then she asked my permission for
this practice to continue, and of course I said yes. And that moment of just
touching base with him was very important to her, and he liked it, and so it
took a minute before they set off on their separate busy days.

GROSS: You write in your memoir that you were amazed by the bottomless
neediness that co-existed in Mrs. Roosevelt with her enormous strength. And
you say, `If I did not understand the private loneliness against which Mrs.
Roosevelt struggled, I would find it hard to reconcile the description of the
young woman full of self-doubt we read about with the strong, wise woman I
knew.' Did that always seem like a contradiction, her neediness and her
strength?

Ms. GUREWITSCH: No, because I didn't know the depth of that neediness until
I read the letters that she wrote, and that was after she died. I knew that
there was a real loneliness, but I did not know about the neediness until I
read the letters, and then when I read David's journals, and he refers to her
as having been chronically lonely, because her early life was so difficult. I
mean, her father died when her father was 27 years old; her mother died when
her mother was 29 years old. A brother died at the age of four years old.
There was nothing but loss in the family, and the closeness with the father
that she loved was quite extraordinary, because he demonstrated love to her.
He was soft with her. Her mother was not. So David was always conscious of
the fact that loneliness was always there, and I became conscious of the fact
afterwards.

GROSS: You write a little bit about Lorena Hickock. She was Mrs.
Roosevelt's close friend and frequent traveling companion. And some
historians think that Lorena Hickock and Mrs. Roosevelt had a lesbian
relationship. You write in your book that you don't think they ever did.

Ms. GUREWITSCH: Yes, I don't. It started out to be a footnote in my book,
and then ended up in the text; it was such a small item for me to notice. I'm
a good one to talk about it, in a way, because my husband was Mrs.
Roosevelt's confidante. He was also a sophisticated European man. He didn't
was not non-judgmental in any way. And I have the medical history of Mrs.
Roosevelt, since the time that she left Washington when Bethesda Naval
Hospital sent it to David, and also from my own observations under all
different kinds of circumstances, and David's conversations with me about her
as we lived together and went around together, and nowhere was there any
indication, I mean, of any sort. In fact, quite the opposite was the case. I
think that she would--as I've said before, she really loved and would have
loved to have a man love her. And in those days, independent women really
counted on each other. Ms. Hickock remained a close friend to Mrs.
Roosevelt for the rest of Mrs. Roosevelt's life. Mrs. Roosevelt took care
of her. But the friendship was quite diminished toward the end in terms
of--Mrs. Roosevelt was always a very, very devoted and loyal person, and once
she was your friend, she would always be your friend.

GROSS: My guest is Edna Gurewitsch, author of the new book "Kindred Souls:
The Friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and David Gurewitsch." More after a break.
This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Edna Gurewitsch. Her new book, "Kindred Souls," is about
the close friendship between her late husband, Dr. David Gurewitsch, and
Eleanor Roosevelt. The doctor was Mrs. Roosevelt's closest friend during the
last 15 years of her life.

Were you and your husband and Mrs. Roosevelt ever the subjects of gossip?

Ms. GUREWITSCH: Yes, but even to this day, in a way, people still ask me how
things were with the three of us. David minded it; Mrs. Roosevelt never
cared. She knew--she told me that she had taught herself years ago that
negative criticism should be never taken seriously because it detracts from
the energy you have in life to go out and do things. And David cared about
being regarded in a perhaps romantic light with her. He was a doctor, he had
a professional life. It was not true. I mean, it was a very mature and rich,
rich friendship, but that was all. And he minded it.

GROSS: Well, what about you?

Ms. GUREWITSCH: I always thought it was absurd.

GROSS: Yeah.

Ms. GUREWITSCH: I thought it was absurd because, you know, Mrs. Roosevelt
was a much older woman than I, and my husband and I were close and happy, and
my closeness with Mrs. Roosevelt only enriched my life. And I thought it was
a wonderful opportunity for me in every way to enjoy the benefit of her
wisdom. And as we would stay together downstairs or upstairs before David
came home for dinner, and she would tell me wonderful stories. I was
interested mostly in how she functioned, how she accomplished what she did;
how she approached life's problems. And I found those times with her very
wonderful. So criticism didn't bother me at all.

