Introduction

BOOGIE WITH CANNED HEAT (1968)
1) Evil Woman; 2) My Crime; 3) On The Road Again; 4) World In A Jug; 5) Turpentine Moan; 6) Whiskey Headed Woman No. 2; 7) Amphetamine Annie; 8) An Owl Song; 9) Marie Laveau; 10) Fried Hockey Boogie.
Unlike Ten Years After or Fleetwood Mac, or even their American predecessors, the Butterfield Blues Band, Canned Heat were unable — or unwilling — to properly cross the line from imita­tion to originality. But at least they got tougher, and, second time around, the music has enough power, menace, and mystique to hold the listener's attention. Songwriting is pretty much non-existent — just about anything that is not properly credited to somebody else is still based on classic blues patterns. Thus, ʽMy Crimeʼ is really ʽHoochie Coochie Manʼ; ʽAmphetamine Annieʼ is ʽThe Hunterʼ; and ʽTurpentine Moanʼ is something by Elmore James that is not quite ʽDust My Broomʼ, but close. These things do not bother the big boys one bit, as they diligently supply their own lyrics, and by doing that, loyally imitate the behaviour of their own Afro-American idols, so to hell with anachronistic copyright prejudices.
The good news: the sound gets real fat. Thick, distorted basslines, gritty distorted guitars, and an uneasy premonition in the air — this is the coalesced Canned Heat, and they're ready to do it right this time. Actually, they are so smart now they don't even need to get all that heavy to generate uneasy premonition — cue the band's first big hit, ʽOn The Road Againʼ, where they take the standard John Lee Hooker ʽBoogie Chillenʼ line and use it as the foundation for a truly hypnotic groove — there's something about that combination of monotonous bass, trebly E/G/A guitar riff, soft, «lulling» harmonica, Wilson's trembling, childish falsetto, and buzzing tambura in the back­ground for extra psychedelic effect. Each single ingredient is simple as heck, but together they create a truly sinister sonic mix, as if old man Hooker were caught up in a real bad trip.
That said, normally the band goes for a heavier sound, and if you really want to catch them at the peak of their game, head straight for the last two tracks — the instrumental 12-bar blues ʽMarie Laveauʼ, five minutes of grinning distorted soloing from Vestine with Dr. John lending a major hand on the piano and throwing on some New Orleanian brass for support; and then the lengthy jam ʽFried Hockey Boogieʼ, which gives you even more of the ʽBoogie Chillenʼ riff, this time under a real heavy sauce, and then goes on to showcase the individual talents of the players with funny introductions from The Bear. Nothing too special, no, but there's something untangibly tasteful about the way they kick your ass all over the place with this stuff.
Surprisingly, I find myself enamored with the band's lengthy jams more than I find myself appre­ciating their shorter songs. With the exception of the haunting trance of ʽOn The Road Againʼ, and the acceptable humor of ʽAmphetamine Annieʼ ("this is a song with a MESSAGE!", The Bear announces at the beginning, and yes, the message is that "SPEED KILLS!", says lead singer in a band where two principal members would die from overdosing, including himself), every other non-jam tune is just okay: Larry Weiss' ʽEvil Womanʼ, for instance, would be very soon available in a ripping monster version from Spooky Tooth that would completely obliterate the Canned Heat cover, and then there's a bunch of other blues-rock tunes that come around, sound nice, and go away without regrets.
But the jams — oh boy, the jams, and it's all about the combinations: Vestine's sizzling guitar tone works delightfully well together with Dr. John's piano on ʽMarie Laveauʼ, and before there ever was ZZ Top, Larry Taylor and Alan Wilson were doing the ʽBoogie Chillen / La Grangeʼ groove with as much passion and verve as any Texan for miles around. They just seem to find that perfect balance between «letting their hair down», not being afraid of feedback, volume, and (occasionally) primal chaos, but at the same time also caring about sheer professionalism and musicality — this makes their jams more rock-'n'-roll-style-exciting than those of their psyche­delic contemporaries, but also more intelligent and restrained than the Blue Cheer / Vanilla Fudge / Cactus-style heavy bands. Only thing I can say is that having John Lee Hooker among your top influences really helps with the vibe (and I'm sure Billy Gibbons would agree as well) — oh yes, and even despite its more boring moments, the album still gets an enthusiastic thumbs up.
LIVING THE BLUES (1968)
1) Pony Blues; 2) My Mistake; 3) Sandy's Blues; 4) Going Up The Country; 5) Walking By Myself; 6) Boogie Music; 7) One Kind Favor; 8) Parthenogenesis; 9) Refried Boogie.
