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I started a quest to find terrific blues music and incredible musicianship when I was just a little kid. I also have a tremendous appreciation of fine musical instruments and equipment. One of my greatest joys all of my life was sharing my finds with my friends. I'm now publishing my journey. I hope that you come along!


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Showing posts with label Canned Heat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canned Heat. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Simi Valley Cajun-Blues Fest feat. Robert Randolph/Swamp Dogg/John Mayall/C.J. Chenier/Canned Heat/Guitar Shorty/Dwayne Dopsie



ROBERT RANDOLPH & THE FAMILY BAND,
SWAMP DOGG, JOHN MAYALL, CANNED HEAT,
C.J. CHENIER, GUITAR SHORTY, DWAYNE DOPSIE
HEADLINE 25th ANNUAL
SIMI VALLEY CAJUN & BLUES MUSIC FESTIVAL,
SATURDAY-SUNDAY, MAY 24-25
 Los Angeles area’s largest Cajun, Zydeco, Blues
and Roots Music festival,
held over Memorial Day weekend, features two stages,
a Mardi Gras parade, kids’ activities, crafts and dozens of food booths
 Festival debut of new blues stage booker Martin Fleischmann.

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — The 25th annual Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Festival will rock once again at Memorial Day weekend, May 24-25, at Rancho Santa Susanna Community Park, 5005 Los Angeles Ave., in Simi Valley. The event features two full stages for each of its musical genres. Music will proceed non-stop each day from 12 noon until 7:30 p.m. Tickets, $22 adults 13+ and $15 children 7-12, are available online at http://www.simicajun.org or at the gate. Parking is ample and free. Fast-moving California Hwy. 118 (Ronald Reagan Freeway) can be taken to the Stearns Street exit; the festival is four blocks south.
The blues stage presents its strongest bill ever featuring Robert Randolph & the Family Band, the American funk and soul ensemble led by pedal steel guitarist Robert Randolph; Los Angeles-based Southern soul and blues legend Swamp Dogg; British blues patriarch John Mayall; blues revival pioneers Canned Heat; Texas-born bluesman Guitar Shorty; and Blues Music Award-winning singer and guitarist Tommy Castro. The blues stage will also feature Flattop Tom & His Jump Cats, Nancy & the Nightcrawlers, Dennis Jones and Andy Walo.
Meanwhile, on the Cajun-Zydeco stage, C.J. Cheneir brings the Red Hot Louisiana Band, assembled by his father, Zydeco king, Grammy Lifetime Achievement winner Clifton Chenier. Veteran Zydeco accordionist Nathan Williams Sr. will appear, as will Nathan Williams Jr. & His Zydeco Big Timers. Dwayne Dopsie, hailing from one of the top Zydeco families in the world, will front the Zydeco Hellraisers. Feufollet presents their indie-rock-influenced Cajun music. Southern California’s own Lisa Haley & the Zydecats, a popular attraction at the festival for many years, will return, as will Andre Thierry & Zydeco Magic and the Bayou Brothers.
The annual Mardi Gras Parade will take place both days at 4 p.m.
About the performers:
• Robert Randolph & the Family Band first gained national attention with the release of the album Live at the Wetlands in 2002. The group followed with three studio recordings over the next eight years — Unclassified, Colorblind, and We Walk This Road — which, together with tireless touring and unforgettable performances at such festivals as Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, won them an expanding and passionate fan base. Randolph’s unprecedented prowess on his instrument garnered him a spot on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list, and also attracted the attention of such giants as Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana, who have collaborated with him on stage and in the studio. His new album on Blue Note Records is Lickety Split.
• Raunchy, satirical, political, and profane, Swamp Dogg is one of the great cult figures of 20th century American music. The nom du disque of Jerry Williams Jr., an R&B producer and songwriter of the ’60s, Swamp Dogg creates pure Southern soul music anchored on tight grooves and accentuated by horns. His songs are as much about message as music. His albums Total Destruction of the Mind and I’m Not Selling Out, I’m Buying In, both reissued last year, are cult classics. Swamp boasts gold and platinum records for both soul and country covers of his composition “She’s All I Got.” The Northridge resident’s 12-minute live rendition of the Bee Gees’ “Got To Get a Message to You” is not to be missed. A new album is due in the summer 2014.
 John Mayall was born in 1933 and grew up near Manchester, England. It was there as a teenager that he first became attracted to the jazz and blues 78s in his father’s record collection. After an early career in design, Mayall assembled the Bluesbreakers which featured such giants of British music as Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Taylor. In 1969 he moved to L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, long a mecca for musicians, where his now U.S.-based Bluebreakers featured Coco Montoya, Walter Trout and Buddy Whittington. Now living short miles from Simi Valley, he continues to record and tour the globe.
• C.J. Chenier was born 1957, the son of the great King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier. C.J.’s father was the first Creole musician to win a Grammy Award. C.J. spent his childhood in the tough tenement housing projects of Port Arthur, Texas. When Clifton died in 1987, C.J. adopted the Red Hot Louisiana Band and recorded his debut album for Arhoolie Records with later recordings on Slash and Alligator Records. His 1995 appearances on the The Daily Show and CNN brought Zydeco music to its widest audiences yet. He accepted a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on his father's behalf in in 2014.
