Canned Heat: Christmas Album

CANNED HEAT: CHRISTMAS ALBUM (2007)

1) Deck The Halls; 2) The Christmas Song; 3) Christmas Blues; 4) Santa Claus Is Coming To Town; 5) I Won't Be Home For Christmas; 6) Christmas Boogie; 7) Santa Claus Is Back In Town; 8) Jingle Bells; 9) Christmas Blues; 10) Boogie Boy (Little Drummer Boy); 11) Christmas Blues (live).

And so we end (or at least I really hope so) this long, strange journey — on our strangest note yet, as the final flourish of Canned Heat in the recording business seems to have been this special Christmas album, just exactly the kind of thing that billions of Canned Heat fans around the world had been fighting for ever since, way back when, Bob Hite did a joint number with Alvin and the Chipmunks that forever changed the course of humanity. That number (ʽThe Christmas Songʼ), already available as a bonus track on the CD release of Future Blues, is reproduced here in all its glory, as well as an old version of ʽChristmas Bluesʼ from around the same time, mixed in with a bunch of completely new recordings so that you all may see Canned Heat just the way they are: «protecting the old ways from being abused».

At least they have Robert Lucas back in the band, playing, singing, and having one last good time before expiring from a drug overdose about one year later — another solid Canned Heat tradition, you might say, but the irony is certainly mixed with sadness, since of all things that happened to this headless band since 1980, Robert Lucas was arguably the very best one. It is only because of him that one or two tracks on this Christmas Album approach the overall fun level of Boogie 2000, even if in terms of singing Christmas carols he isn't exactly a prime time Santa Claus; but in terms of playing, he can effortlessly transform ʽDeck The Hallsʼ and ʽJingle Bellsʼ into up­lifting jazz-blues grooves that replace the generic party spirit with genuine appreciation of a good musical spirit.

I mean, what could be the point of a classic blues-rock band doing a Christmas album? Only if the Christmas songs suit the tastes of a seasoned blues-rocker, and I'm pretty sure that seasoned blues-rockers with wide-reaching tastes will be all too happy to have a record like this for a sound­track to their Christmas dinner. Be it the completely instrumental ʽSanta Claus Is Coming To Townʼ, with a pretty-clean guitar solo (one third jazz, one third folk, and one third... surf?), or the reworking of the classic Heat / Hooker / ZZ Top ʽBoogie Chillenʼ line as ʽChristmas Boogieʼ (which almost explicitly suggests that Christmas might be the best time of the year for some wild carnal fantasies and Holy Spirit-assisted procreation activities), or the album-closing third version of ʽChristmas Bluesʼ, recorded in front of a live audience with special guest Eric Clapton on guitar, it's all part of a harmless fun send-up of the predictable Christmas spirit.

One lonesome odd surprise on the record is the band's reinterpretation of ʽLittle Drummer Boyʼ: although the song is retitled as ʽBoogie Boyʼ, it is not at all a boogie, but rather an «art-folk» mood piece with echo-laden guitars and a «deep rumble» effect on vocals that preach the virtues and efficiencies of The Boogie. It's a mildly hypnotic piece that contrasts sharply with the general upbeat tone of the record and, in the light of both Lucas' death the following year and the fact that we have not seen a new Canned Heat album since then, could be interpreted as an unintentional musical testament to the greatest force that kept the band afloat and kicking for such a ridiculous­ly long time — indeed, you could say that all this time they were the dutiful keepers of the boogie flame, and if there was one thing at which they truly excelled on the precious A-level, it was how to generate genuine sonic heat around that bearly one-chord vamp. And even if this record is merely a last minute curio / trifle, it is still somewhat reassuring to see them loyally sticking to that spirit even at Christmastime — with The Bear himself rising out of the grave to join his younger colleagues in one last celebration of The Boogie...

Canned Heat: Friends In The Can

CANNED HEAT: FRIENDS IN THE CAN (2003)

1) Same Old Games; 2) Bad Trouble; 3) Black Coffee; 4) Getaway; 5) It Don't Matter; 6) Let's Work Together; 7) 1,2,3 Here We Go Again; 8) That Fat Cat; 9) Home To You; 10) Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive; 11) Little Wheel.

Okay, let's see who these guys were in 2003... Fito on drums, ensuring the «right» to be called Canned Heat; Greg Kage still on bass, as well as lead vocals and songwriting for one track (ʽThat Fat Catʼ — an anti-capitalist rant that does not work too well when the proletarian protagonist introduces himself as "a fine-lovin' bitch-chasin' hound dog"); Dallas Hodge and John Paulus on guitars; Stanley Behrens on wind instruments and harmonica. Any of these names ring a bell? Only to remind us that Robert Lucas is out of the band, and since he was pretty much the best thing to happen to the post-Wilson, post-Hite Heat ever, this means that we're quite inevitably back to square one. In fact, you can tell that from the title: the minute you begin subscribing to the «...And Friends» ideology, it's as if you've officially put yourself on the barroom circuit, re­gardless of whether you have already been cruising it surreptitiously or not.

And who are the friends, by the way? The eerie thing about the list on the back cover is that some of these people were already dead in 2003 — like John Lee Hooker (died 2001), or Heat's own Henry Vestine (died 1997). Others are not so much friends as legitimate past members (Harvey Mandel on a re-recording of ʽLet's Work Togetherʼ; Robert Lucas on... another re-recording of ʽLet's Work Togetherʼ, appended as a bonus track — was this a sort of «let's get all of Canned Heat's guitarists to re-record one song for us» game?), and a few members of John Lee Hooker's band. This is sort of ridiculous — surely they still had at least one or two friends left in the big leagues? Where's Eric Clapton with ʽFurther On Down The Roadʼ? Where's Buddy Guy with ʽMary Had A Little Lambʼ? This is more like Old Ghosts And Sidemen In The Can.