Everybody knows ʽGoing Up The Countryʼ, right? Everybody who is somebody saw the Wood­stock movie, and it's up there — the studio, rather than the live, version, the perfect soundtrack to the sights of Children of Nature gathering for their peaceful-harmless rituals in the back of the woods to the peaceful-harmless sweet sweet sound of Jim Horn's flute (yes, that is the famous Jim Horn himself — unfortunately, nobody in Canned Heat itself could actually play the flute; there's a couple videos where they're lip-synching and The Bear is imitating actual flute-playing, but he can't even hold the instrument properly). Be sure to check out Henry Thomas' original version, called ʽBulldoze Bluesʼ and recorded way back in 1928 with a wonderful quills solo of his own, but the Canned Heat version does have the added benefit of the band's tight rhythm section, and then there's Alan Wilson with his childlike voice that is such a perfect match for the flute, all of this is like Paradise Found in the flesh.
Other than that, though, there are no major stunners on the first side of this album — just more of the band's generally enjoyable, occasionally boring, occasionally ass-kicking blues rock. Best of the lot is probably ʽBoogie Musicʼ, credited to a mysterious «L. T. Tatman III» (probably a local fantasy born out of one too many Budweisers) and featuring the always-welcome Dr. John on piano — it's a rich, fat, groovy piece of funky New Orleanian R&B with great brass / guitar inter­play and an inobtrusive lecture on the essence of boogie in the coda. Other than that, Charlie Patton's ʽPony Bluesʼ is unrecognizable, but features some really whiny lead guitar licks from Vestine; and ʽSandy's Bluesʼ is a seven minute long super-slow blues-de-luxe, a genre that any band that does not have B. B. King in it should probably avoid.
But anyway, Living The Blues in general is not about the short songs — it is the band's most experimental album, with most of Side B given over to the ʽParthenogenesisʼ (ʽBirth Of The Maidenʼ) suite. Here we have psychedelic posturing (Alan Wilson's fuzzy Jew's harp solo in the intro), harmonica-driven boogie, honky tonk piano boogie, drum solo, feedback-drenched noise rock, swampy harmonica mixed with Indian raga, and a fiery blues-rock jam — all rolled in one. Honestly, none of it makes sense, and if you want to look for any thematic connections between all these pieces, be my guest. Yet somehow, the suite manages to be fun: no particular part sticks around for too long, and the guys are clearly enjoying all this absurdity. If anything, it's just a harmless celebration of the many different kinds of music that folks produce around the world, and I like this freedom of imagination and appreciate that the track still has plenty of entertain­ment value. It's not really trying to make some major philosophical point, despite the Greek title; it might even be a parody of suites trying to make a major philosophical point. In any case, it's quite a fun listen, despite the 20-minute running time.
What makes things more complicated is that it ain't over yet: here comes a whole second LP, and it only has one track, split in half — ʽRefried Boogieʼ, whose title indicates it is an «update» of ʽFried Hockey Boogieʼ from the previous album, is a 40-minute long jam, and this time, it actually is a real live jam, based on the exact same ʽBoogie Childrenʼ line as always, and with even more of those bass, guitar, and drum solos. As much as I like the band's jam power, I am not sure why they do not want us to believe that they already were at their best with ʽFried Hockey Boogieʼ, and insist on extending it to more than twice its original length for our pleasure. On a good day, I really do not mind, because a good take on John Lee Hooker can really work wonders and induce trances, and the boys were on fire all right; but on a bad day, I'd at least need a version of this that cuts out Larry Taylor's and Adolfo de la Parra's solos. That said, I do believe it is a record of sorts — I don't think anybody in 1968 (at least, outside of jazz) put out 40-minute long live tracks, so if they just wanted their bit of Guinness, I can understand that.
In any case, tedious or not, ʽRefried Boogieʼ does not stop the record from getting a deserved thumbs up. Everything that is here is at least not bad, and no record with ʽGoing Up The Countryʼ on it can be slandered — on the whole, Canned Heat were clearly peaking here, and if anything, the album gets by on raw enthusiasm and the fun quotient alone. They weren't talented songwriters, but they were happy to be involved in The Thing while it was Happening, and that happiness kind of trickles over from the speakers while the music is playing. So join in all the fun, and don't forget to boogie!
HALLELUJAH (1969)
1) Same All Over; 2) Change My Ways; 3) Canned Heat; 4) Sic 'Em Pigs; 5) I'm Her Man; 6) Time Was; 7) Do Not Enter; 8) Big Fat; 9) Huautla; 10) Get Off My Back; 11) Down In The Gutter, But Free.