• Canned Heat rose to fame because their knowledge and love of blues music was both wide and deep. Founded in 1966 by blues historians and record collectors Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson and Bob “The Bear” Hite, the band drew on an encyclopedic knowledge of all phases of the genre and attained two worldwide hits, “On the Road Again” in 1968 and “Going Up the Country” in 1969. Despite the untimely deaths of three of its founding members, Canned Heat has survived under the leadership of Fito de la Parra since the late ’70s.
• Guitar Shorty, a.k.a. David Kearney, was born in Houston in 1939, raised in Kissimee, Fla., and now makes his home in Los Angeles. Over the years he’s played behind T-Bone Walker, Willie Dixon, Guitar Slim, Big Joe Turner, Little Richard, Sam Cooke and fellow Simi Valley Festival performer Swamp Dogg. His recent albums on Evidence and Alligator albums attest to the high energy level of this survivor of blues’ classic era.
• Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers were rated one of the “Top 100 Reasons to Visit Louisiana.” The last of eight children, Dwayne attributes his musical abilities to the influence of his father, Rockin’ Dopsie Sr., a pioneer of Zydeco music. 
• Feufollet: In Feufollet’s repertoire, deathbed ballads meet glockenspiels and omnichords, Cajun French choruses are written on iPhones, and indie-rock vibes invade Acadian archives. The Louisiana-based band is deeply rooted in the francophone soil of Louisiana and pushing boldly into unexplored yet utterly natural varieties of Cajun experience. They are famous for their renditions of heartbreaking songs and rollicking tunes.
• Lisa Haley & the Zydecats: Haley is a fourth-generation fiddler whose maternal family were Irish immigrants, arriving in Roddy Bayou, Louisiana in 1718 to escape a smallpox epidemic. They moved near Hollywood for her mother’s health, where Mickey Mouse Show producer Bob Holoboff offered to make Lisa a Mousekateer. Her parents politely declined, thinking it no life for a young lady. They said the same of Cajun music as a career. Lisa turned down a classical music college scholarship, favoring her more passionate calling: exploring the potential of Cajun and Zydeco potential as a “world music.”
The Blues Stage welcomes a new booker this year, Martin Fleischmann and his company, Rum & Humble. For more than 20 years Rum & Humble has played a key role in presenting some of the world’s most celebrated musical talent (Radiohead, Manu Chao, and the Rolling Stones, to name a few) to Los Angeles audiences, in venues ranging from the Echoplex to the Orpheum Theatre to the Hollywood Bowl. The company has co-produced the Santa Monica Pier’s Twilight Concert Series since 2011. In addition, Rum & Humble has collaborated closely and creatively with artists such as Jackson Browne and Paul Oakenfold as well as with a varied roster of corporate and non-profit clients ranging from KJAZZ Radio to the Conga Room nightclub to the National Geographic Society.
The festival has received national press accolades: “Everywhere you turned, there was something exciting happening. Put this on your 2013 festival calendar,” wrote Blue Revue editor Art Tipaldi, who made the trek from New England. The Blues Blast writer enthused, “I attend many venues and festivals throughout the year but the ones that seem to impress me the most are the ones that serve the community in some way. I highly recommend you put this on your calendar for next Memorial Day weekend.” And the music industry trade journal HITS added, “As the last strains of (Candye) Kane’s set rang in our ears, we left the grounds fully sated by music, food, drink and, as the saying goes, bon temps.”
This family-friendly event boasts a huge kids’ area with bouncers, rock walls, specialty acts, crafts and talent shows.
The festival boasts dozens of food booths featuring a variety of fare: authentic Cajun creations and Southern BBQ as well as multi-cultural cuisine. More than 100 craft booths and retailers will be scattered throughout the festival grounds.
Tickets may be obtained online at
http://www.simicajun.org/2014/tickets.html
Support of the not-for-profit Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Music Festival has benefited dozens of local community, national and international organizations, a list of which may be found at < http://www.simicajun.org/2014/whobenefits.html>.
Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Festival web site:http://www.simicajun.org
Read the blog:www.cajunbluesblog.com
SATURDAY MAY 24th
BLUES STAGE
11:30 a.m. TBA
12:15 p.m. Dennis Jones
1:35 p.m. Andy Walo
3 p.m. Canned Heat
4:25 p.m. Guitar Shorty
5:50 p.m. John Mayall
CAJUN-ZYDECO STAGE
10:45 a.m. Dance Lessons
11:30 a.m. Bayou Brotghers
12:25 p.m. Lisa Haley & the Zydecats
1:55 p.m. Feufollet
3:25 p.m. Nathan Williams, Big Nate
4:35 Mardi Gras Parade
4:55 p.m. Nathan Williams Jr. & the Zydeco Big Timers
6:25 C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band
SUNDAY MAY 25th
BLUES STAGE 
12 Noon Nancy & the Nightcrawlers
1:20 Flattop Tom
2:45 Swamp Dogg
4:10 Tommy Castro
5:35 Robert Randolph & the Family Band
CAJUN-ZYDECO STAGE10:45 a.m. Dance Lessons
11:30 a.m. Bayou Brothers
12:25 p.m. Andre Thierry & Zydeco Magic
1:50 p.m. Lisa Haley & the Zydecats
4:20 p.m. Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers
5:45 p.m. C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana band
7:10 p.m. Feufollet