Anyway, musically this is indeed a big letdown from the tightness of Boogie 2000: a mish-mash selection from several different sessions that had no reason to be released, since most of it con­sists of very basic, very perfunctory blues-rock — professional, but never exciting. Only three tracks stand out: the aforementioned ʽThat Fat Catʼ, mainly because of the hilariously bad lyrics; ʽNever Get Out Of These Blues Aliveʼ, with Taj Mahal on guitar (the coolest moment comes at the end, when the band stays around to jam a little bit and they overdub a piece of an interview with John Lee Hooker where he uses his deepest bass rumble to share a few memories about how great it was for him to be backed by Canned Heat in the old days — a bit creepy); and ʽLittle Wheelʼ, from an older session with John Lee Hooker himself on vocals and Henry Vestine on lead guitar — rougher sounding, almost lo-fi quality, but ten times as passionate as almost everything on the rest of the album (I think it was 1989, when Hooker was making his own «...and friends» album, The Healer).

Of course, one or two tracks are hardly enough to make a recommendation, so just stay away unless only for completism' sake — focus your efforts on locating Boogie 2000 instead, if you want decent proof of blues-rock not yet being completely dead at the turn of the millennium. These Friends In The Can are quite a sorry lot in comparison: not exactly thumbs-down worthy, since everything is kept clean and professional, but instantly forgettable.

Canned Heat: Boogie 2000

CANNED HEAT: BOOGIE 2000 (2000)

1) Wait And See; 2) Last Man; 3) World Of Make Believe; 4) Dark Clouds; 5) Searchin' For My Baby; 6) I Got Loaded; 7) Too Much Giddyup; 8) She Split; 9) 2000 Reasons (Y2K Blues); 10) Road To Rio; 11) Can I Come Home?; 12) I'm So Tired.

If you only want one reliable taster of what it was like to call yourself «Canned Heat» after every­body who ever made a difference in the original band had passed away, you might just as well go along with Boogie 2000. It's just such a nice little record — nothing particularly special, nothing whatsoever to make you raise an eyebrow, but it's just done so damn well, I couldn't really think of where to begin to voice any specific complaints.

Sure, just as always, it's just straightahead blues and blues-rock, with not a single original melody in sight. They can write «Music by A. de la Parra and friends» for all they like, but we know, don't we, that ʽLast Manʼ is simply ʽLet's Work Togetherʼ with new lyrics, and that ʽToo Much Giddyupʼ rides the blues train of ʽMilk Cow Bluesʼ, and that ʽ2000 Reasons (Y2K Blues)ʼ is just a mix of ʽSweet Home Chicagoʼ with ʽDust My Broomʼ, and the list goes on. There's no new music written here — period, end of story. But above and beyond that, this particular lineup of late period Canned Heat, reduced to a hardcore quartet of de la Parra, Taylor, Kage on bass and Lucas on guitar, gives arguably the tightest, leanest, and most energetic show of blues-rock fun, grit, and (a little) nostalgia that could ever be expected.

There's just something about the way they crash-boom-bang into the album with ʽWait And Seeʼ, a Fats Domino number with a guest flautist and a guest saxophonist, the former bringing on inescapable echoes of ʽGoing Up The Countryʼ and the latter laying on a good New Orleanian vibe. The rhythm section is tight as a tick, Lucas gives a soulfully humorous vocal performance, and Skip Taylor's production delineates and emphasizes each instrument to perfection. It's like a textbook case of how to treat a cover song if you lack imagination, but compensate for this with verve and dedication. The only thing that is missing is a great lead guitar part — but this comes with the next track, where, on ʽLast Manʼ, Lucas throws his slide playing talents into the pot: the solos here are even more fluent, ecstatic, and note-perfect than on the previous album, putting the man (almost) on the level of... Dickey Betts, for instance — he'd be a good competitive addition to The Great Southern at least, if not necessarily to the Allmans.

Another bit of saving grace is the ongoing diversity. They have a bit of comic blues (Har­rison Nelson's ʽI Got Loadedʼ), a bit of real old school jump blues (ʽShe Splitʼ), a soul cover (ʽSear­chin' For My Babyʼ), an odd jump into Latin territory (ʽWorld Of Make Believeʼ), and at least one track with more of a ZZ Top-style Texan rock sound (ʽRoad To Rioʼ, where you almost expect Billy Gibbons to crop up at any moment). No, no baroque pop or death metal, but let us not be pushing it — these guys would be the first to admit they're happy with clinging to a for­mula, yet even within that formula, there's plenty of ground to cover, and they are not interested in merely doing one stereotypical 12-bar tune after another. Instead, they're laying down all the stereotypes, and having their way with each of them.

I guess the record peters out a little near the end: instead of the slow, harmonica-heavy ʽI'm So Tiredʼ, they should have had another kick-ass rocker to wind things down on the same exuberant note on which they started it (and ʽI'm So Tiredʼ doesn't even sound all that tired!). Also, I am not at all fond of Greg Kage's singing voice — next to Lucas', it's kinda colorless in comparison, and detracts from the overall enjoyment of such powerful tunes as ʽToo Much Giddyupʼ (which is still heavily recommendable because of more top-notch sliding from Lucas). But there can only be so much nitpicking about an honest, no-bull record like this, one that essentially hits all the right spots. It might not be raising any false illusions about the future vitality of blues-rock, but it does make a good case for why people are still making blues-rock records after all these years. So, a modest, but honest thumbs up here.

Canned Heat: Blues Band

CANNED HEAT: BLUES BAND (1997)

1) Stranger; 2) Quiet Woman; 3) Iron Horse; 4) Jr.'s Shuffle; 5) Creole Queen; 6) Keep It To Yourself; 7) Boogie Music; 8) Goin' Up The Country; 9) See These Tears; 10) One Kind Favour; 11) Oh Baby; 12) Gorgo Boogie.

