My brother bought an album which also changed my listening standards and this band had a profound effect. 'The Most of The Animals' rooted in the blues and featuring Alan Price on organ who I thought was the best keyboard player I had ever heard and I followed his work ever after  . . . . if not quite Eric's  . . . . . . . Chas Chandler of course going on to 'discover' and manage Jimi Hendrix




I didn't know at the age I heard it that this classic blues number is a peon to a particular brothel!
 'it made a ruin of many a poor boy and Lord know's I'm one '. . . . . . . indeedie doodlie! In fact it has it roots in British folk songs possible as early as the 16thC certainly it was known as a broadside ballad and as such re-illustrated by the Animals stands as possibly the first Folk Rock Blues ballad 
from Wikipedia : 
According to Alan Lomax, "Rising Sun" was used as the name of a bawdy house in two traditional English songs, and it was also a name for English pubs.^[5] He further suggested that the melody might be related to a 17th-century folk song, "Lord Barnard and Little Musgrave", also known as "Matty Groves",[6][7] but a survey by Bertrand Bronson showed no clear relationship between the two songs.[8] Lomax proposed that the location of the house was then relocated from England to New Orleans by white southern performers.[5] However, Vance Randolph proposed an alternative French origin, the "rising sun" referring to the decorative use of the sunburst insignia dating to the time of Louis XIV, which was brought to North America by French immigrants.[8] 
An interview with Eric Burdon revealed that he first heard the song in a club in Newcastle, England, where it was sung by the Northumbrian folk singer Johnny Handle

In fact the house may not have been in New Orleans at all and there is scant evidence to support it. There is however much to suggest it may have been a vestige of the early English folk song as there are many many British pubs with the name. There is in fact one very near to me as the crow flies still bearing the name between Yarnton and Woodstock