Bluesberry Jam was a blues rock band active in the 1960s. They were for a time geographically as well as chronologically similar to Pacific Gas & Electric and Canned Heat. Their musical styles were also similar.
153-602: They are also notable for the calibre of musicians that passed through their ranks. Among the members of the band were future Canned Heat drummer Adolfo "Fito" de la Parra and legendary guitarist Ted Greene and Charlie Allen , future front man of Pacific Gas & Electric . Another notable member was Frank Cook who was with Canned Heat and would end up in Pacific Gas & Electric. The original band was: Albert Walton (Vocal) Joe Matza (Guitar) Ted Greene (Guitar) Richard Fowle (Keyboard) Dave Day (Bass) David Hill (Drums) It
306-402: A jug band and started rehearsals. The initial configuration included Hite as vocalist, Alan Wilson on bottleneck guitar , Mike Perlowin on lead guitar, Stu Brotman on bass and Keith Sawyer on drums. Perlowin and Sawyer dropped out within a few days, so guitarist Kenny Edwards (a friend of Wilson's) stepped in to replace Perlowin, and Ron Holmes agreed to sit in on drums until they could find
459-455: A 19-minute experimental track "Parthenogenesis", which was a nine-part sound collage of blues, ragas, jaw-harp sounds, guitar distortion and other electronic effects; all pulled together under the direction of manager/producer, Skip Taylor. Longer still is "Refried Boogie", clocking in at over 40 minutes, recorded live at the Kaleidoscope. Also recorded live at the Kaleidoscope around this time
612-464: A 1950s composition by Floyd Jones . "On the Road Again" became the band's breakout song and was a worldwide success. The album also included a twelve-minute version of "Fried Hockey Boogie", (credited to Larry Taylor, but derived from John Lee Hooker 's " Boogie Chillen' " riff) allowed each member to stretch out on his instrument while establishing them with hippie ballroom audiences across America as
765-576: A Hollywood club they named the Kaleidoscope, in which Canned Heat essentially became the house band; Jefferson Airplane , Grateful Dead , Buffalo Springfield and Sly and the Family Stone also performed there. Also in 1968, after playing before 80,000 at the first annual Newport Pop Festival in September, Canned Heat left for their first European tour. It entailed a month of concert performances and media engagements that included television appearances on
918-520: A Jazz background. He had previously played with trumpeter Chet Baker , pianist Elmo Hope and bassist Charlie Haden . He had also been involved with Shirley Ellis and Dobie Gray . Cook would stay with them until he joined Pacific Gas & Electric. By that time his former bandmate Charlie Allen was with PGE as well. Al Walton who was a member of an early version of Pacific Gas & Electric left to Join Bluesberry Jam. Besides The Magic Mushroom,
1071-484: A banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House . Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in
1224-508: A brawl between Hite and Vestine over a vending machine, the band released the album One More River to Cross in 1973. Produced by Roger Hawkins and Barry Beckett , this album had a different sound and featured the Muscle Shoals Horns . On a subsequent promotional tour of Europe, this new "horn band" sound included the talents of Clifford Solomon and Jock Ellis. Absent from Canned Heat at this time, after growing ever more distant,
1377-415: A break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven". Blues seven chords add to the harmonic chord
1530-567: A center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success, "I Can't Be Satisfied". Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by Delta blues , because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style
1683-419: A certain reason. This was actually arranged by Skip Taylor the manager so that Canned Heat's members could watch Bluesberry Jam drummer Adolfo "Fito" de la Parra at work. The result of this was de la Parra joining Canned Heat. As Canned Heat were looking to get rid of their drummer Frank Cook, the whole thing became a simple switch-over with Cook then becoming the drummer for Bluesberry Jam. Frank Cook actually had
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#17329165456111836-399: A component of R&B. After World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as Chicago , Memphis , Detroit and St. Louis . Electric blues used electric guitars , double bass (gradually replaced by bass guitar ), drums , and harmonica (or "blues harp") played through a microphone and a PA system or an overdriven guitar amplifier . Chicago became
1989-483: A falling out with de la Parra and Hite, Taylor and Mann were increasingly unhappy with the musical direction of the band and eventually left to focus more attention on their Hollywood Fats Band . Nevertheless, Jay Spell was still on board and brought in bass player Jon Lamb; Mike Halby was now a full-time member and long-time guitarist Vestine once again made his return to the band, with Hite and de la Parra as its leaders. No longer managed by Howard Wolf, Eddie Haddad set
