The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 90

THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1992 PAGE G-6 MUSIC PROFILE INDIANA'S BEST SINGLES DANCE War would rather live in peace with rappers Sunday at the ADAMS MARK at the AIRPORT 12-13-92 7:30 12 0 ADMISSION BEFORE 8:30 WITH THIS AO. 99 Ctrl jrAj NO MATCH MAGIC TONIGHT SPONSORED BY SOLO SINGLES. -If YS I XT AN MCL FAVORITE STUFFED CHICKEN BREAST ONLY were sitting at the piano working on Spill the Wine when Morrison jumped on it, kicking the cover onto their hands. "He looked at me," Jordan remembers, "and said, 'I bet you would like to sock He came up to my face with his dukes up, I Just barely touched him on his chest and he fell over into the fireplace. The fireplace wasn't on, thank God." War would have other good fortunes with that song.

It originally was released as the 'B' side of the single Magic Mountain. Radio stations wouldn't play the main cut because they mistakenly thought it was about drugs. They flipped the record over and found Spill the Wine. (De La Soul later used Magic Mountain for their song Potholes in My Lawn). For all its successes and luck, War also had some misfortunes.

Saxophonist Charles Miller was murdered in 1980 and percussionist Thomas "Papa Dee" Allen (who wrote the infamous lyric "I heard you're working for the CIAthey wouldn't have you in the died. Two other members quit the band in what Jordan called "political" disputes. After 1982. War stopped recording. Yet despite the death and divl-siveness, the group never stopped working.

Today, with members Jordan, Lee Oskar (harmonica), Howard Scott (guitar) and Ronnie Hammon (percussion), they're still going out and, in Jordan's words, "playing the songs the way we feel at the moment." AVENUE RECORDS Band ready for battle, War is (from left) Lee Oskar, Lonnie Jordan, Howard Scott and Ronnie Hammon. Band didn't sing the song; it is War. By MARC D. ALLAN STAR STAFF WRITER With Election "92 over, the group War has started Its own campaign. War's battle will take place not at the ballot box but at the record stores and in the clubs.

The band is trying to get the current generation of rap listeners to recognize its musical contributions. On Rap Declares War, War's first record in nearly 10 years, the band teams with some of rap's biggest stars who have sampled its songs. Those tunes include Spill the Wine, Low Rider, The Cisco Kid and Why Can't We Be Friends? Rather than fight them in court, War decided to work with rappers such as Ice-T, De La Soul, Brand Nubian and the Beastie Boys. Give credit War vocalistkeyboard player Lonnie Jordan says the group Just wants audiences to know who wrote the songs. "Also," he says by phone from Washington, D.C..

"there's a lot of people in the past who heard our music, but they never related it to the group War. A lot of people think Edwin Starr and War. In fact, they think we recorded (Starr's song) War instead of Spill the Wine." That's an easy mistake to make. War's sound was an ever-evolving amalgam of soul, rock, jazz, Latin 7 "T)(0) FROM DECEMBER 13-20 MCL and other styles. One hit and they had 16 Top 100 singles from 1970 to 1982 sounded entirely different from the next.

Jordan calls it "universal music." Free spirits The free-spirited sound resulted from the unstructured way the group wrote songs, he says. Often, they would Jam in the studio. Producer Jerry Goldstein would listen to the tape, pull out the best parts and help the band members carve a song from that. Consider Spill the Wine, the AM radio staple from 1970. Eric Bur-don, the ex-Animals frontman and War's lead singer until 1971, wrote part of that in the studio after Jordan spilled wine on the mixing board.

Burdon and Jordan wrote another portion at a party at Burdon's house. "All of Eric's friends came out because a lot of his friends were curious about this new group he had." Jordan says. "A lot of people thought it was a foreign group he brought over from England. No one knew who we were. "I remember very clearly that one of the people who came over was this guy about my size.

This guy came over in a Superman outfit, and they kept telling me that this guy was named Jim. Come to find out later on, it was Jim Morrison." Piano man Jordan says he and Burdon CA TE II A 10 Convenient Indianapolis Locations ml Sell il quicker in 1116 2229' 4 News Classifieds. i pii PRESENTS OLYMPIC WORLD CHAMPIONS KLristi Scott JPslu HAHUUDM BRIAN 0RSER KITTY PETER CARRUTHERS GARY BEAC0M G0RDEEVA GRINKOV R0SALYNN SUMNERS HOUGH LADRET Directed by Sandra Bezic iMiMmMim iff Tuesday, February 2 7:30 p.m. at Market Square Arena Tickets: $30.00 $20.00 at Market Square Arena and Ticketmaster locations. Phone charge 317239-5151.

(Convenience fee per ticket). Use your Discover Card: $1 per ticket will be donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Indiana and receive preferred seating (limit 500). Call Ticketmaster to use the Discover Card. Group Information (20 or more): 317236-6521 mr CWTERBURY HOTEL.