We're going to speed up a bit with these ever-closer-to-our-days reviews, considering that with each new album, there's less and less Canned Heat and more and more stereotypical modern blues rock playing — the kind that sounds great together with some pulled pork and gumbo in B. B. King's Blues Club on a relaxed New York weekend, but has little use in anybody's record col­lection, apart from the most diligent blues aficionados. And I'm just saying that only because I have seen a few positively glowing accounts of these post-Canned Heat incarnations — as if, you know, these guys not merely managed to pull it together, but actually succeeded in putting a new, outstanding angle on traditional material. Well — no, not that I've really noticed.

On this 1997 Europe-only release, the band's triple guitar lineup consists of Vestine, Junior Watson, and relative newcomer Robert Lucas, who seemingly takes over the duties of James Thornbury, including lead vocals (which are quite similar to Thornbury's) and some of the song­writing, uh, I mean, song-doctoring (as usual, the «originals» are just slight melodic and lyrical modifications of traditional blues numbers). Larry Taylor remains attached to acoustic bass, and Gregg Kage replaces Ron Shumake on electric.

Again, the main lowlights are those cases where they try to re-record old Heat classics — in this instance, ʽBoogie Musicʼ, done very closely, but predictably inferior-ly, to the original, and, in a moment of bizarre, totally uncalled for blasphemy, a version of ʽGoin' Up The Countryʼ done as a generic acoustic blues with gruff vocals. The only two reasons why anybody paid any attention to the song in the first place were Alan Wilson's falsetto and the flute playing, and now that both of these are gone, it's a good exercise in humility — that is, making something very ordinary out of something quite extraordinary.

Other than that, the rocking numbers are predictably pulled off without a hitch: I think that ʽStrangerʼ, opening the album on a riff copped from ʽI Wish You Wouldʼ, features all three lead guitarists, with Lucas playing the slide, Junior Watson playing the first, «softer», solo, and Vestine on the second, «harsher» one, but I may be totally wrong about that — in any case, the track alternates between three very different styles of playing, two bluesier ones and one rockier one, and that makes it a standout. Unfortunately, the only other standout is the final instrumental ʽGorgo Boogieʼ, an overdriven fuzzy vamp with minimal rhythm support — spotlighting Robert Lucas doing flamenco hand-picks in a rather unique style and making that guitar sound like a highly drunk police siren taking on a life of its own.

Actually, Robert Lucas is a very good guitarist — not that Canned Heat ever hired any bad ones — and if you manage to let down your «who the hell listens to generic blues-rock in the 1990s, let alone the 2010s?» safeguard, every track here is nice and cool. But if you don't, you don't, and that's okay, too. The saddest news of all is that this happened to be the last album to feature any­thing by Henry Vestine — the last really-mattering musician of the classic Heat lineup passed away on October 20, 1997. Said to be heart failure, but I'm pretty sure drugs must have had something to do with this, too. Every member of Canned Heat is supposed to die from drugs, it's, like, in the Scriptures out there somewhere.

Canned Heat: Internal Combustion

CANNED HEAT: INTERNAL COMBUSTION (1994)

1) I Used To Be Bad; 2) John Lee Hooker Boogie; 3) Remember Woodstock; 4) (You'll Have To) Come And Get It; 5) The Heat In Me Is Up; 6) It's Hot; 7) Vision Of You; 8) Nothing At All; 9) 24 Hours; 10) Gamblin' Woman; 11) I Might Be Tempted.

It's nothing short of amazing that this LP sounds like a fairly cohesive piece of blues-rock product, considering that it is apparently spliced together from at least three different sessions — four tracks still feature Junior Watson on lead guitar, but two feature Vestine, and four more feature Harvey Mandel (and, as far as I remember, Mandel and Vestine never really work together). The rhythm section remains the same (although on a few of the tracks Larry Taylor is replaced by Ron Shumake for some reason), and James Thornbury is still in place as the new band's chief singer, harmonica, and rhythm guitar player. Additionally, Ira Ingber is playing second (third?) guitar through­out, and Ronnie Baron is credited for some piano on the opening tracks... whew. And who of them exactly was formally a member of Canned Heat at the time when the new album came out in 1994? That's, like, a good billion dollar question.

But the music here is mostly good, if unexceptional. With Junior Watson's presence much re­duced and new guitarist Ira Ingber's much increased, the sound is no longer as defiantly retro as it was on Reheated — this here sounds like Chicago blues and Chicago-blues-derived blues-rock in the modern era, with a more polished guitar sound and an overall glossier style of production. This does not outcancel the good-time vibe and the occasional attempt to throw in an original riff or two, and Ira Ingber turns out to be a talented songwriter — at least two out of three songs that he co-writes here with Gary Tigerman are relative standouts (ʽVision Of Youʼ is a funky-swampy rocker with some subtle menace to it, and ʽI Might Be Temptedʼ has a snake-like little riff con­necting its simple boogie verses that simply refuses to go away). On my personal scale of expe­rience, this is all slightly above the average «modern blues-rock record» — there's a bit of the old nostalgic Heat vibe, a bit of modern talent, a bit of diversity, but not enough by way of any inter­esting new collective personality for the band.

The nostalgia vibe is pumped to the max on ʽRemember Woodstockʼ, a track that diligently mimicks the original atmosphere of ʽOn The Road Againʼ, right down to featuring the drummer on vocals — and, surprise surprise, he seems to be sporting the same kiddie falsetto as the late Alan Wilson! But it almost works, unless you begin to pay serious attention to the worthlessly predictable lyrics ("Remember Woodstock, it made history as we know..." etc.): at least that atmosphere is recaptured flawlessly, and Vestine gets in the best solo on the album. And then, of course, Fito contributes ʽJohn Lee Hooker Boogieʼ, with a bit of Hooker himself sampled on the opening segment, and yes, you asked for it — the ʽBoogie Chillunʼ line is back, after all these years, although it's been slightly straightened out and masked with a scraping, broken-up riff. Again, Vestine takes the lead here, and for a short while, it's like we're really all the way back in 1968 (except that Mr. Thornbury on vocals ain't no Bob Hite).