GROSS: You were never jealous of her, or jealous of the kind of...

Ms. GUREWITSCH: No.

GROSS: ...conversation that she would have with your husband.

Ms. GUREWITSCH: She was very wise, and I learned to do this with my
son-in-law, too; it was a good lesson. I never felt that there were secrets.
From the first time that I had dinner with her alone--David brought me to
dinner, we sat at a small table and I saw on the corner of it there was papers
that she discussed with him very openly in front of me. I was a stranger,
almost complete stranger; we'd met a few times before, but this was at a
dinner table, and she talked about the mail that--she was consulting him on
certain questions entirely openly. She had a very open nature.

And I remembered that dinner, because a few years after that, sitting on the
back porch in Hyde Park, we were having tea, she and I, and I said to her,
`You know, Mrs. Roosevelt, the first night that I had dinner alone with you,
I was so thrilled that I barely touched my food.' And she gave me a typical
Mrs. Roosevelt response. She said, `That was foolish of you, dear. You're
much too thin.' So it was very easy. She was such a great person. She had
seen everything. She made life very easy.

GROSS: You reprint Mrs. Roosevelt's farewell letter to your husband, David.
This was after she got sick with her final illness. And he was leaving for a
trip to Peru, where there had been a polio outbreak, and he was going to be
gone for a while. Would you read this letter to us?

Ms. GUREWITSCH: `Thursday night. David dearest, I've just seen you for the
last time, I summise, till you come home.' He had gone to Trujillo, Peru, on a
hospital ship. There'd been an outbreak of polio there, and he was going on a
vacation, but for three weeks. `I write you these lines which I hope you will
read when you are on the plane and all the hurry and worry is over. You will
begin then to enjoy and savor the adventure of the trip, and I hope it proves
to be all you hope for, and that you return refreshed in spirit and less
fundamentally weary physically then you are and have been. To me all goodbyes
are more poignant now. I like less and less to be long separated from those
few whom I deeply love. Above all others, you are the one to whom my heart is
tied, and I shall miss you every moment till we meet again, and I shall come
down with Edna and Maria to greet you on your return. I will do all I can to
help Edna, for I know the separation will be hard for her to bear.

On your side, will you try to think out how to lighten your week a little? A
woman needs companionship and a little more leisure than you have been able to
find this past winter. We're all selfish when we love someone and want the
one to give to us personally part of the time. And now an end to preaching.
I know what drives you have, and I am deeply appreciative and admiring of the
standards and values you set for yourself. God bless you and keep you
wherever you are. My prayers and thoughts will be with you constantly. Au
revoir and my love always. And enjoy life and take care of yourself.'

GROSS: So in her farewell letter, she's talking to him in part about you and
about how he needs to spend more time with you in spite of his busy schedule,
that he needs to consider spending more time with his family.

Ms. GUREWITSCH: Yes. She and I became really good friends, and she was
saying goodbye. And she wanted to be sure that not only he would be happy,
but that I would be happy, too. And that shows her largesse, her real
greatness as a friend and as a person.

GROSS: You lost your husband, David, in 1972. I'm just wondering if you ever
remarried. Your story ends with the death of Mrs. Roosevelt, and I just
wanted to hear a little bit more about what happened in your life afterwards.

Ms. GUREWITSCH: I never remarried. And I never found, or saw, anyone
slightly reminiscent of him. He was really--when he died, I thought to myself
at once, apart from other feelings, that I would never--how much of the world
I would be missing without his perceptions. And nobody that I had met since
had had those perceptions. Also, it took me quite a while, years, to recover
from his death, and by the time I recovered from it and I was standing on my
own two feet, I sort of liked it. And I find that the older I am, the more
interested I become in many things. And so life continued to be very
interesting for me, but on my own. And I raised a family; and I'm now a
grandmother, which I love very much. And I'm just enjoying--I have enjoyed my
life since. But, of course, nothing is perfect, and I did have several
perfect years, so one can't be greedy.