Not necessarily what we're looking for. The last studio album by the original classic Canned Heat, released just prior to Henry Vestine leaving the band and being replaced by Harvey Mandel, sud­denly sees them stepping away from the world of lengthy improvised boogie sagas and again restricting themselves to relatively short, concise, and surprisingly mild blues-rock numbers. For whatever reason, not only are there no more 20-minute tributes to John Lee Hooker (in fact, there ain't even a single track here reprising the bass line of ʽBoogie Chillen!ʼ), but there are no more attempts at crazyass experimentation like ʽParthenogenesisʼ, either. Perhaps they thought they were really no good at such experimentation, or perhaps they viewed it as a phase that naturally came and went for good, but the fact remains that Hallelujah is straightahead blues-rock, a bit heavier and wilder than their disappointing self-titled debut, but, in my personal opinion, a seri­ous letdown after the relative wildness of the previous two records.
Nor does it have even one short song with magical qualities, be it the bubbling menace of ʽOn The Road Againʼ or the pastoral bliss of ʽGoing Up The Countryʼ. «Blind Owl» Wilson, in parti­cular, is a big disappointment: all four of his pseudo-originals are merely passable this time, no matter how nice or weird his childlike falsetto still sounds. ʽChange My Waysʼ is just a fast-paced 12-bar blues with no haunting sonic combinations (there's an interesting echoey flute solo in the middle, but it's so short you barely notice it anyway); the country blues ʽTime Wasʼ tries to use a solo bass break gimmick between verses to give you the impression that it is at least slightly above generic level, but the best thing about the song is still a bit of fiery soloing from Vestine; and ʽGet Off My Backʼ is a decent back-and-forth alternation of simple boogie with psychoblues soloing in the vein of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, but, again, nothing to speak of in terms of song­writing. It's almost as if the guy hit total writer's block; pretty sad considering how little time he had left on this planet.
Fortunately, the band still has a few funny gimmicks in store to keep the listener's interest at some level. ʽSic 'Em Pigsʼ, for instance, is a hilarious reinvention of Bukka White's ʽSic 'Em Dogsʼ in the form of probably the most vicious (downright mean, in fact) anti-cop musical statement of the year — culminating in a mock-advertisement voiceover ("if you're big, strong, and stupid, we want you... remedial courses are available for the culturally deprived") that might have earned them some broken ribs, were police officers a little better informed of the very existence of this band. Elsewhere, they finally get to the stage of covering the Tommy Johnson tune that gave the band its name (ʽCanned Heatʼ), even though the ancient original, all crackles and pops included, would still be preferable to this decent, but rather lazy-sounding electric revival. Bob Hite's ʽI'm Her Manʼ has what might be Wilson's finest, wildest, tightest harmonica solo in the opening and closing bars (everything else about the song is completely forgettable, though). And on the last number, another super-slow blues-de-luxe called ʽDown In The Gutter, But Freeʼ, they conduct an «experiment in freedom» by switching around and getting Vestine to play the bass (not a very generous decision) and Taylor to play the lead guitar (surprisingly Vestine-like!).
So it's not a total waste — in fact, as long as you are able to just lay back and enjoy some unpre­tentious blues-rock, it's hardly a waste at all — but for an album released in 1969, and following up on a clear artistic progression over three LPs in a row, Hallelujah is clearly a disappointment on both counts. It did not hurt the band's reputation: they were still invited to Woodstock, where they got to play ʽGoing Up The Countryʼ and strut their stuff and all, but it did make clear that, unless some things were to drastically change, the name Canned Heat would pretty soon be wiped off the roster to make way for artists more daring and less formulaic. Well, actually, some things did change pretty soon, and quite drastically, too... but not necessarily in a way that could be beneficial to the band's fame, fortune, and even physical health. To put it mildly.
FUTURE BLUES (1970)
1) Sugar Bee; 2) Shake It And Break It; 3) That's All Right, Mama; 4) My Time Ain't Long; 5) Skat; 6) Let's Work Together; 7) London Blues; 8) So Sad (The World's In A Tangle); 9) Future Blues.
