Canned Heat


Canned Heat is an American blues rock band that was formed in Los Angeles in 1965. The group has been noted for its efforts to promote interest in blues music and its original artists. It was launched by two blues enthusiasts, Alan Wilson and Bob Hite, who took the name from Tommy Johnson's 1928 "Canned Heat Blues", a song about an alcoholic who had desperately turned to drinking Sterno, generically called "canned heat". After appearances at the Monterey and Woodstock festivals at the end of the 1960s, the band acquired worldwide fame with a lineup of Hite, Wilson, Henry Vestine and later Harvey Mandel, Larry Taylor, and Adolfo de la Parra.
The music and attitude of Canned Heat attracted a large following and established the band as one of the popular acts of the hippie era. Canned Heat appeared at most major musical events at the end of the 1960s, performing blues standards along with their own material and occasionally indulging in lengthy "psychedelic" solos. Three of their songs—"Going Up the Country", "On the Road Again", and "Let's Work Together"—became international hits.
Following the early death of Wilson in 1970, numerous changes in the band's personnel have occurred. For much of the 1990s and 2000s and following Taylor's death in 2019, de la Parra has been the only member from the band's 1960s lineup. Walter Trout and Junior Watson are among the guitarists who played in later editions of the band.

History

Origins and early lineups

Canned Heat was formed within the community of blues collectors. Bob Hite had been trading blues records since his early teens, and his house in Topanga Canyon was a meeting place for people interested in music. In 1965, some blues devotees there decided to form a jug band and started rehearsals. The initial configuration included Hite as vocalist, Alan Wilson on bottleneck guitar, Mike Perlowin on lead guitar, Stu Brotman on bass and Keith Sawyer on drums. Perlowin and Sawyer dropped out within a few days, so guitarist Kenny Edwards stepped in to replace Perlowin, and Ron Holmes agreed to sit in on drums until they could find a permanent drummer.
Another of Hite's friends, Henry Vestine, asked if he could join the band and was accepted, while Edwards was kept on temporarily. Soon Edwards departed, and at the same time Frank Cook came in to replace Holmes as their permanent drummer. Cook already had substantial professional experience, having performed with such jazz luminaries as bassist Charlie Haden, trumpeter Chet Baker, and pianist Elmo Hope, and had also collaborated with black soul/pop artists such as Shirley Ellis and Dobie Gray.
In 1966, Hite, Wilson, Cook, Vestine, and Brotman recorded material for a debut album, produced by Johnny Otis. However, the recordings went unissued until 1970 when they appeared as Vintage Heat, released by Janus Records. Otis oversaw the session which produced a dozen tracks, including two versions of "Rollin' and Tumblin', "Spoonful" by Willie Dixon, and "Louise" by John Lee Hooker in his studio in Los Angeles. Over a summer hiatus in 1966, Stuart Brotman effectively left Canned Heat after he had signed a contract for a long engagement in Fresno with an Armenian belly-dance revue. Canned Heat had contacted Brotman, touting a recording contract which had to be signed the next day, but Brotman was unable to make the signing on short notice. Brotman would go on to join the world-music band Kaleidoscope with David Lindley, replacing Chris Darrow. Replacing Brotman in Canned Heat was Mark Andes, who lasted only a couple of months before he returned to his former colleagues in the Red Roosters, who adopted the new name Spirits Rebellious, later shortened to Spirit.
After joining with managers Skip Taylor and John Hartmann, Canned Heat finally found a permanent bassist in Larry Taylor, who joined in March, 1967. Taylor was a former member of the Moondogs and the brother of Ventures' drummer, Mel Taylor, and already had experience backing Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry in concert, and studio recording sessions for the Monkees.
This lineup began recording in April, 1967 for Liberty Records with Calvin Carter, who had been the head of A&R for Vee-Jay Records and had recorded such bluesmen as Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker. They recorded "Rollin' and Tumblin', backed with "Bullfrog Blues", and this became Canned Heat's first single. The first official album, Canned Heat, was released three months later in July, 1967. All tracks were re-workings of older blues songs. The Los Angeles Free Press reported: "This group has it! They should do very well, both live and with their recordings." Canned Heat fared reasonably well commercially, reaching number 76 on the Billboard chart.