GROSS: Have you asked yourself--I'm sure you have--what your husband would
have thought if he knew that you were writing this book and reprinting the
letters that he and Mrs. Roosevelt wrote each other.

Ms. GUREWITSCH: I think he would have loved it. And that's another reason
I'm glad that this book is there. Because, you know, doctors live their lives
very privately; it's the nature of their business, so to speak. But Mrs.
Roosevelt was such an intuitive person. She was such a wise person. She did
not suffer fools gladly. She was so experienced about people, that the fact
that she loved him, trusted him and admired him was a great tribute to him.
And I'm very glad to have written about it, and I'm sure he would have been
pleased, if he were around, that it was known. It's really a tribute to him.

GROSS: Well, Edna Gurewitsch, I thank you very much for talking with us.

Ms. GUREWITSCH: Thank you very much. I've loved it.

GROSS: Edna Gurewitsch is the author of "Kindred Souls: The Friendship
Between Eleanor Roosevelt and David Gurewitsch." This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: Coming up, we meet Eric Burdon, leader of the British invasion band
The Animals. He's written a memoir and is performing with the new Animals.

(Soundbite of "It's My Life")

THE ANIMALS: (Singing) It's a hard world to get a break in. All the good
things have been taken. But, girl, they always still make certain things
great. Though I'm dressed in these rags, I'll wear sable someday. Hear what
I say. I'm gonna ride this serpent. No more tax spent, sweating rent. Hear
my command. I'm breaking loose. It ain't no use holding me down. Stick
around. But, baby, baby, remember, remember, it's my life and I'll do what I
want. It's my mind and I think what I want. Show me I'm wrong. Hurt me
sometime. But some day I'll teach you real fine.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Eric Burdon discusses his musical career with The
Animals and his new memoir, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, Eric Burdon, was the lead singer of the English band The Animals,
which was part of the British Invasion of the mid-'60s. Their hits included
"House Of The Rising Sun," "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and "We Gotta Get
Out of This Place." After moving to the US, Burdon formed a new version of
The Animals, which had such counterculture Euro hits as "Sky Pilot" and "San
Franciscan Nights." He also co-founded the band War.

Burdon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. He's now
performing with the New Animals, and he's written a memoir called "Don't Let
Me Be Misunderstood." Let's start with The Animals' first hit.

(Soundbite of "House Of The Rising Sun"; music)

Mr. ERIC BURDON (The Animals): (Singing) There is a house in New Orleans
they call the Rising Sun. And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy, and,
God, I know I'm one.

GROSS: Eric Burdon, welcome to FRESH AIR.

Mr. BURDON: Thank you.

GROSS: Now "House Of The Rising Sun" had been more of a folk song. Can you
talk a little bit about your approach to singing it?

Mr. BURDON: Yeah. Well, I started out as a folk fan, so I was quite
comfortable with using a folk-oriented song in a rock band. I mean, we
were--essentially, we grew up in a town where there was lots of club action,
and there was lots of local folks artists that were real, true folk artists.
They weren't--you know, folk music in Newcastle, in my hometown, didn't mean I
had to sit around the campfire with a guitar singing "We Shall Overcome," you
know. To us, we believed that folk music truly meant what it said, music of
the people. And we had local folk heroes who were--like, one guy worked in a
pit and he was a deputy, and that meant he was a boss on the line in a pit.
And...

GROSS: A coal-mining pit.

Mr. BURDON: Yeah. Yeah. So he worked hundreds of feet underground. And
his name was Johnny Handel, and he was a local hero. And he would sing songs
about wrecks on the high sea, because we were a sea port. If there was a
mining disaster, he would sing about that. He would sing about the cost of
living, the unemployment that went on and on and on since World War II on
through till we were teen-agers. So he was very real and very tangible
and--yeah, and a locally high-profile kind of guy. Everybody followed him.

And one day he walked into one of the nightclubs wearing a black suit, white
shirt, black tie, which was really unusual for him, whipped out a guitar and
started singing, (Singing) `Well, since my baby left me,' and we went, `What
happened to John?' And, you know, we suddenly discovered American rock 'n'
roll.

