I had met Richie Scarlet several times, In fact Richie did a TV Commercial for my store in 1981 or so. I first became very close with Richie at an Animals Reunion Tour Concert in 1983.  We discovered we had a common musical bond, Eric Burdon & The Animals. We would discuss his music for hours & hours. We used to actually watch old reruns of Shindig & Ed Sullivan. Not for the Beatles though. We watched Eric Burdon  The Dave Clark 5, The Searchers, The Zombies, The Electric Prunes, The Standells, Paul Revere, The Kinks and last but definitely not least the Yardbirds & Sean Bonniwell's Music Machine.  We would argue about what a song was about or what the correct words were. We would pick them apart piece by piece until we knew every single nuance of every single track.

Richie worked with me in my shop for 5 years, then he went on to play with Ace Frehley, Sebastian Bach & Leslie West.  He helped me develop my vocalizations and I learned a lot of guitar licks from him, once we Jammed with Ace Frehley in his garage Richie on drums, Ace on Guitar and I was playing Bass. He also produced my first CD "World Class Rock N' Roll" between 1992 & 2002 it took us 10 years to finish it. We were not in any hurry & Richie was on the road a lot.

One evening in the studio we were recording "It's My Life" or "When I was Young," I can't remember which one, and as usual we were talking about Eric Burdon. Richie was telling me that he had been in some club in upstate New York, where he wangled his way backstage somehow. He actually got to meet Eric. Luck was with him because, I remember him telling me all about the conversation, that he was alone with Eric in the dressing room for almost an hour.

He was giving me some of the highlights of the conversation and I remember Richie looking up from the board, he had a very serious look on his face and saying something to the effect that "Eric Burdon Was Definitely The Coolest Fu*k#ng Person In The World".  Of course I immediately blindly agreed with him.  That conversation with Richie & the highlights of his conversation with Eric, stuck with me for many many years.

In November of 2005 Eric & The Boys were playing here in Vegas, I was backstage delivering a guitar to Dean Restum (Eric's Guitarist for 15 years or so). I had been backstage with Eric at least 35 times but there were always lots of people around taking pictures, geekin' and a gawkin'. This time I got lucky. We were there just the two of us with my daughter Lindsey Star.

Eric got a little talkative, Both Lindsey & myself are huge Morrison fans. Eric started telling us all these amazing Morrison stories, and then he started in with the Hendrix stories. I have been an Eric Burdon fan for 41 years. I am definitely in awe of him. I commented to Eric about how once 40 years ago I remember seeing Ed Sullivan playfully tousle Eric's hair on TV.  Well that really got him going, it seems that he had embarrassed Eric a little. Eric was not very fond of Mr. Sullivan to say the least. He told us what really transpired with Jim Morrison & Ed Sullivan & the real reasons that Ed Sullivan tried to blackball Jim Morrison & The Doors; he told us all about Morrison's father & his role in the Vietnam war & why Jim disowned his family etc.  I am usually not star struck but with Eric it's hard for me not to be. I finally had gotten to meet the real legend.  That night while I was driving home, I was thinking about Richie. His words that night 12 or 15 years earlier. Richie was 100% right when he said that "Eric Burdon Was Definitely The Coolest Fu*k#ng Person In The World".            Ed Roman  Dec 2005