2142-639: A festival tour in Spain, France and Switzerland, Randy Resnick was called to replace Mandel who had to quit the tour due to health issues. Resnick played two dates, October 4 and 5, but had to return home for prior commitments. De la Parra was able to get Paulus to fly in from Portland to finish the tour. On September 7, 2013, Paulus once again substituted for Mandel at the Southern Maryland Blues Festival. In 2014, he officially replaced Mandel. On August 19, 2019, longtime bass guitarist Taylor died after
2295-676: A ground bass overlaid with complex treble patterns, while vocal supplies a third rhythmic layer. Similar techniques can be found in hundreds of blues records". The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson 's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 : Backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time I said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time And I can't get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine Although
2448-451: A large enthusiastic biker with the moniker "The Push" as their manager; hoping that the band's popularity with the biker community would give them renewed energy. With new bass player Ernie Rodriguez joining the ranks, Canned Heat recorded the 1981 album, Kings of the Boogie , the last album to feature Hite on a few of the tracks. On April 5, 1981, having collapsed from a heroin overdose during
2601-571: A live album of the same name recorded in Australia in 1982 (also re-released as Live in Australia and Live in Oz ). This version of Canned Heat would also soon dissolve with a dispute between Mike Halby and de la Parra after the recording of the Heat Brothers '84 EP. During the 1980s the interest in the type of music played by Canned Heat was revived and, despite the past tragedies and permanent instability,
2754-610: A movement known as the Great Migration . The long boom following World War II induced another massive migration of the African-American population, the Second Great Migration , which was accompanied by a significant increase of the real income of the urban blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The term race record , initially used by the music industry for African-American music,
2907-485: A new studio album, Historical Figures and Ancient Heads , was released. The album included Hite's vocal duet with Little Richard on "Rockin' with the King", written by Skip Taylor and featuring the guitar playing of both Vestine and Joel Scott Hill. This lineup of Hite, Vestine, Scott Hill, de la Barreda and de la Parra did not last, as the band was in disarray; Scott Hill and de la Barreda's attitudes were not fitting in with
3060-456: A note with a frequency in a 7:4 ratio to the fundamental note. At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale . For convenience or by necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord . In melody , blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third , fifth and seventh of the associated major scale . Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce
3213-456: A number of songs, such as "Poor Rosy", that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that the songs "can't be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit", conditions that have inspired countless blues songs. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues " became
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#17329165456113366-419: A painted purple dayglo elephant to the stage. In July 1969, just prior to Woodstock, Hallelujah , their fourth album was released. The Melody Maker review included: "While less ambitious than some of their work, this is nonetheless an excellent blues-based album and they remain the most convincing of the white electric blues groups." The album contained mainly original compositions with lyrics relating to
3519-594: A part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson 's " Cross Road Blues " as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua , the orisha in charge of the crossroads". However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. The repertoires of many seminal blues artists, such as Charley Patton and Skip James , included religious songs or spirituals. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to spirituals. The blues form
3672-569: A part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the " Saint Louis Blues ". In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. These female performers became perhaps the first African American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people." The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by
3825-808: A permanent drummer. Another of Hite's friends, Henry Vestine (who had been let go from Frank Zappa 's Mothers of Invention for smoking pot ), asked if he could join the band and was accepted, while Edwards was kept on temporarily. Soon Edwards departed (he went on to form the Stone Poneys with Bobby Kimmel and Linda Ronstadt ), and at the same time Frank Cook came in to replace Holmes as their permanent drummer. Cook already had substantial professional experience, having performed with such jazz luminaries as bassist Charlie Haden , trumpeter Chet Baker , and pianist Elmo Hope , and had also collaborated with black soul/pop artists such as Shirley Ellis and Dobie Gray . In 1966, producer Johnny Otis brought them into