GROSS: After you started recording with The Animals and you started having
hits, you were playing on the same venues as The Rolling Stones and The
Beatles.

Mr. BURDON: Yeah.

GROSS: And to America, this was the British Invasion era. So, you know, all
the British bands were kind of grouped together into that British Invasion.
How did you see yourself compared to The Stones and The Beatles? And how do
you feel like--that you were positioned by, like, your manager and by the
press?

Mr. BURDON: Well, we took--I took one look at The Stones one night--I mean,
I'd met Mick before. I'd jammed with him down in London, in Reading, which is
not far from where they grow up collectively--The Stones grew up. And I would
travel to Paris to buy records and to London to buy records. And then I would
stop off at Alexis Corner--God bless him--his club, where there was the first
British R&B movement there. And The Stones and myself, you know, before we
were Animals, before we were Stones, we all crowded into this room and
listened to these guys interpreting American music. And it would just blow
our socks off, you know.

So we'd stand in line asking Mr. Corner, `Alexis, please, can we sing, man?
Can we jam with you?' you know. And he'd say, `Yeah, OK, tonight. Mick,
Eric, do you know Elmore James', you know, `"King of the Highway"?' `Yeah,'
and we'd get up and we'd jam. Yeah. OK.

Then they became--then we all went home and we thought about it, and we
started our own bands. And we became The Animals, and we didn't have any idea
that down in London The Rolling Stones become The Stones. What overnight grew
from a brotherhood of musicians worshiping black Americans, worshiping
American culture, trying to spread the word to audiences by every night
saying, `Look, we're going to play a tune now. It's called "Roll Over
Beethoven," but you can get this record at your local store tomorrow by Chuck
Berry. Please, buy the record by Chuck Berry. Don't listen--you know, take
my advice: Don't listen to me.' That was one of my favorite slogans at the
time. We had T-shirts that said `John Lee Hooker for president.'

GROSS: Let me play another recording that you made with The Animals; this one
in 1965. It's "We've Gotta Get Out of This Place."

(Soundbite of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place")

Mr. BURDON: (Singing) In this dirty old part of the city, where the sun
refused to shine, people tell me there ain't use in tryin'. Now, my girl,
you're so young and pretty, and one thing I know is true. You'll be dead
before your time is due, I know.

Watch my daddy, he's bent and tired; watch his hair, been turnin' gray. He's
been workin' and slavin' his life away. Oh, yes, I know it.

Group of Singers: (In unison) Work!

Mr. BURDON: (Singing) He's been workin' so hard.

Group of Singers: (In unison) Work!

Mr. BURDON: (Singing) Might be workin' two jobs every night and day. Yeah,
yeah, yeah!

We gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing we ever do. We gotta
get out of this place. Girl, there's a better life for me and you.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: That's Eric Burdon and The Animals, recorded in 1965. Eric Burdon has
a new memoir called "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."

When you were singing the song in 1965, you were still living in Newcastle
where you grew up?

Mr. BURDON: No. By then, I was in Scotstoun, London, with the band in an
apartment that we shared.

GROSS: You grew up in Newcastle, which is a coal mining town.

Mr. BURDON: I did, yeah.

GROSS: Did you want to get out of there? Did this song express the sentiment
of how you felt?

Mr. BURDON: I wanted to get out of everything. I just--you know, we saw
imported American movies and French movies at the local theater that would
show anything that was X-rated. And we would make our way in there by hook or
by crook, and we'd see these movies when we were supposed to be studying at
college, at art school. And it was like, `We want to be there. We want to
get there.' Yeah, I mean, the song became an anthem for different people, you
know. Everybody, at somewhere in their life, wants to get out of the
situation they're in.

GROSS: When were you growing up in Newcastle, did your father work in the
mines?

Mr. BURDON: No, he was lucky. He was an electrician. But he took me down a
mine one day because he used to do the electrical servicing of the pits, the
collieries. So when the pit was shut down and all the miners were away on a
holiday, he took me down a shaft to the pit floor. And I stood there in the
total freezing, cold darkness, and there was damp, wet water dripping
everywhere. And funny enough it was called The Rising Sun Colliery.

