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Canned Head: Boogie with Canned Head

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s

Artist: Canned Head
Title: Boogie with Canned Head
Released: 1968.02.01
Label: Liberty Records
Time: 43:33
Producer(s): Larry Taylor
Appears with:
Category: Blues
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD
Purchase date:  2001.06.09
Price in €: 6,76
Web address: www.cannedheatmusic.com

 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Evil Woman (L.Weiss) - 2:59
[2] My Crime (Canned Heat) - 3:57
[3] On The Road Again (F.Jones/A.Wilson) - 4:59
[4] World In A Jug (R.Hie Jr.) - 3:25
[5] Turpentine Moan (Canned Heat) - 2:54
[6] Whiskey Headed Woman No. 2 (Canned Heat) - 2:52
[7] Amphetamine Annie (Canned Heat) - 3:26
[8] An Owl Song (A.Wilson) - 2:43
[9] Marie Laveau (H.Vestine) - 5:07
[10] Fried Hockey Boogie (S.L.Taylor) - 11:05

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


BOB "The Bear" HITE - Vocals
AL "The Owl" WILSON - Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica
LARRY "The Mole" TAYLOR - Bass
ADOLFO "Fito" DE LA PARRA - Drums

HENRY VESTINE - Guitar
SUNNYLAND SLIM - Piano

RICHARD MOORE - Engineer

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1968 LP Liberty LRP-3541
1968 LP Liberty 7541
1968 LP Springboard 3501
1968 CS Liberty L4N-10105
2000 CD EMI Plus (Europe) B.V. 724357609524

Reissue, in a digipak, of the boogie blues/ rock group's third album. Contains all 10 cuts from the Liberty label's original 1968 release, plus six bonus tracks, single versions of 'One Kind Favor', 'Christmas Blues', 'The Chipmunk Song', 'On The Road Again', 'Goin' Up The Country' & 'Boogie Music'. 16 tracks total, all digitally remastered. Also features the original cover art. Digipak. 1999 release. NOTE - the bonus track 'The Chipmunk Song' is the band with Alvin, Simon & Theodore from a very rare 45!



With Boogie With… Canned Heat hit the Top 40 and became so-called stars with the road classic "On the Road Again." While they began as a blues band and still serve up a mean blues on "Marie Laveau," they got caught up in the boogie craze that swept through in the late '60s, hence the track "Tried Hockey Boogie," which while not the best of cuts, does boogie along. Elsewhere, they warn of the hazards of using speed on "Amphetamine Annie" and rock out on the staple classic "Evil Woman." Boogie with Canned Heat isn't the best Canned Heat album, but it is good enough to seek out.

James Chrispell, All-Music Guide



Canned Heat's second long-player, Boogie With Canned Heat (1968), pretty well sums up the bona fide blend of amplified late-'60s electric rhythm and blues, with an expressed emphasis on loose and limber boogie-woogie. The quintet -- consisting of Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson (guitar/vocals), Larry "The Mole" Taylor (bass), Henry "Sunflower" Vestine (guitar), Aldolfo "Fido" Dela Parra (drums), and Bob "The Bear" Hite (vocals) -- follow up their debut effort with another batch of authentic interpretations, augmented by their own exceptional instrumentation. One development is their incorporation of strong original compositions. "On the Road Again" -- which became the combo's first, and arguably, most significant hit -- as well as the Albert King inspired anti-speed anthem, "Amphetamine Annie," were not only programmed on the then-burgeoning underground FM radio waves, but also on the more adventuresome AM Top 40 stations. Their love of authentic R&B informs "World in a Jug," the dark "Turpentine Blues," and Hite's update of Tommy McClennan's "Whiskey Headed Woman." The Creole anthem "Marie Laveau" is nothing like the more familiar cut by Bobby Bare, although similarities in content are most likely derived from a common source. The side, as rendered here, is arguably most notable for the driving interaction between guitarists Wilson and Vestine as they wail and moan over Hite's imposing leads. Saving the best for last, the Heat are at the height of their prowess during the lengthy audio biography on "Fried Hockey Boogie." Each member is introduced by Hite and given a chance to solo before they kick out the jams, culminating in Hite's crescendo of " ... Don't forget to boogie!" In 1999 the French label, Magic Records, issued an expanded edition of Boogie With Canned Heat supplemented by half-a-dozen sides, such as the 45 RPM edits of "On the Road Again," "Boogie Music" and "Goin' Up the Country." Also included are the once difficult-to-locate 45-only "One Kind Favor," as well as the seasonal offering "Christmas Blues" and "The Chipmunk Song" -- with guest shots from none other than Alvin, Simon, Theodore, and David Seville of the one and only Chipmunks. For enthusiasts as well as listeners curious about the oft-overlooked combo, this is an essential, if not compulsory platter.