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Turpentine Moan & On The Road Again - Bob Hite, Canned Heat

Robert Ernest "Bob" "The Bear" Hite (February 26, 1943 – April 5, 1981) was the American lead singer of the blues-rock band, Canned Heat, from 1965 to his death in 1981. He was introduced to Alan Wilson by Henry Vestine and the two of them helped convince blues pianist Sunnyland Slim to get back into the recording studio to record. In 1965, aged 22, he formed a band with Wilson. Vestine joined soon after and this trio formed the core of Canned Heat. The trio were eventually joined by Larry Taylor (bass) and Frank Cook (drums). Canned Heat appeared on a November 1969 episode of Playboy After Dark. Hite was invited to talk with Hugh Hefner after the performance, along with other guests Sonny and Cher, Vic Damone, Dick Shawn and Larry Storch. A 20-year-old Lindsay Wagner, playing the part of one of Hefner's party guests, sat on Hite's lap and played a party game. When asked by Hefner what kind of animal Hite would be if he were an animal, Wagner claimed he'd be a bear. Hite told her she got it right, that people called him "The Bear." It was also on this episode that Bob Hite informed Hugh Hefner that he had over 15,000 78s. He produced the John Lee Hooker/Canned Heat album, Hooker 'N Heat (1971). Hite was found dead in his van of a heart attack in 1981, at the age of 38

   If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, ”LIKE” ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorite band!

