As a band, not to mention as a phenomenon of the '60s and spawn equally of the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock, Canned Heat actually had a lot going for it. If you didn't like Bob "The Bear" Hite trying to do Muddy Waters, you could go for Al "Blind Owl" Wilson doing ... well, where did that eerie, thing of beauty falsetto come from anyway? "Boogie" anyway remained the byword, even past its rightful use-by date, and it can't be much of a surprise that John Lee Hooker's first and perhaps most successful collaboration with a Rock band came with these guys. Long story short: a consistently fine, high-spirited band. And really, most of their albums are worth the time (at least through late 1970's Hooker 'N' Heat, after which I can't vouch). This one's as good a place as any to start. You might be surprised.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Hallelujah (1969)
As a band, not to mention as a phenomenon of the '60s and spawn equally of the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock, Canned Heat actually had a lot going for it. If you didn't like Bob "The Bear" Hite trying to do Muddy Waters, you could go for Al "Blind Owl" Wilson doing ... well, where did that eerie, thing of beauty falsetto come from anyway? "Boogie" anyway remained the byword, even past its rightful use-by date, and it can't be much of a surprise that John Lee Hooker's first and perhaps most successful collaboration with a Rock band came with these guys. Long story short: a consistently fine, high-spirited band. And really, most of their albums are worth the time (at least through late 1970's Hooker 'N' Heat, after which I can't vouch). This one's as good a place as any to start. You might be surprised.
"where did that eerie, thing of beauty falsetto come from anyway?" Not to slight Wilson, whose "Going Up The Country" remains one of my rural hippie nostalgia song faves, but just stumbled onto the, or at least one, obvious source: Skip James.
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