Lindsay Planer - All Music Guide



The best of Canned Heat is exactly what Canned Heat wants it to be: good-rockin blues music suitable for balling, dancing, doping, boozing, whatever your thing happens to be, all of them at once maybe. It's a tight band with a tough bass player and a heavy lead guitar, and, if only these were the good old days out of which Canned Heat draws its style and its best material, we might have one really good album from them instead of three so-so ones. In the 1940s, a blues band would put out 78s for years, and finally, if their output warranted it, the parent record company would assemble the best into an album. Today the accent has shifted from quality to quantity; and one result is far too much Canned Heat.

A Best of Canned Heat album, culled from all this bulk, would be a gas. It would have "Rollin' and Tumblin'" and "Catfish Blues" and "Dust My Broom" from the first LP; "Evil Woman," "Amphetamine Annie," "An Owl Song" and "Fried Hockey Boogie" from Boogie; and from Living the Blues it would take "Walking By Myself," parts of "Parthenogenesis" and lead guitarist Henry Vestine's solo on "Refried Boogie." That might be a bit much for one LP, but you could drop even a couple of those without heartbreak.

Until such a record exists, the best bet is probably the Boogie album, side two, where Canned Heat gets it together pretty well. They take "Amphetamine Annie" at a nice, chomping, Muddy Waters-like clip, belting these dope lyrics about this chick who's "always shovelin snow":

Your mind might think you're flyin', babe,
On those little pills,
But you ought to know it's dyin', 'cause
(Chorus) Speed kills ...

And somehow it's a happy thing, even to the weeping over Annie's death at the end. Along the way, Vestine rips off a preaching, cooking solo. He's nearly always strong, with his big buzzy sound and saxophone-like phrasing.

"An Owl Song" is perhaps Al Wilson's strongest vocal outing to date — his peculiarly high crooning mumble grooving along over a kicking, chugging rhythm section. Vestine is really down on the blues "Marie Laveau." And then comes "Fried Hockey Boogie," which is, at once, the best and the worst of Canned Heat.

It starts with a lot of words from Bob Hite, the lead singer, about the beneficial attributes of boogie-ing, and then a lot more chatter out of Hite all through the whole thing, while you're trying to hear what the musicians are laying down. He talks far too much, and the way he talks—a hype black plantation accent that doesn't make it, sounding instead like the interlocutor at a minstrel show—is perfectly offensive. "Doncha feel gud naow thatcha lissen tuh all at boo-geh," he intones over Vestine's storming solo, and reminds us at the end: "An' don't fo-git tuh boo-geh!"

Hite, like all the rest of Canned Heat, is white, and as a means of getting the blues sound he wants, he tock lak lotta dem cats done tock on dem Li-braree uh Con-gress records. And on "Catfish," the first album, when Hite bellows "Ah been knocked out all night . . . Ah's drunk, don't know whut ah'm doin ... But ah do feel lak boogie-in ..." it's Tomming in white-face, no other way to slice it; one big drag.

Such is the ethnic cul-de-sac in which an "authentic" white blues band like Canned Heat places itself. If they simply copied the old stuff, it would be easy enough to write them off entirely, but the fact is they approach nearly every tune afresh. Canned Heat's got its own flavor, its own identity, and not many rock bands can cut them on the energy and musicianship. It's pointless to complain that they do a lot of things old bluesmen have done before, since they make it no secret that this is their point of departure. Indeed, Vestine and Hite have two of the largest blues record collections extant, Wilson is an authoritative researcher into early blues, and the band was begun as a sort of tribute to the music they love.

