If music was a DEI initiative it would be War, the technicolor California ensemble whose seamless merging of R&B, rock, funk, jazz, blues, and a rainbow’s worth of sound from the Latin continuum played by a rotating cast of multicultural band members is still innovative 55 years since the band’s inception. When the word “progressive” gets bandied about with War, it’s about deep, long, multicultural concerns, and not just the politics of today’s far left.
Within the last 12 months, War and their Avenue label, in association with Rhino Records, have celebrated with 2023’s Black Friday release The Vinyl: 1971-1975, multiple 50th anniversary variations of The World Is a Ghetto: The Complete Sessions (including a quadraphonic box), and this past November’s release of The Vinyl: 1977-1994 (along with its compact-disc companion titled The CD Collection 1977-1994). While the previously released ’70s vinyl comp covered the outfit’s impactful hitmaking years (“Me and Baby Brother,” “The Cisco Kid”) beyond their first releases with former Animals singer Eric Burdon (Eric Burdon Declares “War,” The Black-Man's Burdon), 1977-1994 finds co-founding vocalist and bandleader Lonnie Jordan and his band stretching things further on 1977’s Platinum Jazz and Galaxy, 1979’s The Music Band, 1982’s Outlaw, and 1984’s Peace Sign.
Talking with Far Out Magazine in July, Jordan explained the continued allure of War and their multi-colored message from the beginning through to the present day. “I think a lot of people love our grooves, which were always a little different—of its time and today, too,” he shared, making salient points about the subtle message in War’s music and the flavorful distinction of their beats. “The message that is a part of our music, nothing’s changed. We’re not a political band. We’re not trying to be into politics or trying to change anything; we just wanted to make people aware. That’s all.”
Born in Long Beach with its welcoming mix of Chicano and Black biker and low rider custom car culture, War’s membership extended from Los Angeles to Compton, and spoke out about interracial harmony and promoted brotherhood beyond blight and racism even before they landed on that battle cry of a band name. As the toast of the LA ghetto (first as The Creators, later as Nightshift), Jordan along with co-originators Howard E. Scott, Harold Brown, Charles Miller, Morris “B. B.” Dickerson, Papa Dee Allen, and Lee Oskar (the latter a Dutch harmonica player) were gathered by bubblegum-pop producer Jerry Goldstein looking to remake Burdon’s fortunes in America as an early blue-eyed soul singer. Make no mistake: the Latin-tinged R&B of “Spill the Wine” and the expanse of The Black-Man’s Burdon is still brilliant, radical stuff to this day, and should be applauded for its audacious, free-flowing jazz, soul, and Latin grooves.
Somehow, though, for all the righteous, rhythmic interplay, cough-crooned vocals, and refrigerator-magnet poetry of their two albums (or three: Black-Man is a double), War was still better off and more fully focused on uplifting racially blended funk without Burdon. By the time the ensemble returned to the US from their final tour with the ex-Animal, and released their first albums (most particularly 1971’s All Day Music with singles such as “Slippin’ Into Darkness”), the wild-eyed wonder of War with all of its calico magic, buoyant brotherhood, and Mexi-Cali vibing was ready to move forward.
Historic hits such as “The Cisco Kid,” “The World Is a Ghetto,” “Why Can’t We Be Friends?,” “Summer,” “All Day Music,” and the homespun anthem to their start, “Low Rider,” didn’t just define War—they defined the multi-colored momentum of Black, brown, and white life, art, and music that was bubbling up from the top of the 1970s through to the disco era’s close in 1977. From Santana’s Afro-Latin rockouts to Earth, Wind & Fire’s layered harmonic R&B, Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band’s Black-Latin, big-band lilt (more so its immediate follow-up, Kid Creole & the Coconuts) to the earliest of Chicago-born house music tracks, bands of brothers and sisters singing out as one has long been popular music’s most joyful noise. And no one was more joyful and noisy than War.
Their historic hits didn’t just define War—they defined the multi-colored momentum of Black, brown, and white life, art, and music that was bubbling up from the top of the 1970s through to the disco era’s close in 1977.
While all of the above is captured by The Vinyl: 1971-1975 and their recent handful of greatest-hits collections, The CD Collection and The Vinyl: 1977-1994 take this band’s collective freedoms’ freak-flying funk flag farther out. Platinum Jazz and Galaxy aren’t just fun titles for their two (or three—again, the former is a double LP) 1977 releases. While the first of these was originally put out on the legendary Blue Note jazz label and ambitiously allows War the opportunity to spread their wings through a series of sweet and sour instrumentals, their second album of 1977 is an interplanetary tropical-inspired R&B record—imagine P-Funk’s George Clinton finding flight on the Mothership and splashing down in Brazil. The Music Band volumes 1 and 2 (also both released in one year, 1979) find War reaching deeper into their Latin musical roots and universal vibes with songs such as “All Around the World.”
Outlaw from 1982 has forever been a favorite of mine since its release. War changed labels to RCA with this record, and the group embraces its tight, street-tough union and a renewed punk-vibe energy starting with the insistent, pulsating title track and the elongated “The Jungle (Medley).” Outlaw, then and now, is the best album of latter-day War, and it deserves this separate shout out, its own box set of rarities, and all the lionizing I have at my command.
This vinyl and CD box set closes with Peace Sign, which is technically War’s least peaceful (double) recording, as most of its longtime band members (including breathy, forceful harmonicat Oskar) are reduced to occasional bit players, and synths, sequencers, and drum loops are suddenly welcomed into their hallowed, all-organic instrumental space. All that and songs such as “Wild Rodriguez,” “U B O.K.,” and “East L.A.”—which features Puerto Rican music hero José Feliciano on lead vocals—still focus on War’s Latin heritage, while tracks such as “What If” and “Homeless Hero” are spirited away on the wings of socially concerned storytelling without proselytizing.
The story of War is far from over, as their 2025 world tour schedule already looks jam-packed until summer. This year’s worth of War just happens to be a pair of great history lessons in what real diversity, equity, and inclusion in music sounds like when made by its most conscious, funky practitioners.