Rise to fame and formation of the classic lineup

The first big live appearance of Canned Heat was at the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival on June 10, 1967. They also played at the Monterey Pop Festival the following weekend on June 17, 1967. A picture of the band taken at the Monterey performance was featured on the cover of Down Beat where an article complimented their playing:
D.A. Pennebaker's documentary captured their rendition of "Rollin' and Tumblin' and two other songs from the set, "Bullfrog Blues" and "Dust My Broom", found a place later in a boxed CD set in 1992.
Canned Heat also began to garner their notoriety as "the bad boys of rock" for being jailed in Denver, Colorado, after a police informant provided enough evidence for their arrest for drugs. Band manager Skip Taylor was forced to obtain the $10,000 bail by selling off Canned Heat's publishing rights to Liberty Records president Al Bennett.
After the Denver incident, Frank Cook was replaced with Adolfo de la Parra, who had been playing the drums in Bluesberry Jam. As an official member of Canned Heat, de la Parra played his first gig on December 1, 1967, sharing top billing with the Doors at the Long Beach Auditorium. This began what de la Parra refers to as the classic and perhaps best known Canned Heat lineup, which recorded some of the band's most famous and well-regarded songs. During this "classic" period, Skip Taylor and John Hartmann introduced the use of band member nicknames:
Their second released album, Boogie with Canned Heat, included "On the Road Again", an updated version of a 1950s composition by Floyd Jones. "On the Road Again" became the band's breakout song and was a worldwide success. The album also included a twelve-minute version of "Fried Hockey Boogie", allowed each member to stretch out on his instrument while establishing them with hippie ballroom audiences across America as the "kings of the boogie". Hite's "Amphetamine Annie", became one of their most enduring songs and one of the first "anti-drug" songs of the decade. Although not featured on the album's artwork, this was the first Canned Heat album to have featured drummer de la Parra.
With this success Taylor, Hartmann and new associate Gary Essert leased a Hollywood club they named the Kaleidoscope, in which Canned Heat essentially became the house band; Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Buffalo Springfield and Sly and the Family Stone also performed there. Also in 1968, after playing before 80,000 at the first annual Newport Pop Festival in September, Canned Heat left for their first European tour. It entailed a month of concert performances and media engagements that included television appearances on the British show Top of the Pops. They also appeared on the German program Beat Club, where they lip-synched "On the Road Again".

"Going Up the Country" and Woodstock

In October, the band released their third album, Living the Blues, which included "Going Up the Country", their best-known song. Wilson's recreation of Henry Thomas' "Bull-Doze Blues" was almost a note-for-note copy of the original, including Thomas' instrumental break on the "quills" which Jim Horn duplicated on flute. Wilson rewrote the lyrics with a simple message that caught the "back-to-nature" attitude of the late 1960s. The song was a hit in numerous countries around the world and was used as the unofficial theme song of the Woodstock Festival in Michael Wadleigh's 1970 documentary. The album also included a 19-minute experimental track "Parthenogenesis", which was a nine-part sound collage of blues, ragas, jaw-harp sounds, guitar distortion and other electronic effects; all pulled together under the direction of manager/producer, Skip Taylor. Longer still is "Refried Boogie", clocking in at over 40 minutes, recorded live at the Kaleidoscope.
Also recorded live at the Kaleidoscope around this time was the album, which was later 1971 released with the deceptive title, Live at Topanga Corral, by Wand Records because Liberty Records did not want to release a live album at the time and manager Skip Taylor did not want a lawsuit. The band ended 1968 in a big way at a New Year's show at the Shrine Auditorium, in Los Angeles, with Bob Hite riding a painted purple dayglo elephant to the stage.
In July 1969, just prior to Woodstock, Hallelujah, their fourth album was released. The Melody Maker review included: "While less ambitious than some of their work, this is nonetheless an excellent blues-based album and they remain the most convincing of the white electric blues groups." The album contained mainly original compositions with lyrics relating to the band such as Wilson's "Time Was" and a few re-worked covers like "Sic 'em Pigs" and the original "Canned Heat" by Tommy Johnson.
Within days of the album's release, Vestine left the group after an on-stage blow up at the Fillmore West between himself and Larry Taylor. The next night after Mike Bloomfield and Harvey Mandel jammed with Canned Heat, both were offered Vestine's spot in the band's lineup and Mandel accepted. The new lineup played two dates at the Fillmore before appearing at Woodstock in mid-August.
Arriving via helicopter at Woodstock, Canned Heat played their set on the second day of the festival at sunset. The set included "Going Up the Country" which became the title track in the documentary, even though the band's performance was not shown. The song was included in the first Woodstock album; while the second album, Woodstock 2, contained "Woodstock Boogie". The expanded 25th Anniversary Collection added "Leaving This Town" to the band's collection of Woodstock performances and "A Change Is Gonna Come" was included on the director's cut of the documentary film; leaving only "Let's Work Together" to be released.
Before their European tour in early 1970, the band recorded Future Blues, an album containing five original compositions and three covers. "Let's Work Together", a Wilbert Harrison song, was the single chosen for release in Europe to coincide with the tour. At the band's insistence the U.S. release was delayed in order to offer the author's version a chance in the market first. Canned Heat had a big hit with "Let's Work Together" and was the band's only top forty hit to feature the vocals of Bob "The Bear" Hite. The album featured piano by Dr. John and an atypical jump blues style also. Some controversy was sparked by the Moon landing/Iwo Jima album cover and the upside-down American flag. The upside-down flag was Wilson's idea and was a response to his love of nature, growing environmentalism and concern that humankind would soon be polluting the Moon as well as the Earth.
Material from their 1970 European tour provided the tracks for Canned Heat '70 Concert Live in Europe, later retitled Live in Europe. It was a live album that combined tracks from different shows throughout the tour, but was put together in such a way as to resemble one continuous concert for the listener. Although the album garnered some critical acclaim and did well in the UK, it had only limited commercial success in the U.S.; Returning from Europe in May 1970, an exhausted Larry Taylor left the band to join John Mayall and was followed by Mandel.