Canned Heat Discography

The following is a musicological and artistic analysis of Canned Heat's records with Alan Wilson. It is provided courtesy of Kyle Fosburgh, music historian and visual artist. Please visit his website at rootsmusicrevival.com.

This writing just covers a few of the many aspects of Alan Wilson and his work with Canned Heat. This is simply an overview of specific parts of these albums that serve as examples of Alan’s true genius. I did not cover everything, but I did cover many of the key aspects.

Canned Heat (1967) -

Canned Heat was first introduced to the modern music world at the Monterey Pop Festival, during the “summer of love” in 1967. They were promoting their new album and were ready to enter into the blues rock scene in an attempt to rekindle what seemed to be an extinguished flame with popular blues music. Unlike most of the already-small number of blues bands at the time, Canned Heat’s music was true to the blues roots. Alan Wilson was the main man behind the roots sound that Canned Heat was presenting. Although lead singer and front man Bob Hite took most of his lyrical repertoire from pre-war blues records, Alan reincarnated the sound of the 1920’s and 30’s blues into Canned Heat.

The solo opening guitar to “Catfish Blues” was the world’s first taste of Alan’s unique solo guitar style. His intro displayed a consistent rhythm, yet it still had rhythmic freeness with intricate timing variations. Aside from the Tommy Johnson inspired “Bullfrog Blues” and “Big Road Blues,” the opening guitar for “Catfish Blues” may be the most authentic example of pre-war blues on the album. Songs like “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” and “Dust My Broom” are better examples of post-war blues. Although the later was written by Robert Johnson, Canned Heat’s version was inspired by the famous Elmore James version.

Boogie with Canned Heat (1968) -

In late 1967, Canned Heat was in the studio recording their second album titled Boogie with Canned Heat. Guitarist Henry Vestine’s playing style was the same from the first album, but his guitar tone had changed from a more clean tone, to a heavier, more distorted tone. Everything had been pumped up a notch. Even the group’s confidence seemed higher.

The two big tracks that arose from this album were “One the Road Again” and “Fried Hockey Boogie.” The former became what is arguably Canned Heat’s biggest hit song. Alan Wilson deserves just about all the musical and creative credit for this song. He can be credited with playing just about everything on the cut accept for bass and drums. Wilson is credited as a co-writer of the track and he also arranged it for the record. His harmonica fills and solos displayed in the song are still considered to be some of the best of all time.

“Fried Hockey Boogie” started with an idea brought forth by bassist Larry Taylor, where he suggested the band do a song where every member had a solo. “Fried Hockey Boogie,” often referred to as just “The Boogie,” was inspired from the John Lee Hooker recording called “Boogie Chillin.’” Alan Wilson plays the main rhythm throughout Canned Heat’s rendition and his solo in the song strongly emulates a mixture of country blues and Indian music. In this recording of the boogie, Alan’s guitar actually sounds somewhat like a sitar, which is used frequently in Indian music.

Living the Blues (1969) –

In the early summer of 1969 nobody could foresee the historic turnout the now famous Woodstock festival was going to receive, and certainly nobody in Canned Heat knew that the new single written by Alan Wilson would become the anthem for the festival. Well, it just so happened that the timing on the release for the song “Going Up the Country” couldn’t have been much better. It was released as a single just before the big festival and the message of the song pretty much summed up the whole mentality and mind set of the youth at that time. It projected the sort of anti-war, peace message that we think of today when we imagine hippies frolicking in the mud at Yasgur‘s farm.

“Going Up the Country” is based on an old blues tune from Henry Thomas called “Bulldoze Blues.” Alan re-wrote the lyrics to the original version as well as arranged Canned Heat’s version of the song. “Going Up the Country” turned out to be one of the most-remembered songs from Canned Heat and from the 1960’s. It’s even the opening song for the classic Woodstock film. While the mentality of “Going Up the Country” relates to the revolution of the time, it also expressed Alan’s personal deep sadness with the world and how he just wanted to get away from it all. The idea of an upbeat sounding song with a deeper and/or more serious and possibly depressing meaning was a common style Alan used with his song writing.

This style was also used in Alan’s composition, “Human Condition.” Recorded in 1970, “Human Condition” had an upbeat happy sound musically, but lyrically was about a very serious situation in Alan’s life. In the song, Alan sings about his troubles with depression and the therapist that was treating him. “Change My Ways” and “Get Off My Back,” both from the Hallelujah album, are other examples of compositions by Alan where this idea was used. Perhaps the care free rhythms and licks which Alan used in these songs were his way of portraying how people had laughed or made light of his problems.