Either you dig the idea of playing old blues in more or less the old style, or you don't. (Canned Heat does muddy the water even more, however, with a lot of sad packaging. What other band would distribute bumper stickers saying BOOGIE? And what other band would choose nicknames for its players like "Mole" and "Bear" and "Blind Owl" and "Sunflower"? Can you dig "Blacksnake" Hendrix? "Groundhog" Dylan?)

A quick look at the rest of Canned Heat's output. You'll enjoy the first album if down-home country blues blowing is your thing. They lift a few licks from here and there, but the finished product is their own and its wails. On Boogie, we find the rhythm section beginning to loosen just a bit, to get more things going, still blues basically, but in the direction of rock. There's still no indication on Boogie, though, of the more personal direction Canned Heat has taken in performance lately. They have begun to use "Refried Boogie" as a vehicle for free playing—for improvisations that often depart completely from tempo, key and the basic chord structure, while retaining the blues feeling. They get into this on "Refried" on Living the Blues, though they have done it better. Only places this comes across well are on Larry Taylor's bass solo (not too far out, but nice), and Vestine's volcanic ten-minute excursion. Trouble with "Refried" is that it's 41 minutes long, two whole sides, and only Vestine and Taylor are up to that kind of extended soloing. Al Wilson can play screwy little things, but over the long haul he gets plenty tiresome. And while all long drum solos are boring, Fito De La Parra's are excruciatingly so; it would be hard to think of a less imaginative ten minutes than his "Refried" stint.

Oddly enough, Canned Heat seems listless almost everywhere on the new two-record release. A lot of it sounds so much alike it's hard to distinguish among tracks. The exception is "Parthenogenesis," a 19-minute, 54-second, psychedelic adventure which Canned Heat almost brings off. Had it been edited with more care (and De La Parra's heavy-handed drum solo excised), "Parthenogenesis" (the title means development of an unfertilized egg, appropriately) might have worked. As it is, it sandwiches some heavy Vestine, some crazy blues piano (the album notes don't say who's playing), and a pretty little neo-raga by Wilson on mouth harp, in amongst some dull singing and second-rate electronics.

A problematic band, Canned Heat. There's plenty wrong with them, they're still discovering who and where they are, the best is probably yet to come, etc., etc., etc. But still, and despite each and every objection, it's hard not to dig Canned Heat. (RS 23)

JOHN BURKS
© Copyright 2001 RollingStone.com



Their next one, "Boogie With Canned Heat," showed the needed adjustments, and also produced their first hit, "On The Road Again." It was a good blues record, and featured their first (and still their best) extended boogie, "Fried Hockey Boogie."

A later release also took boogie to the utmost 60's extreme and built from an acoustic start to full tilt over two entire sides of a double record set. It's not easily found these days, but worth a listen, as it also contains their next hit, "Goin' Up The Country," which was featured in the Woodstock movie.
 

 L y r i c s


Evil Woman

Woman, When I See You Comin'
She Just Has Started Runnin'
Evil Woman

Yeah Woman, Offer To You My Soul
You Lead It Over Hot Coals
Evil Woman

Yeah Woman, Thought You Were A Blessin'
But, Well, I Got You Messin'
Well Woman, You Ain't Got No Feelin'
Yet A Dirty Dealin'

Yeah, Evil Woman
Don't You Know What You're Wreckin'?
Evil Woman
Can't You See That I'm Beggin You?

Woman, When You Whisper To Me
All The Things You're Doin'
Evil Woman

Woman, When You Walk Away And
Gettin' Under My Skin
Evil Woman

Yeah Woman,
The Way You Lift Up My Pain
The Way You're Flippin' My Brain

Yeah Woman,
There Were All The Choices
But I Didn't Hear The Voices

Yeah, Evil Woman,
Can't You See When You're Fallin?
Evil Woman Know The Death
When It's Callin' You

Evil Woman
Don't You Know What You're Wreckin'?
Evil Woman
Can't You See That I'm Beggin
Evil Woman
Can't You See That I'm Beggin
Yeah Baby, I'm Beggin You?