The first significant change to affect the band was the departure of Henry Vestine, who apparent­ly had a falling out with Larry Taylor and, for that reason, missed the chance to appear at Wood­stock. His replacement was Harvey Mandel, "The Snake", who had previously made his name by appearing on Charley Musselwhite's Stand Back! album in 1966 and, for a few years, enjoyed the fame of one of America's best-kept secrets in the sphere of wonder guitar playing (for that matter, he was also the only member of the band in the Woodstock movie who did not look like a bum picked fresh off the street — probably didn't have enough time to assimilate). And while I would not necessarily call Harvey a better player than Henry, one thing's for sure: a bit of fresh blood, for a short while at least, helped get the band on the right track, and produce an album that was at least more... interesting than the steamless Hallelujah.
Although they do not reintroduce any 40-minute jams here, they get close enough with ʽSo Sad (The World's In A Tangle)ʼ, a 7-minute blues boogie that is not ʽBoogie Chillenʼ, but has the same grim, kill-'em-all attitude. Lyrically, they are concerned with the sad state of the modern world, so thoroughly deprived of brotherly love and stuff (this was, after all, recorded already in the wake of Altamont rather than Woodstock), but essentially, the words are just a front for two excellent solos — I'd imagine the first one, consisting of almost nothing but wobbling arpeggios, like a musical equivalent of an unexperienced tight-rope walker, is played by Wilson (who was never a technically endowed lead guitarist, but would always try out bizarre sound combinations when soloing), and then the second one (and the third one after the last verse) is Mandel, culmi­nating in a very different set of distorted psychedelic arpeggios, very different from your average blues soloing. The song is a guitar lover's paradise, far more interesting than the generic 12-bar ʽLondon Bluesʼ, although that one, too, has some incendiary Mandel solos and an always wel­come falsetto vocal from Wilson (the lyrics are total tripe, though, probably improvised on the spot, about some unhappy experiences the band had in London Town).
The short songs, this time around, tend to be diverse and marginally inventive or at least gim­micky: ʽShake It And Break Itʼ is a complete reconstruction of the old Charley Patton tune in the form of (another) light boogie, but preserving the playfulness of the original (and it's a good thing that they didn't have The Bear singing on it to crash it to the ground); ʽSkatʼ, with Dr. John-ar­ranged horns, is a bit of silly New Orleanian fun with Wilson trying himself in the role of Ella Fitzgerald (somehow, it's endearing rather than embarrassing); Wilbert Harrison's ʽLet's Work Togetherʼ (the same song that is otherwise known as ʽLet's Stick Togetherʼ, but with a different set of lyrics) makes great use of «distorted woman tone» from Mandel and is precisely the kind of material that The Bear was born to sing (half-drunk rousing anthems); and the guitar overdubs on ʽMy Time Ain't Longʼ sound like a pack of ghosts looking for fresh meat, because, well, his time ain't long and all that.
There's not a lot of interesting stuff going here, but you can clearly see the rejuvenated band trying to make almost every single number sound slightly more interesting than just playing it by the book — which is why this is Future Blues, after all: even the title track attempts to be inven­tive by playing around with a stop-and-start structure. It doesn't really work (there's no point in cutting off the rhythm section after each line, because there's no true suspense in that), but it's still better than nothing. And when it does work, it is far more satisfying than the technically more expert, but substantially much less interesting modern school of electric blues that, for the most part, does not care about innovation and development at all. So, thumbs up.
VINTAGE (1970)
1) Spoonful; 2) Big Road Blues; 3) Rollin' And Tumblin'; 4) Got My Mojo Working; 5) Pretty Thing; 6) Louise; 7) Dimples; 8) Can't Hold On Much Longer; 9) Straight Ahead; 10) Rollin' And Tumblin' (with harmonica).
Just as the band seemed to be getting its shit back together (Mandel and Taylor quit, but Ves­tine returned, and the new reinvigorated band guest-starred on the double album Hooker 'n' Heat, backing their primary guru and idol, without whose ʽBoogie Chillenʼ they wouldn't have been able to handle their 40-minute long jams), anyway, just as things were beginning to get back to right, all of a sudden they went as wrong as they could ever go: Alan Wilson died on September 3, 1970, from a barbiturate overdose. Just to clarify things: this was about two weeks before Jimi and a whole month before Janis, but yes, the man was 27 years old at the time, and his death did set up a regular string of Woodstock hero deaths, so...
...anyway, I'm not altogether sure if this Vintage album was released before Wilson's death, as a separate vault-cleaning activity, or after, which would make more sense — as a hastily assembled tribute from all his friends in the band. Because, honestly, this is not a good album. What we have here is a set of predictable blues and R&B covers, all recorded way back in 1966, unimaginative, poorly produced, and played with as much energy, technique, and interest as you'd expect from any band of total beginners. Although, apparently, Wilson and Vestine are already handling all the guitar duties themselves, at this point they seem to be simply emulating their Chicago heroes, with the guitars simply reproducing all the licks from those old Fifties' records rather than trying to update them to newer standards. (Clearly, this is a sound of a band that had yet to witness God... uh, I mean, Jimi, in action. Come to think of it, in 1966 they probably hadn't yet had the chance to hear the original God, i.e. Eric, either).