An interesting twist to this album was a song made up of several different songs/pieces called Parthenogenesis. This is a truly great musical arrangement by Alan. The song features several sections of music that display each members own personal musical arrangement. One section of Parthenogenesis features several recordings of Alan playing harp overdubbed or layered on top of one another. Henry recorded his section of Parthenogenesis the same way as Alan, by overdubbing multiple tracks of the same instrument. Bob Hite didn’t go that route with his section in this song, but rather got fellow friend and blues musician John Mayall to play piano along side him while he sang. Bassist Larry Taylor and drummer Fito de la Parra did an instrumental together with Taylor on congas. Alan’s good friend John Fahey actually played the opening chords to Parthenogenesis.

Another remarkable cut from the Living the Blues album is the famous Canned Heat concert closer, “The Boogie.” The song is actually titled “Refried Boogie” on this album since it was the Heat’s second version. “Refried Boogie” is actually a live track that was recorded at the Kaleidoscope club in California in 1968. This performance of the song really features Alan’s open tuning guitar style, much like his opening for “Catfish Blues.” During most, if not all live performances of the boogie, Alan would open the song with a guitar solo/introduction. This particular version of the song could be the single best display or example of Alan Wilson’s unique playing technique with the guitar. For several minutes as an opening for the song Alan plays alone until he starts the classic boogie riff and the whole band kicks in.

Hallelujah (1969) –

Since Boogie with Canned Heat, Henry has toned his playing down but his sound still features that raw distorted tone at certain times. One of the times this sound is displayed is on the track appropriately titled “Canned Heat.” It is somewhat of a re-make of a song called “Canned Heat Blues” by Tommy Johnson, and that same song is where the band got their name. Canned Heat’s version doesn’t sound much like Johnson’s, but it does hold down the heavy rhythm and beat that Canned Heat is known so well for. Alan’s guitar rings like chimes in this song playing a smooth Delta rhythm against Henry’s overdriven distorted guitar. Bob Hite sings his typical “deep from the gut” vocals which plays off Henry’s raw guitar tone real nicely. Henry also takes a solo in the song, which is loose and free, yet contained and flowing. Alan holds down the rhythm while Henry flies and Larry chugs away on the bass. This song, along with the single released for this album, “Time Was,” could be two of the best bass lines Larry Taylor ever wrote. They are both straight forward, but interesting and complex at the same time. One of the great moments in the track “Canned Heat” comes on the song’s turnaround, where Larry Taylor and Alan Wilson climb down to B while Henry Vestine stays on E. Mixing the sound of two different chords is done seldom it any form of music, but Canned Heat not only gets away with it here, they revolutionize the idea.

Hallelujah really displayed Alan’s tremendous ability to play the harmonica. Harmonica was mostly featured as somewhat of a secondary instrument for Alan up until this album was released. Songs like “On the Road Again,” from Boogie with Canned Heat and “Walking By Myself,” from Living the Blues, featured his harp playing well, but it wasn’t until Hallelujah that his technique and authenticity with the instrument really came to the forefront for the listening audience.

Future Blues (1970) –

Future Blues was the first Canned Heat album to not feature Henry Vestine. In his place is Harvey Mandel, who joined the band after Henry and Larry Taylor had a falling out in mid 1969. Harvey Mandel was a fantastic guitarist and fit the down home raw sound of Canned Heat quite well. Although Alan was always a bigger fan of Henry’s playing, Harvey’s psychedelic blues sound eventually began to grown on him.

The Future Blues album is truly a piece of musical genius and aside from Boogie with Canned Heat, could be Canned Heat’s best album. The band seems to have really hit the groove with this release. Everything just flows like butter. One of the songs on this album where Alan really displays immense talent for song arranging is Canned Heat’s version of Charley Patton’s “Shake It and Break It.” Much like their version of “Canned Heat,” “Shake It and Break It” doesn’t sound much like the original. Canned Heat’s version is somewhat of an upbeat boogie rather than a deep south blues song. The song transitions from happy, more upbeat boogie type riffs, to driving more rock and roll beats. “Shake it and Break it” could be another one of Alan’s arrangements/compositions that seem joyful on the surface but actually has a more serious meaning underneath. See Rebecca Winters’ blog for a musicological analysis of “Shake It and Break It.”