As for the generic stuff (lots and lots of melodically predictable Chicago blues covers and re­writes), it's okay — they still have some humor and irreverence to go along with it, so it doesn't sound nearly as bad as when a Sheryl Crow or a Robert Cray take over the blueskeeping duties. Nothing to write home about, but the rhythm section is sufficiently sharp and forceful to get you toe-tappin', and that's about as much as you could ask at the moment. I am a little disappointed in the quality of Mandel's soloing — technically impeccable as usual, and he still has a good selec­tion of nasty guitar tones at his disposal, but never even once does he properly go crazy on the instrumental breaks; I'd say Vestine, who only has two leads on the record, has him solidly beat quality-wise, if not quantity-wise. Then again, Vestine had always been the true soul of the band (along with Wilson), so that should hardly be a surprise.

Canned Heat: Reheated

CANNED HEAT: REHEATED (1988)

1) Looking For The Party; 2) Drifting; 3) I'm Watching You; 4) Bullfrog Blues; 5) Hucklebuck; 6) Mercury Blues; 7) Gunstreet Girl; 8) I Love To Rock & Roll; 9) So Fine (Betty Jean); 10) Take Me To The River; 11) Red Headed Woman; 12) Built For Comfort.

Yes, that is just the way it is: this late Eighties version of Canned Heat, much like Fleetwood Mac, retains only the rhythm section from its original incarnation — Fito de la Parra is on drums, and Larry Taylor is on bass. Completing the lineup is James Thornbury on slide guitar and harmonica, and, most importantly, Junior Watson on lead guitar. In case you don't know who that is, Junior is a professional «jump blues» guitarist — his preferred stylistics seems to be the early electric playing style of guys like T-Bone Walker, or, at best, the early white rock'n'roll entertainers like Bill Haley's Franny Beecher. Consequently, it is no surprise that most of this album sounds like one large 1940s / 1950s revival, strange as that might seem coming from 1988, and coming from a band that still willed to be billed as «Canned Heat».

With all objective reservations made, though, Reheated sounds cool. Like the late period Hite albums, this music is no longer trying to prove anything — all it does is provide you with a bit of retro-sounding entertainment. But it has a nice balance between clean, steady production and rawness / edginess of sound — you can tell that the production is sufficiently perfected for this music to have been recorded as early as it tries to sound, but there are no diagnostic features of the Eighties whatsoever — and both Thornbury and Watson know their idioms to perfection. Even if this is only a tribute to an epoch long gone by, it still makes sense to listen to such covers as Eddie Boyd's ʽDriftingʼ and re-recordings of ʽBullfrog Bluesʼ just to learn how it is possible to reintegrate the spirit of early electric blues into a modern blues record without it sounding too glossy, too serious, and too boring.

It does help that Junior Watson is an excellent guitarist, as seen best on the long, but all-the-way mesmerizing instrumental ʽHucklebuckʼ, where he entertains us with a seemingly endless barrage of jazz / blues / country / folk licks, pilfering from all over the place and sewing it all together quite seamlessly. I am a big fan of the T-Bone Walker style of soloing — a meticulous, accurate, and always humor-ful style of stringing notes together — and this is a cool modern way of up­grading it by speeding things up just a bit and diversifying the phrasing assortiment, without losing (well, maybe just a bit) the humor that goes along with it. It's not always that fun and lively on the vocal tracks (most of the vocals, by the way, are handled by Thornbury, who has a fairly neutral bluesy voice), but it's consistently listenable and enjoyable.

Not everything works: for instance, their rendition of Al Green's ʽTake Me To The Riverʼ is pointless — the song is primarily a vocal soul number, and Thornbury has neither the sinful se­ductiveness of Al himself, nor the paranoia quotient of a David Byrne; their stripping the song down to bare essentials only draws the attention ever closer to the vocals, and there it is quickly dissipated. The idea to take ʽGun Street Girlʼ from Tom Waits' Rain Dogs and trace it back to its boogie-woogie roots would be fun if its boogie-woogie roots weren't so obvious on the original: it was Tom's innovative approach to textures and melodic flow that made the song special, so it's a bit... banal, I guess, to make it un-special again. But still curious to a degree.

And I do have to admit that at least on the fast numbers, the Taylor / de la Parra rhythm section sounds very cool — Taylor has never been a genuine bass wizard, but the few styles of holding down the instrument that he does know, he masters to perfection, and something like ʽMercury Bluesʼ really gets all your inner rhythms going (I also love his «velvety» bass tone on the song, no idea how he gets it, though). I may not know what I'm talking about here, but it still seems as if the two were all set to prove that they could still carry the Canned Heat logo loud and proud, and now that they were no longer in the shadow of Wilson, Vestine, and Hite, they did their best to stress that they were Canned Heat, and as good as Junior Watson might be, he is still just passing through on this long, strange journey during which an old bassist and an old drummer encounter every second guitar player in the world for a one-night stand.

So it's not so much Reheated as Retrofitted, but that's okay — I'm not sure if «reheating» what­ever was left of the old band was at all possible, so retrofitting was probably the best solution there was. ʽHucklebuckʼ gets my thumbs up; the rest of the album does not (it probably makes more sense to just seek out the solo albums of Junior Watson if one is truly interested in his playing style), but, you know, for an album produced by two of the least remembered members of one of the least remembered Woodstock bands, this one's nearly a sudden masterpiece of an unexpected surprise.

Canned Heat: Kings Of The Boogie

CANNED HEAT: KINGS OF THE BOOGIE (1981)

1) Kings Of The Boogie; 2) Stoned Bad Street Fighting Man; 3) So Fine; 4) You Can't Get Close To Me; 5) Hell's Just On Down The Road; 6) I Was Wrong; 7) Little Crystal; 8) Dog House Blues; 9) Sleepy Hollow Baby; 10) Chicken Shack.

