In the spring of that year, ‘Time Was’ went to No.67 on the Billboard charts. ‘On The Road Again’ went to No.16 in the USA in the late summer of 1968, while AI Wilson’s ‘Going Up The Country’ peaked at No. In 1968 Cook had been replaced by de la Parra, who was born in Mexico City, and it was soon after the band began to have hits with their unique blues sound. Together with powerhouse vocalist Bob Hite, they performed the country and Chicago blues idiom of the 1950s so skillfully and naturally that the question of which race the music belongs to becomes totally irrelevant.” On the road again “Technically, Vestine and Wilson are quite possibly the best two guitar team in the world,” wrote Downbeat magazine following their Monterey appearance”, and Wilson has certainly become our finest white blues harmonica man. As Canned Heat played, day turned to night and they had secured a prime slot on the already late-running second day. Their manager got into the reluctant drummer’s room, where he had locked himself in, and talked him into changing his mind and they flew to Woodstock by helicopter, arriving in the nick of time. Harvey Mandel was drafted into the band, only to find that drummer Adolfo ‘Fito’ de la Parra felt they didn’t have sufficient time to rehearse for Woodstock, so he also left.

Henry Vestine, the former Mothers Of Invention guitarist, had quit Canned Heat just two days before Woodstock, following a fight with bass player Larry Taylor at the Fillmore West. Almost missing Woodstockīut it was a matter of luck that they even made the festival stage, let alone that their classic ‘Going Up The Country’ was used to great effect on the opening credits of the Woodstock movie. Living the Blues, a double album, came out in 1968 after which came Hallelujah in 1969, just before the band made an appearance at Woodstock. 76 on the US album chart, following it with 1968’s Boogie With Canned Heat, which spent three months on the Billboard chart.

In July that year, they released a self-titled album that made No. In 1967, after appearing at the Monterey Pop Festival, Canned Heat signed to Liberty Records. He had served his apprenticeship with the likes of Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, as well as playing on several of the Monkees’ hits. He was soon replaced in Canned Heat by Mark Andes, who later co-founded Spirit, before New Yorker Samuel Larry Taylor came in as permanent bassist. Their original bass player was Stuart Brotman who later emerged in the US band Kaleidoscope alongside David Lindley.

The band’s first incarnation was in 1965, when Wilson and Hite were joined by Frank Cook and Henry Vestine from Washington.

The creature by alan milson