3978-684: A police informant provided enough evidence for their arrest for drugs (an incident recalled in their song "My Crime"). Band manager Skip Taylor was forced to obtain the $ 10,000 bail by selling off Canned Heat's publishing rights to Liberty Records president Al Bennett. After the Denver incident, Frank Cook was replaced with Adolfo de la Parra , who had been playing the drums in Bluesberry Jam (the band which evolved into Pacific Gas & Electric ). As an official member of Canned Heat, de la Parra played his first gig on December 1, 1967, sharing top billing with
4131-419: A recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled " race records " to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well. These blueswomen's contributions to the genre included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered
4284-406: A separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. Blues became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals . The origins of spirituals go back much further than
4437-555: A show at the Palomino in Los Angeles, Bob Hite was later found dead in de la Parra's Mar Vista home at the age of 38. The death of frontman Bob Hite was a devastating blow that most thought would end the career of Canned Heat; however, de la Parra kept the band alive and would lead it back to prosperity over the next few decades. An Australian tour had been set up before Hite's death and harmonica player Rick Kellogg had joined to finish off
4590-655: A show played in Baarn, Netherlands, for the VPRO television program Piknik and the following summer they appeared at the Turku Festival in Finland. These performances were recorded, but the recordings were not released until much later, with the albums Live at Turku Rock Festival in 1995 and Under the Dutch Skies 1970–74 in 2007 (which encompassed three separate tours). At the end of 1971
4743-467: A studio to record material for a first album, with the ensemble of Hite, Wilson, Cook, Vestine, and Brotman. However, the recordings went unissued until 1970 when they appeared as Vintage Heat , released by Janus Records . Otis oversaw the session which produced a dozen tracks, including two versions of " Rollin' and Tumblin' " (with and without harmonica), " Spoonful " by Willie Dixon , and "Louise" by John Lee Hooker in his studio in Los Angeles. Over
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4896-574: A summer hiatus in 1966, Stuart Brotman effectively left Canned Heat after he had signed a contract for a long engagement in Fresno with an Armenian belly-dance revue. Canned Heat had contacted Brotman, touting a recording contract which had to be signed the next day, but Brotman was unable to make the signing on short notice. Brotman would go on to join the world-music band Kaleidoscope with David Lindley , replacing Chris Darrow. Replacing Brotman in Canned Heat
5049-618: A tired and cancer stricken Vestine died in Paris following the final gig of a European tour. Taylor and Watson subsequently left the band. Canned Heat's popularity has endured in some European countries and Australia. Their studio albums during this period include Boogie 2000 (1999), and Friends in the Can (2003), which features various guests, including John Lee Hooker, Taj Mahal , Trout, Corey Stevens , Roy Rogers , Mandel, Larry Taylor, and Vestine. Eric Clapton and Dr. John made guest appearances on
5202-544: A twelve-year battle with cancer. Drummer Frank Cook died on July 9, 2021, aged 79. AllMusic writer Joe Viglione wrote of the band, "With Bob Hite and Alan Wilson switching off on vocals, Canned Heat delivered as consistent a blues product as George Thorogood only with more diversity and subtle musical nuances keeping the listener involved". Classic Rock described the band as "the badass blues band that death couldn't kill" and "America's first great boogie-rock band". uDiscoverMusic described them as being among
5355-431: A venue where Alice Cooper , Sons of Champlin , Poco and Blues Image would also appear. Between the 9th and 11 June that year they shared billing with Joe Cocker . There are a number of misleading bios and reviews that possibly mistakenly credit Bluesberry Jam members with being in certain bands and certain other members of bands being members of Bluesberry jam. They also mistaken in Bluesberry Jam's position regarding
5508-581: A wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues , Delta blues and Piedmont blues , as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues . World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music . The term 'Blues' may have originated from "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness. An early use of
5661-449: Is a cyclic musical form in which a repeating progression of chords mirrors the call and response scheme commonly found in African and African-American music. During the first decades of the 20th century blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a particular chord progression. With the popularity of early performers, such as Bessie Smith , use of the twelve-bar blues spread across