Still more lineup changes; by the time they got around to recording this one, The Bear and Fito were still in, and the lead guitar position once again miraculously shifted from Harvey Mandel to The Amazing Disappearing (And Reappearing At Will) Henry Vestine. Unfortunately, an even more serious problem than a quantum-state lead guitar sound struck them this time: before the album was completed, Bob Hite happened to miscalculate his heroin dosage (allegedly, they say he mistook cocaine for heroin), collapsed on stage, and died on April 6, 1981, somewhere in Hollywood; I think he was the last of the Woodstock heroes to have the hand of fate catch up with him in such an ironic manner.

Somehow the band still carried on, though, and the album was completed with three of the recent members contributing vocals where necessary: Ernie Rodriguez on bass, Rick Kellog on harp, and Mike Halby on guitar. There are still plenty of Hite-sung vocal tracks, though, so do not believe them who say that Human Condition was the last Hite-led Canned Heat album: if you have enough love/respect for him as a lead figure, be sure to check out Kings Of The Boogie, because he actually sounds a little more loose here (or maybe it's just better production).

The overall style is not that far removed from Human Condition's, though: basic fast-tempo boogie and generic, but mean-wishing blues-rock constitutes the bulk of it, and where there are exceptions, I'd rather there wasn't any — for instance, the band's cover of Johnny Otis' ʽSo Fineʼ is amazingly stiff and sung without the slightest bit of emotion. Technically, ʽDog House Bluesʼ is also an exception, because it is credited to two members of Devo (and no, it has nothing to do with the Devo outtake ʽDoghouse Doghouseʼ that would surface later from the archives); how­ever, it fits in so naturally with the other blues-rock tracks here that you could never suspect foul play without checking the credits.

Anyway, the best tracks on the album are the fast-paced ones: they close the record with a merry revival of the old Amos Milburn jump blues classic ʽChicken Shackʼ, energized harmonica and guitar solos and all, and open it with their own modern day take on jump blues — the title track probably has the best guitar riff of 'em all, with a nice mix of syncopation and sustain, and the rhythm section is so tight that even if you still wish to deny them the title of Kings of the Boogie (or, at least, continue to insist that they lost that title a decade ago), it would be unfair to strip them of a lifetime board membership at least.

Guitarist Mike Halby contributes much of the original songwriting where it is present, and turns out to be a modestly competent riffmeister with a knack for a decent variation: I think that ʽLittle Crystalʼ reuses and embellishes the more Spartan riff pattern of CCR's ʽBootlegʼ, and although ʽStone Bad Street Fighting Manʼ has nothing to do with the melody of Stones' ʽStreet Fighting Manʼ, the title of the song is amusingly delivered in the same melodic way as it was done by Mick — coincidence?.. Little things like these add a much-needed pinch of amusement to what otherwise would be a completely unremarkable set of barroom tunes. Well, frankly speaking, it is still a fairly unremarkable set of barroom tunes, but then, it hardly aspires to any higher status. The whole thing, bar the totally out-of-place Otis cover, is fully adequate to the purpose, and I might even consider recommending it with a thumbs up, if not for the production, which might on the whole be even worse than Human Condition's — almost lo-fi in places (and I am not sure if it is just my copy, but you can actually sense the engineer adjusting the volume level right in the middle of the title track... what the heck???).

If there's any place left for real amazement, it has to be outside the music — with the death of The Bear, you'd think the team should have finally thought about calling it a day: what is the sense of retaining a mediocre brand name anyway, after two of the band's chief symbols had left this world, and the only original member left was the drummer? But then again, never underesti­mate the drummer (even if his name happens to be Phil Collins) — especially in the case of Canned Heat, where, somehow, the drummer eventually managed to make a difference.

Canned Heat: Human Condition

CANNED HEAT: HUMAN CONDITION (1978)

1) Strut My Stuff; 2) Hot Money; 3) House Of Blue Lights; 4) Just Got To Be There; 5) You Just Got To Rock; 6) Human Condition; 7) She's Looking Good; 8) Open Up Your Back Door; 9) Wrapped Up.

In between 1973 and 1978, there were about fifty thousand lineup changes in Canned Heat, so, God willing, we will skip most of these and fast forward to the peak of the disco era, by which time the band miraculously still had two of its original members — The Bear on vocals and Fito De La Parra on drums — plus younger bear Richard Hite on bass, Chris Morgan on guitar, Mark Skyer on second guitar, and then in walked Harvey Mandel for a spell, providing some fuel for the studio recordings as a guest star. Somehow this ragged outfit managed to get itself a record contract with the Takoma label, and proceeded to make some more music that not a single soul probably cared about in 1978.

Yet in retrospect you just gotta admire those valiant, prematurely aging hippies — apart from some production effects on the guitars (which, unfortunately, detract from the overall raw sound of the band), there is not a single sign of their having paid even the slightest bit of attention to the big musical changes that were going around at the time. What we have here is nine tracks of blunt, straightforward, brawny boogie-rock — picking up right where One More River To Cross left off, but even less diverse, with no incursions into funk territory (and since most of the old school funk had mutated into disco by that time anyway, they could hardly be blamed). Boogie, blues, and bluesy boogie with a barroom breath; there's not even much of that Woodstock flavor left, because very little, if anything, here has to do with peace, love, and moralizing — almost every­thing that is left is the smell of beer dregs on The Bear's T-shirt.

And it's okay, really. It's nothing great or particularly endearing in any subtle way, but it's thirty-plus minutes of thick, honest, energetic entertainment — the new guitarists select grumbly guitar tones (which always shine through even the craziest phasing effects that they decide to throw in the pot), The Chambers Brothers provide cheerful backing vocals, and even The Bear seems to be in grizzlier shape than he was last time around. It's practically impossible to resist headbanging along to ʽThe House Of Blue Lightsʼ, or feeling some sexy satisfaction from the ol'-time party spirit of ʽStrut My Stuffʼ, and even the totally formulaic Chicago blues of ʽOpen Up Your Back Doorʼ is delivered with such amazing instrumental precision (is that Mandel blazing away on the electric slide? sounds like him, anyway) that you can't help but suspect that, perhaps, the band's troubles of the time were somewhat exaggerated: as a cohesive musical outfit, this lineup shows nothing but the finest form throughout the sessions.