Really, all the material is quite weak, «and such small portions», to quote Woody — the whole thing is over in less than 25 minutes, including two early versions of ʽBig Road Bluesʼ (one of them surreptitiously retitled ʽStraight Aheadʼ), and two versions of ʽRollin' And Tumblin'ʼ (with and without harmonica). And no, they don't do this stuff better than Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Bo Diddley, and John Lee Hooker. But, once again, as a quick on-the-spot memo­rial to Alan Wilson, I guess it sort of works. The record still gets a thumbs down, though, be­cause, as sorry as I am for the early death of Mr. Wilson, I don't think any of these tracks could hold a particularly sentimental value to anybody other than the actual band members.
LIVE IN EUROPE (1970)
1) That's All Right Mama; 2) Bring It On Home; 3) Pulling Hair Blues; 4) Medley: Back Out On The Road / On The Road Again; 5) London Blues; 6) Let's Work Together; 7) Goodbye For Now.
I have learned not to trust any datings for Canned Heat albums past 1969 (due to the band's con­voluted history combined with their relatively «minor» status, they tend to be quite contradic­tory), but it does look like this concert record was indeed released in 1970, though it is not quite clear if that was still before or already after Wilson's death. Regardless, he is definitely here on the album, along with Harvey Mandel, and some sources state that it was largely recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in April 1970 (more likely, in January 1970, because from The Bear's announcements at the end it ensues that they were headlining after Deep Purple and Renaissance, and Deep Purple only played the RAH in January), along with other venues (not sure which ones), so I suppose that, un­like the next live album, this one was probably at least in the plans before Wilson's passing.
What was also in the plans, I guess, was to present the band as one with the audience: a pretty good chunk of the record is taken over by Hite's and the other members' friendly chat with front row enthusiasts, sometimes in a manner as innocent as The Bear asking "you got any acid?", or proposing to do his Jim Morrison impression (hard to tell from the level of laughter if the impres­sion really made much of an impression or not), and sometimes while bringing strange guests up on stage (no idea whatsoever who "The Rag Queen" is, appearing right before the final number), you know, just to show that it's more than just about the music and the band and all.
But while I do appreciate the brotherly spirit (a glimpse of which you can actually catch in the Woodstock movie, when a fan climbs up on stage in the middle of the performance and nabs a pack of cigarettes right from The Bear's front pocket — not something that either Keith Richards or Pete Townshend would tolerate, I guess), the music still means more to me, and this particular bunch of performances is not that great, unfortunately, even by the band's own modest standards. Mandel, in particular, seems relatively tame throughout, digging his slow-burning psychedelic tones but almost never stepping out in front; and Wilson is brought to the forefront only on two generic 12-bar blues numbers, which does not allow him to make great use of his voice.
It does not help matters much, either, that ʽPulling Hair Bluesʼ is a nine-minute drag where the only instruments are Larry Taylor's bass and Wilson's harmonica (perhaps John Entwistle could hold your attention with nine minutes of pure bass guitar, but Larry Taylor is just not that good); that ʽOn The Road Againʼ is recast here as a rather wimpy funk jam with none of the ominous rattle and hum of the studio original; or that their brave take on Sonny Boy Williamson's ʽBring It On Homeʼ may feel far more loyal to the original than Zeppelin's version, but is far less deserving of a special memory cell. In the end, strange enough, the best performance on the entire album turns out to be the show-ending rendition of ʽLet's Work Togetherʼ, elongated in comparison to the studio version with some extra and far more badass soloes — Wilson plays a beautiful slide part, Mandel counterattacks with nasty distorted electric stuff, and the whole thing plays out its part to perfection as a final anthem to complete the unification process between audience and band, without forgetting the individual talents of the band's members either.
Other than that, it's all perfectly listenable, but somehow the level of energy is simply not the same as it used to be with Vestine — I'd take a single 40-minute ʽRefried Boogieʼ over this album in its entirety, easily. It is also hardly coincidental that their next live release, despite being clearly pulled from the archives, would turn out to be far superior. It is also ironic that at that date, they could still be the headliners in a show that included Deep Purple as an opening act — a situ­ation that would be reversed very, very soon...