5814-575: Is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts , chants , and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture . The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz , rhythm and blues , and rock and roll , and is characterized by
5967-560: Is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being " tight " with someone, coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Blues songs with sexually explicit lyrics were known as dirty blues . The lyrical content became slightly simpler in postwar blues, which tended to focus on relationship woes or sexual worries. Lyrical themes that frequently appeared in prewar blues, such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and drought, were less common in postwar blues. The writer Ed Morales claimed that Yoruba mythology played
6120-449: Is an American blues and rock band that was formed in Los Angeles in 1965. The group has been noted for its efforts to promote interest in blues music and its original artists. It was launched by two blues enthusiasts Alan Wilson and Bob Hite , who took the name from Tommy Johnson 's 1928 "Canned Heat Blues", a song about an alcoholic who had desperately turned to drinking Sterno , generically called "canned heat". After appearances at
6273-450: Is characterized by its lyrics , bass lines , and instrumentation . Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern , consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over
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6426-492: Is included on the DVD Canned Heat Live at Montreux (2004). Met with hard times, de la Parra writes that the band resorted to importing drugs from Mexico to make ends meet between shows. Over $ 30,000 in debt, manager Skip Taylor advised the band to sign away their future royalties to their previous Liberty/United Artists material and jump to Atlantic Records . After a bad introduction to Atlantic Records, which included
6579-418: Is little evidence of Sub-Sahelian influence in the blues as "elaborate polyrhythm, percussion on African drums (as opposed to European drums), [and] collective participation" which are characteristic of West-Central African music below the savannah, are conspicuously absent. According to the historian Paul Oliver , "the roots of the blues were not to be found in the coastal and forest regions of Africa. Rather...
6732-709: Is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio ( Albert Ammons , Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis ). Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines , who "linked
6885-491: Is often associated with the California blues style, performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s. The transition from country blues to urban blues that began in the 1920s was driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms that led many rural blacks to move to urban areas, in
7038-475: The American South sometimes referred to as a jitterbug or a one-string in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary. The banjo seems to be directly imported from West African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as
7191-503: The Christmas Album (2007). In July 2007, a documentary, Boogie with Canned Heat: The Canned Heat Story , was released, as was a biography of Wilson, Blind Owl Blues , by author Rebecca Davis Winters. By 2000, Robert Lucas had departed and the lineup was completed by Dallas Hodge (vocals, guitar), John Paulus (guitar) and Stanley "Baron" Behrens (harmonica, saxophone, flute). Lucas returned to Canned Heat in late 2005 but left again in
7344-590: The Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's " One O'Clock Jump " and " Jumpin' at the Woodside " and boisterous " blues shouting " by Jimmy Rushing on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and " Sent for You Yesterday ". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller 's " In the Mood ". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from
7497-457: The Hells Angels . As production for "The Push's" video dragged on, a drunken Vestine got into a brawl with Ernie Rodriguez and was once again out of the band; this time replaced by guitarist Walter Trout . After a tour with John Mayall, as the production for "The Boogie Assault" continued, de la Parra was forced to fire "The Push" as the band's manager; but did eventually finish the video and
7650-579: The Igbo played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof , Fula and Mandinka ). However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon . Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals , including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. The style also
7803-556: The Kings of the Boogie album. This incarnation of Canned Heat without Bob Hite was nicknamed the "Mouth Band" by Vestine and was a huge hit in Australia, especially with the biker crowd. Under the management of "The Push", the band toured the States playing biker bars and began work on a video known as "The Boogie Assault" , starring Canned Heat and various members of the San Francisco chapter of