The alleged «gem» of the album is the title track — an old Alan Wilson-era outtake that they unearthed and resuscitated for the record, sounding not unlike a sped-up, extra-syncopated ver­sion of ʽOn The Road Againʼ or at least sharing the same slightly paranoid atmosphere, only this time in boogie rather than blues format. The Bear does a decent job softening and «murmur-izing» his voice to resemble Wilson's, and even if the glossy production does not quite allow you to mistake this for a 1969 recording, the overall gesture is still nice. However, «gem» is, of course, an exaggeration: in the context of all these other pieces of boogie, ʽHuman Conditionʼ hardly has any hidden nuance, hint, or threat to it. The original version (available on various compilations), with Wilson actually on vocals, is actually worth locating — the band seems to be going for a CCR-type sound on that one, and Larry Taylor's bass playing is far more phenomenal than Richard Hite's on the re-recording.

On the whole, the album is so unremarkable that it cannot possibly be recommended to anybody (in terms of preferences, you would not only have to make a detailed analysis of the entire Little Feat catalog before making such a recommendation, but you'd probably also have to plow through the entire Doobie Brothers discography). But it is far from being a bad album — in all honesty, they hadn't sounded that energized and ready for a fight since at least Future Blues, and I did have fun listening to all those boogie romps.

Canned Heat: One More River To Cross

CANNED HEAT: ONE MORE RIVER TO CROSS (1973)

1) One More River To Cross; 2) L. A. Town; 3) I Need Someone; 4) Bagful Of Boogie; 5) I'm A Hog For You, Baby; 6) You Are What You Am; 7) Shake, Rattle And Roll; 8) Bright Times Are Comin'; 9) Highway 401; 10) We Remember Fats.

A marginal improvement here, but one that probably came too late: this was Canned Heat's one and only album recorded for Atlantic, before the industry people took a good look at the awful state in which the band had put itself with too many drugs and way too much personal discord and disarray for such a quintessential peace-and-love outfit, and dissolved the contract in horror. But they did have enough time to produce this record, for which purpose they moved from Cali­fornia to Alabama and were rewarded with some precious studio time at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio — sure enough, with the Muscle Shoal Horns for comfort and assistance.

The shift in sound is immediately obvious: instead of sounding like a third-rate clone of The Band, the title track makes them sound like a B-grade contemporary R&B outfit, with a strong, assured groove, uplifting brass fanfare, and focused piano and guitar parts that almost seem to be suggesting, in the wake of the New Age disaster, that we have cleaned up our act, toughened our defenses, and ready to make a brand new start here at Atlantic. So the country-rock sound didn't work out — well, life is not always a rose garden, but now, with the generous support of our friends in the R&B business, here we are now, in the passenger seat of The Soul Train (sorry we couldn't afford 1st class, though), making a hot, sweaty dance number out of this Daniel Moore song. Hey, life is good if you really really make yourself believe in it!

On the whole, the record still retains the laid back, lazy-friendly atmosphere of The New Age: the only time it goes for something a lil' more snappy is on James Shane's ʽYou Am What You Amʼ (yes, a good eight years before Zappa's You Are What You Is — an earlier chapter of the miserable adventures of the verb ʽto beʼ in popular music) — a mid-tempo funk rocker with echoes of Funkadelic, with perfect coordination between bass, drums, guitar, piano, and horns, and I mean it: I have no idea if all the resident band members are actually involved in the groove, but it totally gets you going. Four minutes of total precision and friendly aggression, and although you can still sense a bit of stiffness compared to how any true giants of funk would have done it, I am still honestly amazed at how well they managed to pull it off, given that Canned Heat and funk music seemed to be incompatible entities all that time, due to their preference for Hooker-style boogie and rigid Chicago blues.

Most of the other tracks are merely okay, saved by an honorable level of diversity (slow soulful blues on ʽI Need Someoneʼ, a revisiting of rockabilly on ʽShake, Rattle And Rollʼ, a fast-tempo boogie with hysterical electric guitar soloing on ʽHighway 401ʼ) and a higher level of energy than last time around, although it is still quite a shame to see Henry Vestine, once a beacon of hope for Canned Heat's average instrumental powers, now largely reduced to the part of a bit player — I guess the drug issue affected him as much as everybody else. Still, it all goes smooth enough until they get to the last track, which is where the Shitwave of Cheap Embarrassment finally reaches the shore: ʽWe Remember Fatsʼ is a stupid-beyond-belief medley of most of the major hits of Fats Domino, one verse or so at a time, lumped in a five-minute cornball with the intended (actually, explicitly stated in the intro) goal of making all the fans of Chuck Berry and Little Richard remember Fats Domino as well.

I mean, you'd think, from that introduction, or that title, or the "goodbye fat man..." outro at the end, that Fats were dead or something — when, in fact, he is still alive and kicking well into 2016 (well, not sure about kicking, but still, he's in a better state, I guess, than most of the original members of Canned Heat, and that says a lot). Nor does it make that much sense to say he was not remembered by anybody outside of Canned Heat or the Muscle Shoal Studios in 1973; and to actually think that somebody's effective introduction to the sound of Fats Domino could be via a five-minute medley by a barely functional, minimally popular Canned Heat would be sort of pre­posterous. So, blame it on substance abuse and that annoying «educationalist» mentality that often accompanies B-level bands who think that if they cannot be geniuses, they can at least stake their claim as schoolteachers.

