Canned Heat

Canned Heat - Canned Heat Blues Band (1999) {Ruf Records RUF-1040}
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© 1999 Ruf Records | RUF-1040
Blues / Blues-Rock / Boogie Rock / Modern Electric Blues

I cannot for the life of me find a thing wrong or amiss with this cd. I've been playing it for years and always love it. I know all about Canned Heat's tragic and illustrious past, and I'm not knocking those old records (most of them were great); but, it should be said by someone - the Canned Heat albums beginning with "Reheated" straight to the present - leave the old ones in the dust. Leaving behind the excessive reverence for the past (if you can, and you know who you are), there's one thing that has never changed about this band.

This 15-track single-disc collection was culled from Canned Heat (1967), Boogie With Canned Heat (1968), Living the Blues (1968), Hallelujah (1969), and Future Blues (1970). Arguably, Canned Heat Cookbook (1969) – a hits package in its own right – could be lumped in since it was the first full-length platter with "Going Up the Country," which was initially only issued on a 45-rpm single. During this era, the Heat was inhabited by Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson (guitar/vocals), Larry "The Mole" Taylor (bass), Henry "Sunflower" Vestine (guitar), and Bob "The Bear" Hite (vocals). Frank Cook (drums) contributed to the band's self-titled debut prior to being replaced by Aldolfo "Fito" de la Parra (drums), who remained as the combo's sole purveyor into the 1990s.

Canned Heat is an American rock band that was formed in Los Angeles in 1965. The group has been noted for its interpretations of blues material and for its efforts to promote interest in this type of 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 consisting of Hite (vocals), Wilson (guitar, harmonica and vocals), Henry Vestine and later Harvey Mandel (lead guitar), Larry Taylor (bass), and Adolfo de la Parra (drums).

Memphis Heat documents Chicago blues piano legend Memphis Slim's studio collaborations with the rock group Canned Heat in France on September 18, 1970, and July 11, 1973. The results are tasty indeed. Slim's voice and piano are well matched by Henry Vestine's electric guitar, Canned Heat's rockin' rhythm section, and (on six out of 13 tracks) the Memphis Horns, a solid wind quintet of trumpet, trombone, two tenors, and a baritone sax. Memphis Slim tried on a lot of different styles and instrumental combinations during the 1970s. His Canned Heat sessions have been both praised and panned over the years, a state of affairs that often revealed more about the reviewers than the music itself.

Canned Heat - On The Road Again - BLACK BOX (2007) {2CD Box Set Weton-Wesgram BB2194 - live and re-recordings}
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© 2007 Weton-Wesgram | BB2194
Rock / Blues Rock

Canned Heat rose to fame because their knowledge and love of blues music was both wide and deep. Emerging in 1966, Canned Heat was founded by blues historians and record collectors Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson and Bob “The Bear” Hite. Hite took the name “Canned Heat” from a 1928 recording by Tommy Johnson. They were joined by Henry “The Sunflower” Vestine, another ardent record collector who was a former member of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. Rounding out the band in 1967 were Larry “The Mole” Taylor on bass, an experienced session musician who had played with Jerry Lee Lewis and The Monkees and Adolfo “Fito” de la Parra on drums who had played in two of the biggest Latin American bands, Los Sinners and Los Hooligans.

Formed by three avid blues record collectors, Canned Heat reformatted the sound of those beloved old 78s into ragged electric guitar boogies that fit the gestalt of the Woodstock generation. Guitarist and harmonica player Alan Wilson, singer Bob Hite, and guitarist Henry Vestine took their record collecting seriously, lifting the quill section from Texas songster Henry Thomas' 1920s recording of "Bull Doze Blues" note for note to form the intro to "Going Up the Country," one of Canned Heat's most enduring songs. At its best, Canned Heat translated an enthusiasm for old blues into a bright, radio-friendly history lesson, and at its worst, it collapsed into being just another white blues boogie band.

Canned Heat's first new studio album in 15 years! Nearly 60 years after the band was founded, Ruf Records releases a new studio album on CD & LP! Recorded in Burbank, California, long-serving drummer Fito de la Parra was joined in the studio by the members of the band’s current line-up, i.e. guitarist, keyboard player and singer Jimmy Vivino, harper and singer Dale Spalding and Richard “Rick” Reed who succeeded long-time bass player Larry “The Mole” Taylor after his death in 2019. Another musician that can be heard on the album is blues rocker Joe Bonamassa who makes a guest appearance as lead guitarist on “So Sad (The World’s In A Tangle)”; Canned Heat first recorded this song for their 1970 album “Future Blues” with founding members Alan Wilson and Bob Hite still around and a live version can be found on their 2015 CD/DVD set from Ruf’s “Songs From The Road” series.

A hard-luck blues band of the '60s, Canned Heat was founded by blues historians and record collectors Alan Wilson and Bob Hite. They seemed to be on the right track and played all the right festivals (including Monterey and Woodstock, making it very prominently into the documentaries about both) but somehow never found a lasting audience.