Woman,
When Your Live is full grown
Lookin' On Your Tombstone
Evil Womam

Well
Evil Womam
Don't You Know What You're Wreckin'?
Evil Woman
Can't You See That I'm Beggin
Yeah I'm Beggin You
Yeah I'm Beggin You


My Crime

I went to Denver
Late last fall
I went to do my job
Yeah I didn't break any law
We worked a hippie place
Like many in our land
They couldn't bust the place
And so they got the band
`Cause the police in Denver
No, they don't want none of them long hairs hanging around
And that's the reason why
They want to tear Canned Heat's reputation down
You people in Denver
Will know what I mean
Yeah, the things I'm gonna tell ya
Yeah, you've all heard and seen
You remember when a cop on the beat
Used to rob and steal
Today they're gone, but the others get it on
So you know just how I feel
`Cause the police in Denver
Lord, they don't want none of them long hairs hanging around
And that's the reason why
They try to tear Canned Heat's reputation down
Yeah, they try to tear it down, boy
They ain't gonna do it though
Let me tell you this just one more time
Just one more thing I wanna tell ya
Before I go
It's a shame the Man in Denver
Has to lie and mistreat people so
Now six months ain't no sentence
One year ain't no time
When I hear from one to ten
It worries my troubled mind
`Cause the police in Denver
Lord, don't want no long hairs around
And that's the reason why
They try to tear Canned Heat's reputation down


On The Road Again

Well, I'm so tired of crying,
But I'm out on the road again.
I'm on the road again.
Well, I'm so tired of crying,
But I'm out on the road again.
I'm on the road again.
I ain't got no woman
Just to call my special friend.
You know the first time I traveled
Out in the rain and snow -
In the rain and snow,
You know the first time I traveled
Out in the rain and snow -
In the rain and snow,
I didn't have no payroll,
Not even no place to go.
And my dear mother left me
When I was quite young -
When I was quite young.
And my dear mother left me
When I was quite young -
When I was quite young.
She said "Lord, have mercy
On my wicked son."
Take a hint from me, mama,
Please don't you cry no more -
Don't you cry no more.
Take a hint from me, mama,
Please don't you cry no more -
Don't you cry no more.
'Cause it's soon one morning
Down the road I'm going.
But I aint going down
That long old lonesome road
All by myself.
But I aint going down
That long old lonesome road
All by myself.
I can't carry you, Baby,
Gonna carry somebody else.


World In A Jug

Sorry, no Lyrics is for World In A Jug available.


Turpentine Moan

Sorry, no Lyrics is for Turpentine Moan available.


Whiskey Headed Woman No. 2

Sorry, no Lyrics is for Whiskey Headed Woman No. 2 available.


Amphetamine Annie

This is a song with a message
I want you to heed my warning
I wanna tell you all a story
About this chick I know
They call her "Amphetamine Annie"
She's always shovelling snow
I sat her down and told her
I told her crystal clear
"I don't mind you getting high
But there's one thing you should fear"
"Your mind might think its flying, baby
On those little pills
But you ought to know it's dying, 'cause
Speed kills"
But Annie kept on speeding
Her health was getting poor
She saw things in the window
She heard things at the door
Her mind was like a grinding mill
Her lips were cracked and sore
Her skin was turning yellow
I just couldn't take it no more
She thought her mind was flying
On those little pills
She didn't it was going down fast, 'cause
Speed kills
Well I sat her down and told her
I told her one more time
"The whole wide human race has taken
Far too much methedrine"
She said "I don't care what a Limey says,
I've got to get it on
I'm not here to just see no man
Who come from across the pond
She wouldn't heed my warning
Lord, she wouldn't hear what I said
Now she's in the graveyard, and she's


An Owl Song

Sorry, no Lyrics is for An Owl Song available.


Marie Laveau

Sorry, no Lyrics is for Marie Laveau available.


Fried Hockey Boogie

Sorry, no Lyrics is for Marie Laveau available.

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


Currently no Samples available!