GROSS: Hmm.

Mr. BURDON: And I just knew that he did that to let me know just what it was
like to be down there.

GROSS: To discourage you from having to work there?

Mr. BURDON: Well, yeah, because everybody wanted to work in the mines. It
was the best money you could possibly make...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BURDON: ...because it was the most dangerous job. And it would have
killed me off real quick because I'm an asthmatic, you know. I have been all
my life.

GROSS: With your voice, you're an asthmatic?

Mr. BURDON: Yeah.

GROSS: But you have such a big voice. I mean, I was going to ask you how
you've stopped yourself from blowing out your voice, 'cause you put a lot into
that.

Mr. BURDON: Well, you know, if you're an asthmatic, or some other related,
ongoing, lifelong affliction, the best thing to do is to make friends with it,
is to kind of make friends with whatever it is that's bothering you. And the
one thing I've found about asthma is it's kind of like it overrides me going
into mania. It keeps me in my place. But it's also helped me find a place on
stage, performance in front of people.

GROSS: How?

Mr. BURDON: Because the adrenalin is so high from doing such a thing that it
helps--you know, it--my asthma pushed me--my affliction pushed me in two
directions: motorcycles and music, both my lifelong love affairs with
machines and music.

GROSS: My guest is Eric Burdon. He's written a new memoir called "Don't Let
Me Be Misunderstood." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of song; music)

Mr. BURDON: (Singing) I love the way you walk. Said I'm crazy about your
walk. I love...

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Eric Burdon of the band The
Animals. And he has a new memoir called "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."

Why don't we listen to the song that your book takes its title from, your 1965
hit "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." I've always really loved this record.
Where did you get the song from?

Mr. BURDON: I heard Nina Simone sing it.

GROSS: Really? I didn't know she sang this.

Mr. BURDON: And--yeah. Oh, yeah. And I was a big fan of Nina. And one
night, Linda Eastman suggested that we go see her at Hunter College.

GROSS: This was Linda Eastman, who became Linda McCartney.

Mr. BURDON: Linda McCartney, sorry. I still think of her as Linda Eastman.

GROSS: You knew her way back. Yeah.

Mr. BURDON: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, `Oh, come on, Linda, you
know, we can't'--`Yes, yes, yes. And I've got it set up. You're going to
meet her backstage.' `Oh, really?'

So after the show, which blew my mind, completely had me mesmerized, we went
backstage and I was further mesmerized to see that when the autograph hunters
had dissipated that Nina was left sitting there at her dressing table with her
manager, who was an ex-Chicago cop, I think, and her guitar player. And she
looked up at me and said, `So you're the little white--(makes noises)-- that
took my song.' And I said, `Yeah, you could say that,' you know. And she
said, `Well, you know, thanks for screwing it up,' or whatever. And I said,
`Listen, you know, if you'll give writer's royalties to the guys in Angola
State Prison, who are down there still working under the hot sun in the
sugarcane--if you'll give them the acknowledgement for a recording, you know,
a work song that was on one of'--`Wait a minute. Wait a minute. OK. My
name's Nina Simone. What's your name?' `Eric Burdon.' She said, `Oh, cool.'
We shook hands, and we were sort of friends from that point on. I haven't
seen her in a long time, but wherever she is, God bless her.

GROSS: Well, why don't we hear the 1965 recording by Eric Burdon and The
Animals "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."

(Soundbite of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood")

Mr. BURDON: (Singing) Don't let me be misunderstood.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. BURDON: (Singing) Baby, sometimes I'm so carefree, with a joy that's
hard to hide. And sometimes it seems that all I have to do is worry, and then
you're bound to see my other side. But I'm just a soul whose intentions are
good. Oh, Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.

If I seem edgy, I want you to know that I never mean to take it out on you.
Life has its problems and I get my share, and that's one thing I never mean to
do 'cause I love you. Oh, oh, baby...

GROSS: That's my guest, Eric Burdon and The Animals. Eric Burdon has a new
memoir called "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."

Now before you started singing rock 'n' roll, you sang jazz.

