City Council Honors War

Sixty years ago this month, “burn, baby burn!” was the frantic on-air exhortation of KGFJ morning DJ, Magnificent Montague. But that famous on-air slogan was banned when the Watts Riots started on Aug. 11, 1965, as those very same words became the insurrection’s slogan. And just like that, the record “Burn” by the Creators, an early name for the local Long Beach band later known as War disappeared from the playlist.

“’Burn,’ that was the influence of James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Johnnie Taylor, when we were playing the circuit,” said Lonnie Jordan, keyboard player of the Creators and later of War. “’Burn’ was a little bit controversial, it got Montague kicked out.” At first, Montague had to change his phrase to “have mercy” before he left the station. “Burn” by the Creators failed to chart and wasn’t heard again.

“Montague could put together a staff of people and make them work for free. Montague got very upset with Harold Brown,” said Jordan of the band’s drummer. “When he wants something, Montague would tell you once, if he had to tell you the second time, the third time, you’re out of there. He threw the drums out the upstairs window.”

“At Poly High School I was playing sock hops at the recreation center and at the Cozy Tavern on Alamitos,” said Brown. “I wasn’t old enough to drive, we played in Torrance and Wilmington, that’s where all the car clubs were.” 

“We only had one way to get in and out, the Harbor Freeway,” recalled Lonnie Jordan. “Compton, Long Beach, Harbor City, San Pedro through Carson. Everything changed after Watts, politically, and people started trying to get involved in the politics through music. No one was believing in our government, to top it all off, came the war issue and Black Panthers, that had a big influence on our music and our writing, we were writing our music from experience, actually living in it.

“It was all connected, most of our songs were a reflection of the people who wrote our songs.” Jordan said all members of War were “related actually. Howard Scott, BB Dickerson is his nephew, Harold Brown who was related to Howard, is connected with some longtime relatives from way back, we all knew each other…cousins.”

Then came the Romeos, with ‘Precious Memories’” a piano varied tempo piano instrumental with a country feel played by Jordan, which hit in Cleveland, New York, Philly and of course, Montague’s KGFJ in early 1967 “Magnificent Montague had no fear in the business,” said Jordan. “He renamed the Creators as the Romeos to do ‘Precious Memories’. Myself, Harold Brown, Stevie Dickerson were the Romeos. “I never saw the record, I only heard it,” said Jordan. “Montague had that Floyd Cramer attitude, that’s the piano player Montague wanted me to sound like, Montague loved him. He’d say, ‘give me some Floyd Cramer’.”

Funk instrumental band Senor Soul was an extension of the Creators / Romeos with multi-instrumentalist Charles Miller and Steve Guillory on guitar, combining soul music with a Latin beat on an answer of sorts to the Romeo’s “Mucho Soul” entitled “Poquito Soul.” Producer Hal Winn, who had also produced the Romeos for Loma said, “They came in and auditioned one day, did several things with them. I liked Chuck Miller because I knew he was in control of his own group. If not, it was like five arguments instead of one. He directed everything.

“One day, Steve Gold called me, ‘I got this great opportunity for this group.’ They had just added Lee Oskar and got an offer to go with Eric Burdon, so we just released them. Later on, Miller eventually lost control of the band when they became War.”

By 1969, the Creators had become Night Shift, backing vocalist Deacon Jones, with the female group the Night Trippers who also backed Dr. John. One night, while playing at the Rag Doll on Lankersheim, “the word goes out, we’re jamming,” said Brown, “Eric Burdon’s here, his old Jaguar parked in front. Light skinny guy with all this hair and a harmonica asked ‘can I play with you?’ we thought Lee was Eric. Okay, he got up and started playing, start off on a low blues, turned into a double shuffle, jammed for about 35 minutes.

“When we played waiters and people were standing on tables, hollering and screaming. Jerry Goldstein walked in, ‘You guys are pretty good’ Jerry asked us if we’d like to come into the studio. We met Steve Gold, really the genius. On Monday, May 1969, we in a meeting with Howard Scott, Charles Miller, Lee Oskar, Papa Dee Allen, Lonnie Jordan and myself Harold Brown, Eric Burdon, Jerry Goldstein and Steve Gold, who said, ‘I’ve got a great idea for you guys, War, real short, total opposite of peace, can put on billboards easy. Eric was the missile to launch you out there, release you as your own entity, War.’ We were getting $200 a week to rehearse at a little warehouse on Hill and Lemon, to the right of California Avenue. Charles Miller had been rehearsing there.”

Jordan also credited Gold with conceiving the name War, but in a different location. “Before we started recording, we were in Japan, walking a back alley with our manager Steve Gold. We were young, all had Afros, Steve said ‘I’m glad I know you guys, I’d walk the other way, you look like you just came off a battlefield.’

He said ‘War.’ We said that’s too radical.’ The music we’d been writing, ‘Ghetto Man,’ the first title for ‘The World Is A Ghetto,’ ‘Nappy Head,’ ‘Get Down,’ all the songs had political statements. ‘You guys need to rage War against war, let the music be your weapon’. We said ‘wow!’”

In June 1970, Eric Burdon & War’s hit Boss Radio #1, “Spill the Wine,” a title born halfway into the performance. According to Lonnie Jordan, an uncredited female voice heard under Burdon’s was “Carmen, a Puerto Rican girl. Eric was in the singing booth against the wall, she had beautiful hair, I never saw her body, just saw her head.

“Here I am behind the board in the control room, I was smoking weed, watching the back of Carmen, watching Eric improvising to come up with lyrics. I was hypnotized, dazed and confused, started pouring this wine in a Styrofoam cup.

“All of a sudden I saw it spill in the board, starting smoking, everyone jumped up.” At that moment, the title phrase was yet to gel. “Eric thought it was a joke, started singing ‘spill the wine,’ ‘spill the wine, dig that girl’ and I ended up paying $25,000 later on.”

At the City Council meeting of Aug. 12, 2025, Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson presented Keys to the City to three attendees, Goldstein and War members Harold Brown and Lonnie Jordan.