Archive:
July 2000

CA: It's hard to believe the life on the road you describe in LIVING THE BLUES. It is hard and uncompromising on your body and your soul. Given the choice would you have done anything differently if you had it to do again?

FP: There are many things I would have done differently and still try. The most important thing regarding the road is to try to prevent anything from going wrong far ahead of time. However sometimes we do our best to prevent, and agents and managers don't listen to us and things go wrong anyway.

CA: Canned Heat seems more like a living organism than a blues band, with members changing and growing and moving, keeping things in a constant movement. Do you think this has added to the music or lessened it?

FP: Neither. Each human being that comes into the band brings their creative forces and contributions as well as their baggage and hang-ups like any other relationship.

CA: If you could chose from heaven and hell, the living and the dead, what would your favorite Canned Heat line up be?

FP: The line up from 1967 to 71 - the classic Canned Heat lineup. It's the original and we were really a band. We gave Cream and Hendrix a run for their money.

L-R: Larry Taylor, Henry Vestine, Bob Hite, Alan Wilson, Adolfo de la Parra

LIVING THE BLUES
Canned Heat's Story of Music
Drugs, Death, Sex and Survival
Fito de la Parra
Record Grafix

   If I had read this when I was 17, I think I would have been a groupie rather than a sociology major. I would have ignored the pain the story tells and run with the drugs and the sex and the all night parties. Reading the story of Canned Heat at 36 makes me glad that I lived my life as I have, because I, unlike the incredible cast of characters in this biography, was not meant for the road.
   LIVING THE BLUES is told by the second Heat drummer, Fito de la Para, and since he is the narrator and historian of the story, we begin with his story. Raised a middle class kid in Mexico, Fito finds the lure of music at an early age. When he hooks up with Canned Heat he comes to believe that he was born to play with the band. While he thrills us with stories of the rowdy life on the road, we have a sense that it is the music and not the perks that drive de la Parra to struggle on against impossible odds. And impossible they are. This should be a must read manual for any up and coming musician. Rules like, don't let your manager negotiate your Woodstock contract while blazing on acid, are a must for any up and comers. Some of the stories are so funny they are sad, and the tales of groupies and all night sex in the AIDS conscious 00's take on an almost high school history air.
   De la Parra tells the story in such a matter of fact way, that the piles of cocaine and the butter wielding groupies seem part of the landscape. And in the end Canned Heat becomes a group of friends that you worry about. When all your worries come to pass it is sad. Through it all we see de la Parra grow as a person in some ways, while still remaining a blues musician in other, more meaningful, ways. The deaths of friends and band members, including the lead singer (rule number two, don't try to wake the singer up from a heroin overdose with huge lines of coke), never really sway de la Parra from a dedication to his vision of the band. It only leads him to try more ways to make the band live, and in some zen, never say die way, he has.
   The band itself is amazing, completely dedicated to playing the blues, no matter the cost, which leads them to live the blues, as the title says. Members like Alan, the shy introvert who is horrified by his own fame and his need to be loved, and Bear, who invites scores of strangers over to his house to listen to him spin 78's and tell the history of the Blues and loves to knock down doors anywhere, anytime, are two of the most endearing. To hear tell, the music is well worth it. At its height Canned Heat boasted opening bands like Santana, Led Zepplin, and Cream. According to de la Parra, the main reason that Canned Heat never reached the heights that the Greatful Dead did is because of poor management, bad attitudes and disco. Told in the slow methodical style of an elder round the campfire (minus the moral leanings, of course) this all makes sense, and you are left wondering if there is any true artistry without insanity.
   Overall this is a fascinating look at the music industry and the artists forced to deal with it in order to survive. While many bad choices are made by the band and its management, when they are held up against the hard wall of the choices given by the music industry, they all seem like very human decisions. What young men in the sixties with a top 10 band, playing to huge crowds of adoring fans wouldn't get out of control? And isn't it human nature to trust? Maybe not today, but it seemed to make sense in more idealistic times. In the end the story of Canned Heat is the story of idealistic art meeting realistic industry. I was amused, saddened and horrified while reading this book, and am really glad that I had the chance to share all of it with one of the great underdogs of the Blues, Canned Heat.

Jane Hinde

   Like any good Blues band, a band that lives its music as well as playing it, Canned Heat has good days and bad days. THE BOOGIE HOUSE TAPES are an attempt to string together all the good days into a 2 CD set. Culled from master tapes held by Fito de la Parra, the Heat's drummer, Dr. Boogie, their number one fan, and Bob Hite (the now deceased lead singer) the music has been digitized for your listening pleasure. Given the poor quality of recording equipment in the pre-digital age, many of the live performances are a bit gritty but the Blues isn't about clarity and given that this is what there is available for the Canned Heat fan, it's a pretty fantastic collection.
   The hits are here, including "On the Road Again", the Alan Wilson song, not that dopey Willie Nelson pop-country rag, recorded on the "Playboy After Dark" TV show, as well as "Going Up the Country", the Woodstock anthem, recorded at Berkeley with Bob "the bear" Hite singing ( I would rather have heard Alan Wilson, but maybe there wasn't a good enough recording around), along with a bunch of other original Canned Heat songs written over the years and performed around the world.
   If you love old style, no holds barred Blues, this is a CD for you. The improvisational style of the band coupled with their vast knowledge of music and musicians leaves you with the sure knowledge that you are in the presence of a great talent. If you haven't heard of Canned Heat, it's probably because they have to be one of the unluckiest bands in the history of Blues music, and that's saying something. Surviving insurmountable odds to continue making music has been the stock in trade of many a Blues band, but in the case of Canned Heat, not everyone survived. This CD is a much a memorial to what was once a thriving musical body as it is a joyful look toward the future of a band that is still striving to survive. In the backwater world of independent music, Canned Heat is headlining at the club to the left. Come on in, sit down and have a drink, the music is there for the asking.

Jane Hinde