Canned Heat

Canned Heat is best known for three boogeying songs, "Going' Up the Country" and "Let's Work Together" and "On the Road Again." These three songs feature wobbly harmonica playing and odd falsetto vocals. After Alan Wilson, one of the two lead singers died in 1970, their music became non-weird and generic. But those early cuts are among the most important songs of the 60s.

Canned Heat was the most authentic of the '60s white blues bands because it was formed by two genuine blues collectors: big friendly baritone Bob Hite, nicknamed Bear, and weird scrawny tenor Alan Wilson, nicknamed Blind Owl. Appropriating likely tunes from Chicago bluesman Floyd Jones and songster Henry Thomas, Wilson scored two unlikely 1968 hits before OD'ing in 1970, and lead vocalist Hite charted with Wilbert Harrison's r&b strut "Let's Work Together." There have been many more distinguished white blues singers than Hite, who died of a heart attack after a gig in 1981, the same killer that took guitarist Henry Vestine in 1997. Doomed though it was, however, Canned Heat's cheerful hippie vibe reflected their pleasure in going public with the music they'd helped rediscover, and that pleasure is still audible. (Grade - ***)