Friday, February 8, 2013

drum solo with Canned Heat - Fito De La Parra

Adolfo "Fito" de la Parra (born 8 February 1946, Mexico City) is a Mexican drummer, best known as a longtime member of Canned Heat Fito de la Parra began playing drums professionally from the age of 14. In 1958 he was a member of a Mexican rock band called Los Sparks. Later he played with some of Mexico's most famous rock bands, Los Sinners, Los Hooligans and with Javier Batiz. In 1966 he moved to Los Angeles and became a member of Sotweed Factor and then left them to join Bluesberry Jam. He also backed The Platters, Etta James, The Rivingtons, Mary Wells and the Shirelles.[3] He replaced Canned Heat's original drummer, Frank Cook and played his first gig with the band on 1 December 1967. He joined in time for their second album, Boogie with Canned Heat, and has played on every subsequent album up to present day. During his 40+ years with Canned Heat, Fito has also played with some of the greatest blues singers of our time including, Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Albert Collins, and George "Harmonica" Smith. His solid, basic drumming and fantastic solos have led to recording sessions with John Lee Hooker, Memphis Slim, and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. Fito has also written a book "LIVING THE BLUES" with his personal story and Canned Heat's, now available on the band's website cannedheatmusic.com, Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. As "Keeper of the Flame" he has remained the band leader, rhythmic and spiritual force behind Canned Heat's music for over four decades. He has also produced three DVDs, "Boogie with Canned Heat", "Rock Made in Mexico", and "Fito de la Parra Drum Solos" and countless CDs for Canned Heat and other artists. He became a US citizen in 1984. Fito is an avid motorcyclist and an animal lover, currently living in Ventura county, CA. In recent years he was the only member of the 1960s Canned Heat line-up that toured with the group, although in 2010 (and for most shows in 2009) Larry Taylor and Harvey Mandel rejoined the group and together with Fito are currently touring worldwide. If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! ”LIKE”

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Severn Records Sets March 19 Release Date for "The Blind Owl," Special 2-CD Compilation Saluting the Career of Canned Heat Founding Member Alan Wilson



Severn Records Announces a March 19 Release for The Blind Owl
a Two-CD Compilation Set Saluting the Career of Canned Heat Founding Member Alan Wilson





ANNAPOLIS, MD – Severn Records announces a March 19 release date for the special two-CD compilation set, The Blind Owl, a tribute to Alan Wilson, the brilliant musician and founding member of the legendary band, Canned Heat. Distributed nationally by City Hall Records, The Blind Owl is comprised of 20 tracks recorded during Wilson’s tragically short career, and features songs from such Canned Heat album classics as Boogie with Canned Heat, Future Blues, Hallelujah, Living the Blues, Canned Heat Concert (Recorded Live in Europe) and the group’s debut self-titled album, released in 1966 on Liberty Records.

If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! ”LIKE” The set includes Canned Heat’s Top 10 worldwide hits, “On the Road Again” (inspired by Floyd Jones and adapted by Wilson) and “Going Up the Country” (written by Wilson), which featured his trademark high-pitched lead vocals, influenced by Skip James. Other fan favorites on the two CDs include “Help Me,” “Time Was,” “An Owl Song,” “Shake It and Break It,” “Mean Old World” and several parts from the band’s highly ambitious nine-part psychedelic musical adventure known as “Parthenogenesis.” In addition to Alan Wilson on lead vocals, rhythm and bottleneck guitar and harmonica, The Blind Owl features Canned Heat members Henry Vestine and Harvey Mandel on lead guitar; Larry Taylor and Tony de la Barreda on bass; and Adolfo (“Fito”) de la Parra and Frank Cook on drums and percussion. Dr. John is a special guest on piano for two tracks. The Digipak album package also features extensive and insightful liner notes about the songs from Skip Taylor, Canned Heat’s manager from the beginning, producer and personal friend of Alan Wilson, with cover art by Josh Hunter, illustrator of The 27s Book.

Nicknamed “The Blind Owl” by good friend and fellow blues musician John Fahey, Wilson was nearsighted to the point of almost complete blindness. That affliction, along with his innate shyness around people and an introverted personality combined to form a potent combination, that while giving inspiration to many of his songs, also helped create Alan’s personal demons that eventually took his life at age 27. He’s forever linked with the other greats of the “27 Club” who died way-too-young at that age, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain and Robert Johnson.

