Music

But if beauty is held to worldly metrics --- fame and fortune --- the Canned Heat story is a major bummer.

 

To the degree that you know nothing about Canned Heat, yeah, this is a sad, sad story.

 

To the degree that you now are invited into the cult…well, beauty awaits.

 

Canned Heat was a late ‘60s California blues band. All white. Its founders were “Big Bear” Bob Hite and “Blind” Alan Wilson, who were as much historians of early African-American music --- they cadged their name from a 1928 recording --- as they were gifted musicians. They took classics, reshaped them, turned the blues into a drone. They were both gifted on the harmonica --- John Lee Hooker said Al Wilson was the best he ever heard. And Wilson had a voice….

 

Wilson’s voice. There’s none like it. High, thin, delicate --- a choirboy singing the blues. And watch. Have you ever seen less stage presence? Here he is, centerpiece of a boogie band, and it looks as if merely showing up requires a career effort.

 

 

The band made its first record in 1967. A month later, they went on tour --- and were busted in Denver for possession of marijuana. They got off with probation, but the price was high. To pay their lawyer, they had to sell half of their publishing rights for $10,000.

 

1968. Woodstock. If you were there, you saw a commanding performance. If you saw the movie, you saw no Canned Heat. The film was overlong, you see, so Warner simply cut every group not on the Warner label.

 

1970. Alan Wilson committed suicide. He was just 27.

 

The band staggered on. But in 1981, Bob Hite had a fatal heart attack at the Palomino club in Los Angeles. In 1997, the band’s other guitarist, Henry Vestine, died in Paris. There’s still a Canned Heat, but nothing new comes from it --- it’s essentially a tribute band. [To buy the “Very Best Of” CD from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]

 

So what is there to praise?

 

A handful of songs. If they sound simple, that’s deceptive --- “On the Road Again” required Al Wilson to play six different parts: three tamboura parts, harmonica, vocal and guitar, all recorded at different times.  And they’re mentioned in a short story by the great Peter Handke. 

 

It’s not much. But how very great. Consider:

 

 

In a just world, Canned Heat would be mainstream music. In ours, it’s esoteric. Which means you now know more than The Others.

 

Bonus #1: “Woodstock Boogie,” four minutes of mostly instrumental art…

 

 

Bonus #2: Nobody was looking, no one much cared when Canned Heat made a record with John Lee Hooker. “Hooker ‘N Heat” is said to be the best work Hooker recorded with a white band. Some say it’s better than that. A few call it “seminal.” I think we can agree on one point: It, too, is esoteric. [To buy the CD from Amazon, click here. To buy the MP3 download, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]