From: "Doug Bright" <75366.2463@compuserve.com> To: Subject: Article: March, 1982 Date: Thursday, August 18, 2005 10:10 PM MARCH, 1982 CANNED HEAT: STILL LIVIN' THE BLUES By Doug Bright Every cultural movement needs at least one prime mover, and this is especially true in music. As a case in point, consider where rock and roll would be if Bill Haley and the Crew Cuts hadn't taken rhythm and blues out of the ghetto and slapped a coat of white paint on it. The trouble with this process is that you usually have to tarnish an idiom in order to popularize it, but ultimately it results in the discovery of the real thing. After the kids have adjusted to Bill Haley, it doesn't take them long to get to Joe Turner. So it was with the blues revival of the late Sixties. Before companies like Chess could start digging the goodies out of the vault and reissuing them on albums, a market had to be created. Fortunately, the musical underground was just flexible enough to admit the two bands that kicked off the American blues revival: Paul Butterfield's group and a California band called Canned Heat. With subsequent albums the Butterfield Band declined without ever getting outside the narrow scope of the underground. Canned Heat, however, hit paydirt on their second album in 1968 with a fairly authentic original blues called "On The Road Again". For the next several years of records and concerts, Canned Heat continued to walk a thin line between tradition and experimentation, never surrendering their identity as primarily a blues band. The decline began about 1970 when lead guitarist Henry Vestine was replaced by Harvey Mendell, who couldn't seem to keep the LSD out of his guitar. After a last hit, an up-tempo semi-blues called "So Sad", the band simply dropped out of sight. Although they continued to play around California, we in Seattle never heard from them again until the beginning of February 1982 when they made a historic appearance at the Buffalo Tavern. Twelve years after their disappearance, Canned Heat is still guided by the same stylistic principles that fostered the band originally, but there are plenty of new faces. Al Wilson, "The Blind Owl", is no longer living, and Bob Hite, "The Bear", died in April of last year. Bassist Larry Taylor, "The Mole", continues to play blues in California, and lead guitarist Henry Vestine has had to curtail his musical activities on account of poor health although he does appear on the new album, KINGS OF THE BOOGIE, on Destiny Records. Drummer Fito de la Parra is the only remaining original member of the band. The Saturday night performance at the Buffalo included a satisfying sampling of Canned Heat blues oldies-but-goodies. The show opened fittingly with a spirited "Dust My Broom", slide guitar and all. The most exciting aspect of this tune was Rick Kellogg, who joined the band about nine months ago. He plays blues-harp in a manner that makes you sit up and take notice, and as if that weren't enough, he sings and talks almost exactly like The Bear. "On the Road Again" was sung by bassist Ernie Rodriguez in a manner that paid fitting tribute to the deceased Al Wilson. Kellogg's harp solo outdid the original, and Walter Trout offered a frenzied but effective Vestine-style guitar break. On "Goin' Up The Country", Kellogg's harp replaced the flute to give the song a more believable blues flavor, and Rodriguez did a good job of recapturing the Owl's style and voice quality. In addition to familiar material from previous albums, the Heat introduced some new blues. This included a good original blues called "Hell's Just On Down The Line", a soulful slow blues from Walter called "It's My Own Fault", and an irresistibly rhythmic "Chicken Shack Boogie" in which the two harmonicas created an early Fifties R&B sax effect. "Kings of The Boogie", the title song of the new album, is a somewhat autobiographical tune that sums up the high energy and the blend of tradition and experimentation that have always defined Canned Heat. The band showed off its new capability for vocal harmony all evening, but the big surprise came a few minutes into the second set. The Fiestas' 1959 hit "So Fine" was revived with a strong and authentic three-part vocal arrangement. On the album, however, this song loses all its power before it even gets off the mixing board. Canned Heat has never been afraid to experiment, but now, with the increased vocal capacity, the sky is the limit. With the new material, the band has skillfully managed to blend the soul music of the early Sixties with blues and contemporary rock without losing the essence of the historical styles. The formula is so complicatedly simple that only Canned Heat would have thought of it: Just mix some good rhythm-and-blues harmony with a very solid Chicago-style harp, carefully stir in a few modern chord changes and moderately distorted guitar, and you're ready to start cookin'. "Sleepy Hollow Baby" is especially interesting in that it draws most heavily from rural blues but begins and ends with a freestyle guitar solo that might best be described as an acid blues cadenza. You couldn't call it pure Mississippi Delta, but then, it doesn't claim to be. On the album, however, the delicate stylistic balance of the material is upset by some very unwise production techniques. The usually strong and up-front vocals are reverbed and placed slightly in the background, almost completely destroying the power of the historical influences and giving the band a pathetically ordinary new-wave sound. The concert progressed with a well assembled mixture of the old and the new, eventually climaxing with the Boogie that became a Canned Heat trademark fourteen years ago. It started in the usual way with a monologue that included old ideas from Hooker and the Bear and some new ones from Kellogg. After that, it was time for each man in turn to stretch out on a solo in typical late-Sixties fashion. We heard Kellogg's consistently excellent harp, some Vestine-style guitar from Walter Trout, some space guitar from Mike Halby, and a bass break from Ernie Rodriguez. Rodriguez is more a blues accompanist than a jazz-rock soloist, so the situation really required more inventiveness than he was able to bring to it. He did, however, succeed in laying down some solid blues licks and doubling the tempo. Fito de la Parra then took Rodriguez's suggestion and ran it all the way into the end zone with a brilliant drum solo. In the course of his break he executed complex rolls and counter-rhythms, hardly obscuring for a moment the beat he had initiated. It was just like old times only better. The Boogie finally ended in delightful anarchy and the band left the stage, but the crowd hadn't had nearly enough yet. They stomped, clapped, cheered, and whistled the band back for an encore, and such an encore it was! "I Need Your Lovin' Every Day", Don Gardner and Dee Dee Ford's soulful classic of 1962, was revived by Rick Kellogg with Mike, Ernie, and Walter providing superbly authentic backup harmony. The show then closed on a nostalgic note with a slow farewell blues, but it still wasn't enough for the audience. Our approval was so noisily insistent that it again got results. We all seemed to know that we were participating in one of those unique moments of history. The group came out one last time with "Johnny B. Good". It wasn't any better than you'd expect from the average tavern band, but who cared? It was Canned Heat! ----------------------------------------