As a member of Canned Heat, Wilson performed at the two most iconic live concerts in rock: the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, which helped launch the whole festival show craze; and Woodstock, the 1969 once-in-a-lifetime event that will forever be considered a defining moment in rock music history. Wilson’s “Going Up the Country” not only became the theme of the movie filmed at Woodstock, but would also become the anthem of the entire “Woodstock Generation,” and still continues to be featured in movies and commercials to this day.  

Born on the Fourth of July in 1943 in Boston, Alan Wilson got involved in the Cambridge coffeehouse folk-blues circuit while enrolled at Boston University. He also immersed himself in the history of early blues music, becoming an authority on the subject; so much so that in 1964 noted manager/producer/blues historian Dick Waterman recruited Wilson to “re-teach” the legendary Son House how to play his old slide guitar licks and songs he had recorded in the ‘30s and had forgotten. After several weeks of playing together, House invited Alan to play guitar and harmonica with him at the Newport Folk Festival and on The Legendary Son House, Father of Folk Blues record.      

In 1965, Alan became a founding member of Los Angeles-based Canned Heat. Painfully awkward, Wilson battled anxiety and depression throughout his life, which manifested itself in songs such as “My Mistake,” and “Change My Ways,” both included on The Blind Owl. The set also includes such hallmarks as his performances on “Help Me,” Wilson’s debut as a singer in 1966; “An Owl Song,” the band’s first recording with horns; “Alan’s Intro,” his amazing slide guitar intro to Canned Heat’s “Woodstock Boogie,” recorded live at the festival; “Skat,” a group jam that features Alan “scat” singing; and “Human Condition,” Alan’s final studio recording. Keenly attuned to the environment, he also lamented the carnage of the planet’s resources, documenting those feelings on the track, “Poor Moon.”

Wilson was one of the few serious blues scholars of his day and wrote lengthy articles on such artists as Robert Pete Williams and Son House about their significant contributions to the history of the blues. After Canned Heat’s appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival, Downbeat magazine put the band on its cover and proclaimed Wilson “the greatest harmonica player of the 20th Century.” And none other than the king of boogie, himself, John Lee Hooker paid the ultimate compliment to Wilson after the band’s sessions on the double-LP, Hooker ‘n Heat, in 1970: “Alan plays my music better than I knows it myself. You musta been listenin’ to my records all your life.”

The Blind Owl Track Listing
Disc One
1)      On the Road Again
2)      Help Me
3)      An Owl Song
4)      Going Up the Country
5)      My Mistake
6)      Change My Ways
7)      Get Off My Back
8)      Time Was
9)      Do Not Enter
10)  Shake It and Break It
11)  Nebulosity / Rollin’ & Tumblin’ / Five Owls
Disc Two
1)      Alan’s Intro
2)      My Time Ain’t Long
3)      Skat
4)      London Blues
5)      Poor Moon
6)      Pulling Hair Blues
7)      Mean Old World
8)      Human Condition
9)      Childhood’s End

For more information, visit www.severnrecords.com and www.cannedheatmusic.com.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Move On Down The Road - Alan Wilson and Canned Heat


Alan "Blind Owl" Christie Wilson (July 4, 1943 – September 3, 1970) was the leader, singer, and primary composer in the American blues band Canned Heat. He played guitar and harmonica, and wrote most of the songs for the band.
Wilson was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in the Boston suburb of Arlington. He majored in music at Boston University and often played the Cambridge coffeehouse folk-blues circuit. He acquired the nickname "Blind Owl" owing to his extreme nearsightedness; in one instance when he was playing at a wedding, he laid his guitar on the wedding cake because he did not see it. As Canned Heat's drummer, Fito de la Parra, wrote in his book: "Without the glasses, Alan literally could not recognize the people he played with at two feet, that's how blind the 'Blind Owl' was."
With Canned Heat, Wilson performed at two prominent concerts of the 1960s era, the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and Woodstock in 1969. Canned Heat appeared in the film Woodstock, and the band's "Going Up the Country," which Wilson sang, has been referred to as the festival's unofficial theme song. Wilson also wrote "On the Road Again," arguably Canned Heat's second-most familiar song.