Mr. BURDON: Yeah, I...

GROSS: What kind of material were you doing?

Mr. BURDON: Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon, one of my heroes. I listened
to a lot of Count Basie. I listened to a lot of, you know, what was called...

GROSS: Jump blues kind of stuff you were doing?

Mr. BURDON: Well, yeah. That was my love. I mean, that was the stuff that
I loved was jump blues, rhythm and blues. But I also liked cool, you know,
West Coast, Shorty Rogers and all that kind of stuff. You know, I couldn't
wait to also--not to go beyond New York and the Deep South, but also to get to
the West Coast, as well, because I knew from reading and research that a lot
of the players who were a part of the black urban drift who came up from the
Mississippi Delta, they moved through Detroit to get jobs. And then if they
became successful at recording and they made a little dough and they traveled
a lot, they would eventually find themselves out on the West Coast by
extension.

GROSS: When you got to America with The Animals--I mean, so much of the music
that you loved was from America. Did you meet any of the people who you had
idolized when you were living in England?

Mr. BURDON: I met most of them before I left England.

GROSS: Oh, singing at clubs there?

Mr. BURDON: No. There's a venue in my hometown, the city hall. It was the
only venue available for top-ranking jazz stars and, well, musicians of every
caliber. And I stood in one doorway every night, and in this particular
doorway, guaranteed, I could meet anybody that I ever wanted to meet. And
because of that doorway, I met Louis Armstrong when I was 11 years of age. He
took me into his dressing room.

GROSS: Oh, really? That was nice of him.

Mr. BURDON: And I--his trombone player took me in. Jack Teagarden came out,
and they heard that I was singing along with all their songs. I think a cop
went in there and said, `There's a kid out there, man, in the doorway, you
know, can't afford to get in. He's singing along with all your songs, you
know.' And then Jack Teagarden came out, towering way above me, you know, and
said, `Come here. I want you to meet Pops. I want to show you something.'

GROSS: My guest is Eric Burdon. He's written a new memoir called "Don't Let
Me Be Misunderstood." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Eric Burdon. He first came to the US as the lead singer
of the British Invasion band The Animals. His new memoir is called "Don't Let
Me Be Misunderstood."

You know, it's funny. The Animals started recording in '64. By '67, there
was the New Animals. It was a new band that you were playing with.

Mr. BURDON: Yeah.

GROSS: And your material had changed, and I imagine your way of performing
had changed, and a lot of the culture had changed.

Mr. BURDON: Yeah.

GROSS: You know, by '67, you're talking more hippie culture. You're doing
LSD. There's light shows on stage.

Mr. BURDON: Yep.

GROSS: You're singing "San Franciscan Nights." So it just seems like such a
dramatic change in just a couple of years. I'm wondering if you can compare
the experience of singing on stage, say, in 1964 at the beginning of that
whole British Invasion era, with singing in '67.

Mr. BURDON: Well, yeah. I mean, everything changed. The most important
thing is that our minds had changed. And that's part of the lyric of one of
my songs, `Walls move and minds do, too,' you know. The Animals had arrived
in America and did two years of touring in America. We'd passed through San
Francisco. We'd been to the Hungry Eye to see Lenny Bruce. It was still
bongo mongo. You know, everybody was wearing black, reading Lawrence
Ferlinghetti. And then when I went back, it was like somebody had just taken
tons of paint and just plastered the place with graffiti and paisley colors.
And even--you got off the plane at the airport and everybody had long hair and
you could smell incense and marijuana everywhere.

Now what happened here? I mean, this is incredible. So I had a girlfriend
who called me. She lived in Sacramento. And she said, `You've got to come
out and see what's happened to San Francisco. You won't believe it.' And I
never went back. I thought, `This is great, this is the future. We're going
to change the world. You know, we're going to really change things.'

GROSS: Well, why don't we hear one of your recordings from that era? You
want to hear "San Franciscan Nights"?

Mr. BURDON: Yeah, you can play that one.

GROSS: OK. Let's hear it.