Still, at least the revitalized sound of the band on the title track and their totally unexpected mastery of the funk idiom on ʽYou Am What I Amʼ could perhaps have pointed out a way to a better future — if only they'd succeeded in overcoming their problems, getting their heads pro­perly re-screwed on their shoulders, and concentrating on all their primary strengths. Unfortuna­tely, adaptation to new rules of life past the Flower Power age proved impossible in the end; after a failed attempt to produce a second album for Atlantic, they found themselves without a record contract, and then, after one particularly scandalous gig in 1974, where The Bear is said to have gone crazy on the crowd — without half of the band's members. Accordingly, 1974-75 should have been the end of the road for Canned Heat; surprisingly, it was only one more catastrophe over the course of a long, strange, endless journey, so read on.

Canned Heat: The New Age

CANNED HEAT: THE NEW AGE (1973)

1) Keep It Clean; 2) Harley Davidson Blues; 3) Don't Deceive Me; 4) You Can Run, But You Sure Can't Hide; 5) Lookin' For My Rainbow; 6) Rock & Roll Music; 7) Framed; 8) Election Blues; 9) So Long Wrong.

The only reason why this album remained in history was that, apparently, this was the album that finally got Lester Bangs fired from Rolling Stone after he had allegedly written a review of it that was «disrespectful» to the musicians, in Jann Wenner's opinion. Well then — here's another re­view of the same album that will strive to be as disrespectful as possible, even if there's hardly any hope that it will dare match the original, and I also share the advantage of not working for Rolling Stone, either. Plus, at least Lester Bangs wrote his review when the record had just come out, and now that it's more than forty years old, who really gives a damn about the fact that it fuckin' sucks? Not even Jann Wenner, that's who.

Anyway, by 1973 guitarist Joe Scott Hill of ʽHill's Stompʼ fame was out, and in his place we had James Shane on guitar and Ed Beyer on piano. Nobody knows them, and nobody should; there's absolutely nothing special about the playing of either, yet, for some mysterious reason, they are credited for five out of nine songs on the album — the other three credits going to Hite and one more to Leiber/Stoller (but we do know that «Hite songwriting» usually consists of setting stolen melodies to different lyrics — ʽRock And Roll Musicʼ, for instance, is... no, not an appropriated Chuck Berry cover: rather, it is an appropriated cover of ʽLawdy Miss Clawdyʼ with new lyrics about the niceties of rock and roll music).

The direction in which Shane and Beyer are pushing the struggling band is clear enough: it is roots-rock with a strongly pronounced country-rock and «The-Band-rock» flavor. Instead of John Lee Hooker, Canned Heat now go after Robbie Robertson — a real disaster, considering that none of the group members are even remotely as talented as the average member of The Band, and where The Band, at their best, win the listener over with clever melodic moves and subtle per­forming nuances, Canned Heat just sound like bland, humorless hillbillies.

Seriously now, I have no need whatsoever for something like the generic country waltz ʽYou Can Run, But You Sure Can't Hideʼ, with ugly, directionless guitar soloing and silly spoken voice­overs from The Bear; or the barroom shuffle ʽHarley Davidson Bluesʼ that has not a single moment that would make it worth your while. The cover of Leiber & Stoller's ʽFramedʼ, expan­ded with some new verses that add a «moral» part to the original tragicomical tale, would be mildly entertaining if not for the fact that just a year before, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band had their version out which literally wipes the floor with Canned Heat's rendition — heavier, glammier, funnier, and with the musicians giving it their all. Beyer's ʽElection Bluesʼ is a very boring six-minute exercise in slow acoustic blues, largely just a pretext to throw in some political lyrics; and Shane's ʽSo Long Wrongʼ is a somewhat heavy blues-rocker, the likes of which had been produced hundreds of times before.

Unfortunately, of the two main remaining band members, neither is at his best here — The Bear seems to have been having health issues, as he almost never sounds imposing and massive on anything he sings; and Henry Vestine seems to have been succumbing to drugs or something, because there is not a single example of a really stunning guitar solo anywhere in sight (okay, maybe ʽFramedʼ could be an exception: with a thick, crunchy guitar tone, Vestine tries his best to kick ass on the solo break, but it still comes out fairly generic, and not free of some mistakes and "not-really-sure-where-to-go-from-here" moments). Essentially, this leaves Shane and Beyer in command, and with that move, the band just plain ceases to be Canned Heat — they seem to have forgotten about everything that was at least remotely good about this band in the first place, and are going somewhere where I flat out refuse to follow. Thumbs down, in loving memory of Mr. Lester Bangs.

Canned Heat: Historical Figures And Ancient Heads

CANNED HEAT: HISTORICAL FIGURES AND ANCIENT HEADS (1972)

1) Sneakin' Around; 2) Hill's Stomp; 3) Rockin' With The King; 4) I Don't Care What You Tell Me; 5) Long Way From L. A.; 6) Cherokee Dance; 7) That's All Right; 8) Utah.

Canned Heat's first album without Wilson was, by all means, a disaster — a band that struggled plenty while its top songwriter and (arguably) most charismatic member was alive had little choice but to flounder when he was dead. The man's original replacement was Joel Scott Hill, a decent guitar player (he is immiediately given a chance to shine in that capacity on the fast boo­gie piece ʽHill's Stompʼ), but a very ordinary blues singer — his whiteboy soul-blues deliveries on ʽSneakin' Aroundʼ and ʽThat's All Rightʼ sound like pale parodies on pre-war urban blues and jump blues, and you could easily get vocals like these in ten thousand random barrooms and saloons all across the USA.

Worse than that, the album is simply filled from top to bottom with bad or poorly executed ideas, little sparks that fail to light any reliable fires. Even the «gruff blues» formula that used to work so well for them is now wasted on ʽUtahʼ, eight minutes of the generic ʽMannish Boyʼ groove, for some reason, recorded in a lo-fi standard, with lots of reverb on The Bear's vocals (did he have laryngitis or something?) and a lengthy, chaotic, meandering, and just plain boring solo from Vestine (or is that Hill?) that tries to set a personal record for the number of trill sequences one can squeeze out of the guitar in five minutes.