Wilson was a passionate conservationist who loved reading books on botany and ecology. He often slept outdoors to be closer to nature. In 1969, he wrote and recorded a song, "Poor Moon", which expressed concern over potential pollution of the moon. He wrote an essay called 'Grim Harvest', about the coastal redwood forests of California, which was printed as the liner notes to the Future Blues album by Canned Heat.

After Eddie 'Son' House's 'rediscovery' in 1964, Wilson taught him how to play again the songs House had recorded in 1930 and 1942 (which he had forgotten over a long absence from music); House recorded for Columbia in 1965 and two of three selections featuring Wilson on harmonica and guitar appeared on the set. On the double album Hooker 'N Heat (1970), John Lee Hooker is heard wondering how Wilson is capable of following Hooker's guitar playing so well. Hooker was known to be a difficult performer to accompany, partly because of his disregard of song form. Yet Wilson seemed to have no trouble at all following him on this album. Hooker concludes that "you [Wilson] musta been listenin' to my records all your life". Hooker is also known to have stated "Wilson is the greatest harmonica player ever"

Stephen Stills' song "Blues Man" from the album Manassas is dedicated to Wilson, along with Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman.
Wilson died in Topanga Canyon, California of a drug overdose at age 27. Although Wilson had reportedly attempted suicide twice before and his death is sometimes reported as a suicide, this is not clearly established and he left no note.
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Saturday, April 7, 2012

Move On Down The Road - CANNED HEAT


Robert Ernest "Bob" "The Bear" Hite (February 26, 1943 – April 5, 1981) was the American lead singer of the blues-rock band, Canned Heat, from 1965 to his death in 1981.

He was introduced to Alan Wilson by Henry Vestine and the two of them helped convince blues pianist Sunnyland Slim to get back into the recording studio to record. In 1965, aged 22, he formed a band with Wilson. Vestine joined soon after and this trio formed the core of Canned Heat. The trio were eventually joined by Larry Taylor (bass) and Frank Cook (drums).

Canned Heat appeared on a November 1969 episode of Playboy After Dark. Hite was invited to talk with Hugh Hefner after the performance, along with other guests Sonny and Cher, Vic Damone, Dick Shawn and Larry Storch. A 20-year-old Lindsay Wagner, playing the part of one of Hefner's party guests, sat on Hite's lap and played a party game. When asked by Hefner what kind of animal Hite would be if he were an animal, Wagner claimed he'd be a bear. Hite told her she got it right, that people called him "The Bear." It was also on this episode that Bob Hite informed Hugh Hefner that he had over 15,000 78s.

He produced the John Lee Hooker/Canned Heat album, Hooker 'N Heat (1971). Hite was found dead in his van of a heart attack in 1981, at the age of 38.
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Sunday, February 26, 2012

On The Road Again - Canned Heat


Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the 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 Monterey and Woodstock, at the end of the 1960s the band acquired worldwide fame with a lineup consisting of Bob Hite, vocals, Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, guitar, harmonica and vocals, Henry Vestine (or Harvey Mandel) on lead guitar, Larry Taylor on bass, and Adolfo "Fito" de la Parra on drums.

The music and attitude of Canned Heat afforded them 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 and they were able to deliver on stage electrifying performances of blues standards and their own material and occasionally to indulge into lengthier 'psychedelic' solos. Two of their songs - "Going Up the Country" and "On the Road Again" - became international hits. "Going Up the Country" was a remake of the Henry Thomas (blues musician) song "Bulldoze Blues" recorded in Louisville, Kentucky in 1927. "On the Road Again" was a cover version/re-working of the 1953 Floyd Jones song of the same name, which is reportedly based on the Tommy Johnson song "Big Road Blues" recorded in 1928.

Since the early 1970s numerous personnel changes have occurred and today, in the fifth decade of the band's existence the band includes Fito de la Parra and Larry Taylor from the "classic" 1960s lineup as well as Harvey Mandel. For much of the 1990s and 2000s de la Parra was the only member from the band's 1960s lineup. He has written a book about the band's career. Larry Taylor, whose presence in the band has not been steady, is the other surviving member from the earliest lineups. Harvey Mandel, Walter Trout and Junior Watson are among the guitarists who gained fame for playing in later editions of the band. British blues pioneer John Mayall has frequently found musicians for his band among former Canned Heat members.
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