WAR greatest hits

I wrote this story about the band WAR a week ago and scheduled it to go out today. Then real war broke out in the Middle East last Saturday. Initial bombings by Israel on Tehran, the United States joining in with their own massive hardware, quick retaliation from Iran following swiftly after. For a moment I wondered whether to hold this story back. But then, it's just coincidence. So here it is.

I’ve had this copy of WAR Greatest Hits for years. The sleeve is slightly worn at the edges but the record still plays perfectly. It represents the moment when War stopped being anyone’s backing band and became a force on their own terms.

Long before the hits, there were a couple of Long Beach schoolboys in 1962, Howard Scott and Harold Brown, calling themselves The Creators. By the mid-1960s they’d added Lonnie Jordan, BB Dickerson and Charles Miller, and changed their name to Nightshift.

Then in 1969 came Eric Burdon looking for something rawer than the British Invasion circuit. He was brought to see Nightshift at a North Hollywood club. The result was a new name, WAR, a none too subtle name meant to confront racism, hunger and violence with music. The Burdon era gave them the hit single, Spill the Wine. The collaboration didn’t last. During a European tour in 1971, Burdon walked off stage and left. 

What followed, from 1971 to about 1976, is what this Greatest Hits record captures. The original seven members -- Jordan, Scott, Dickerson, Brown, Papa Dee Allen, Charles Miller and Lee Oskar -- didn’t need a new frontman. They all sang, played and built long grooves that could stretch past ten minutes.

One thing I can’t find on this Greatest Hits album is Spill the Wine. That’s because the Burdon-era recordings were released under different label arrangements, and by 1976 there were rights issues between MGM/ABC and United Artists. Even in music, wars over ownership leave their scars.

Listening now, what strikes me is how hard it is to categorise them: definitely funk but also some jazz phrasing, some Latin influence in the percussion. Lee Oskar’s harmonica almost functioning like a horn section of its own. Vocals often sung together, not spotlighting one personality but reinforcing a collective voice. Later years brought legal disputes, particularly over the name WAR. Eventually only Lonnie Jordan retained the right to tour under it while the other original members performed as the Lowrider Band. 

And yet, when I dropped the needle on this 1976 compilation, none of the real-world wars or the legal wars mattered. What I heard was a band at its commercial and creative peak, confident enough to let their music speak for itself. Perhaps that is the irony. In a week when war again means missiles and reprisals, this other WAR reminds me that the word can also signify rhythm, solidarity and the stubborn act of making something communal out of discord.

Side 1: All day music, Slippin' into darkness, The world is a ghetto, The Cisco kid, Gypsy man
Side 2: Me and baby brother, Southern part of Texas, Why can't we be friends, Low rider, Summer