(Soundbite of "San Franciscan Night")

Mr. BURDON: (Singing) Strobe light's beam creates dreams. Walls move.
Minds do, too, on a warm San Franciscan night. Old child, young child feel
all right on a warm San Franciscan night.

Angels sing, leather wings, jeans of blue, Harley-Davidsons, too, on a warm
San Franciscan night. Old angel, young angel, feel all right on a warm San
Franciscan night.

I wasn't born there. Perhaps I'll die there. There's no place left to go,
San Francisco.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: That's Eric Burdon and the New Animals recorded, in--What?--about '67.

Mr. BURDON: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, '67, yeah.

GROSS: And Eric Burdon has a new memoir called "Don't Let Me Be
Misunderstood."

In the back of your memoir "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," there's a
photograph of you. And in this photo, you're rolling a joint and licking it,
and on the table is a gun.

Mr. BURDON: Yeah.

GROSS: What's the gun doing there?

Mr. BURDON: Well, I had to come to America to experience America. And one
of the biggest experiences one can have in America is you can own a gun, dude.
You have the right to go out there and shoot yourself in the foot. And it's
become such a way of life for us that we've forgotten how wicked it really is,
you know.

But being wicked is part of the thing, you know, that you go out in the world
to discover how wicked you can be, how bad you can be, man. I want to be bad,
you know. I want to be American, yeah. I'm in America. What do I do? I go
out and buy a .44 magnum. In fact, I didn't buy a .44 magnum. Somebody came
to a gig in Wyoming--Billings, Montana, correction. They came to my door with
an oily rag, and there was a .44 magnum in it. And he said, `This is a gift
from the people of Wyoming, you know. May it protect you. May it serve you
well.' That gun got me into so much trouble...

GROSS: What kind of trouble?

Mr. BURDON: I don't want to go into it because...

GROSS: Right.

Mr. BURDON: ...it's detrimental to my mental health. But I only know that
one night, I threw it into the swimming pool. And my wife called Jimmy
Witherspoon, and Jimmy Witherspoon came up to the house, and he said, `What's
that piece doing in the pool, man?' And my wife said, `It's Eric's handgun.
He doesn't want it anymore.' `Man.' He takes his clothes off, jumps into the
pool, retrieves the gun. He had it until the day he died. And I would get
messages from him all over the world from people who had met him and run into
him, and he would send a message saying, `Just tell him I got his gun. I got
his gun, and it's cool. It's in good condition. It's oiled and it's ready to
go.'

GROSS: Did you give up wanting to be bad?

Mr. BURDON: Yeah, after I loosed off a couple of rounds one night trying to
get rid of another well-known rock star and realized what damage I could
really do, I kind of swore that I would never touch a weapon again.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BURDON: It still doesn't stop me having a fascination for it. I still
know every caliber of every gun that's out there. Know thy enemy; know what
you're up against. But I--yeah, I've thrown in the towel on that score.

GROSS: Now let me ask you, you're approaching 60.

Mr. BURDON: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: What did you imagine 60 would be like when you started your career?

Mr. BURDON: I never thought I'd live to see 35. I believed that I wasn't
going to live that long. I never really ever saw myself--except one time on
LSD. I had a hallucination where I saw myself as an ancient old man with long
white hair down to my knees and a long white beard, but that's another story.
Charlton. But no, I never thought I'd live to see 60. In fact, I cannot
think as a 60-year-old person. It's impossible.

And my fans are getting younger, you know. Kids who come to my shows, and
especially in Europe, where they're allowed to come with their parents where
alcohol is sold, which doesn't happen in the States. They're 13, 11, 12, 13
years of age. It's amazing.

GROSS: Well, Eric Burdon, thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. BURDON: Thank you. It's been fun.

GROSS: Eric Burdon's new memoir is called "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."
He's now touring with the New Animals.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.

(Soundbite of "House Of The Rising Sun"; music)

Mr. BURDON: (Singing) Well, I got one foot on the platform, the other foot
on the train. I'm going back to New Orleans to wear that ball and chain.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. BURDON: (Singing) Well, there is a house in New Orleans they call the
Rising Sun. And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy. And, God, I know I'm
one.

(Soundbite of music)
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