The one track that will probably draw the most attention is a guest spot by none other than Little Richard, who, coming totally out of the blue, graces the band with his presence, bringing along a new song and an old sax player (Clifford Solomon) — and although he does duet with The Bear, this is essentially just Little Richard, backed by Canned Heat, doing an impersonation of Little Richard that does not work one bit, because Canned Heat are too stiff to be doing breakneck maniacal rock'n'roll, and because Little Richard is too out of place and time to recapture the genuine youthful flame of the Fifties anyway. Not to mention that, in the context of the time, singing a merry happy ditty about "the king of rock'n'roll" just when none of the band members could genuinely synthesize merriment and goofiness in their hearts was probably not the right choice — and where «authentic» Little Richard performances make you want to drop everything and headbang like crazy, this whole experience just feels fake from the start.

In the end, the only tracks that make sense on the album are the aforementioned ʽHill's Stompʼ (not very imaginative, but incendiary guitar playing for three minutes, in a style reminiscent of Albert Collins) and yet another instrumental, provided by a much more suitable guest star than Little Richard — famous flute (and sax) player Charles Lloyd, whose perfectly composed melody gives a weird pastoral feel (with a touch of psychedelia) to the blues groove. In comparison, all the vocal-based numbers are downers: The Bear is clearly in no shape to contribute anything worthwhile, Hill is mediocre, and... well, bottomline is, they should have really taken a much longer holiday to get in shape. As the matter stands, Historical Figures And Ancient Heads really does turn Canned Heat into what it states it is — an unhappy, but probably inevitable de­velopment. Get the Charles Lloyd track for a good experience, and thumbs down for the rest.

Canned Heat: Live At Topanga Corral

CANNED HEAT: LIVE AT TOPANGA CORRAL (1971)

1) Bullfrog Blues; 2) Sweet Sixteen; 3) I'd Rather Be The Devil; 4) Dust My Broom; 5) Wish You Would; 6) When Things Go Wrong.

Another weird discography adventure here. Apparently, Canned Heat still wanted to release a live album that had both Wilson and Vestine on it, and they had the tapes to do it, but there was a catch: after the commercial failure of the previous live album, their label (Liberty Records) had no wish to issue another one, so they took the tapes and claimed that they were from their live shows at Topanga Corral in 1966 and 1967, when they were not yet under contract — when, in fact, the recordings were really made at a 1969 show at the Kaleidoscope in Hollywood. This allowed them to release the album on a different label (Wand Records), at the expense of a little bit of dishonesty, perhaps — but every bit worth the ruse.

The thing is: maybe Harvey Mandel is the better known and the more inventive one of the two guitarists, but Vestine actually belonged in Canned Heat: a straightforward blues guitarist with a rocking heart — with very few special tricks, yet an ability to get to the heart of the matter where Mandel would more often get stuck in a psychedelic haze. You get this exactly one and a half minute into the record, when Vestine takes over from The Bear on ʽBullfrog Bluesʼ and strikes out a solo almost on the same level of fire-and-brimstone as Clapton on the famous Cream ver­sion of ʽCrossroadsʼ — too bad the rhythm section is nowhere near Cream in terms of intensity, because Henry is totally in the zone here: fast, fluent, precise, ecstatic, everything you'd need from a generic, but heartfelt fast-paced blues-rocker. Later on, Wilson comes in with his usual «I'm gonna play some simple, pretty, slow riffs and we'll call that a guitar solo, okay?» approach, and Vestine waits with impatience to break out from under The Owl's lead and kick some more ass, and it's really more fun to observe the contrast between Wilson and Vestine than between Wilson and Mandel.

Unfortunately, the album never quite lives up to that explosive start. The old blues covers are either way too predictable (ʽDust My Broomʼ? Not again!), or way too ambitious — it's one thing when they update really old acoustic classics, but the attempt to outdo B. B. King on ʽSweet Six­teenʼ is certainly misguided: Vestine does a good job, yet he cannot even begin to hope to capture all of King's subtle overtones, and it is hard to think of the track as completely detached from its King association. ʽI Wish You Wouldʼ is rather poorly mixed, with the repetitive riff groove ri­sing way over everything else, so, even if there's some nice harmonica playing and another ex­cellent solo from Henry with a razor-sharp tone, eight minutes of constant "cham-CHOOM-cham, cham-cha-CHOOM-cham" is a bit too much (at least the ʽBoogie Chillenʼ riff is aggressive, whereas this one is just nagging). On the other hand, Elmore James' ʽIt Hurts Me Tooʼ (here renamed ʽWhen Things Go Wrongʼ, but nobody's fooling anybody), suddenly recorded with plenty of echo, unexpectedly becomes a feast of plaintive, lyrical solos that take the song way beyond the scope of the original — I think that Wilson is responsive for the weeping, whereas Vestine delivers the angrier solos, and in between the two (and the odd echo that seems to feed Wilson back all of his complaints in a very psychedelic manner), they generate a great feel.

So, kick-ass start, mind-blowing finish, and some nice, unexceptional blueswailing in between — the record pretty much lets you see everything that made Canned Heat so cool in their heyday, and everything that prevented them from becoming a first-rate act both in the short and the long run; in particular, the work of the rhythm section here is fairly pedestrian, and, with all due re­spect for The Bear, he never ever was that great a singer: he just honestly does his job, but most of the time I just wait for him to move over and let Jimi, uh, I mean, Henry, take over. Still, the highs are high, and the lows are in the middle, so it all works out to a thumbs up in the end.

Canned Heat: Live In Europe

CANNED HEAT: 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...

Canned Heat: Vintage

CANNED HEAT: 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.

Canned Heat: Future Blues

CANNED HEAT: 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.

Canned Heat: Hallelujah

CANNED HEAT: 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.