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#17329165456117956-456: The Monterey and Woodstock festivals at the end of the 1960s, the band acquired worldwide fame with a lineup of Hite (vocals), Wilson (guitar, harmonica and vocals), Henry Vestine and later Harvey Mandel (lead guitar), Larry Taylor (bass), and Adolfo de la Parra (drums). The music and attitude of Canned Heat attracted a large following and established the band as one of the popular acts of
8109-741: The Theater Owners Booking Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation , Okeh Records , and Paramount Records , began to record African-American music. As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter , Jimmie Rodgers , Blind Lemon Jefferson , Lonnie Johnson , Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in
8262-405: The call-and-response pattern, the blues scale , and specific chord progressions , of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch , are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove . Blues music
8415-409: The degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround , marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the 11th bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as
8568-502: The hippie era. Canned Heat appeared at most major musical events at the end of the 1960s, performing blues standards along with their own material and occasionally indulging in lengthy " psychedelic " solos. Three of their songs—" Going Up the Country ", " On the Road Again ", and " Let's Work Together "—became international hits. Since the early 1970s, following the early death of Wilson, numerous personnel changes have occurred. For much of
8721-451: The spirituals . The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery , with the development of juke joints occurring later. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into
8874-460: The "kings of the boogie". Hite's "Amphetamine Annie" (a "speed kills" tune inspired by the drug abuse of an acquaintance and reminiscent of Albert King's " The Hunter "), became one of their most enduring songs and one of the first "anti-drug" songs of the decade. Although not featured on the album's artwork, this was the first Canned Heat album to have featured drummer de la Parra. With this success Taylor, Hartmann and new associate Gary Essert leased
9027-581: The "quills" (pan-pipes) which Jim Horn duplicated on flute. Wilson rewrote the lyrics with a simple message that caught the "back-to-nature" attitude of the late 1960s. The song was a hit in numerous countries around the world (number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 ) and was used as the unofficial theme song of the Woodstock Festival in Michael Wadleigh 's 1970 documentary . The album also included
9180-438: The 1920s, among them "the big three"— Gertrude "Ma" Rainey , Bessie Smith , and Lucille Bogan . Mamie Smith , more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song, in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to
9333-428: The 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories " race music " and " hillbilly music " to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define
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#17329165456119486-553: The 1990s and 2000s and following Taylor's death in 2019, de la Parra has been the only member from the band's 1960s lineup. Walter Trout and Junior Watson are among the guitarists who played in later editions of the band. Canned Heat was started within the community of blues collectors. Bob Hite had been trading blues records since his early teens, and his house in Topanga Canyon was a meeting place for people interested in music. In 1965, some blues devotees there decided to form
9639-451: The 9-bar progression in " Sitting on Top of the World ", by Walter Vinson . The basic 12-bar lyric framework of many blues compositions is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a 4/4 time signature . The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to
9792-542: The African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues . The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only
9945-520: The African call-and-response tradition that transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar, the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots . Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might have its origins in the Native American tradition of pow wow drumming. Some scholars identify strong influences on
10098-614: The British show Top of the Pops . They also appeared on the German program Beat Club , where they lip-synched "On the Road Again". In October, the band released their third album, Living the Blues , which included " Going Up the Country ", their best-known song. Wilson's recreation of Henry Thomas ' "Bull-Doze Blues" was almost a note-for-note copy of the original, including Thomas' instrumental break on
10251-539: The Doors at the Long Beach Auditorium. This began what de la Parra refers to as the classic and perhaps best known Canned Heat lineup, which recorded some of the band's most famous and well-regarded songs. During this "classic" period, Skip Taylor and John Hartmann introduced the use of band member nicknames: Their second released album, Boogie with Canned Heat , included " On the Road Again ", an updated version of
10404-519: The Magic Mushroom in Los Angeles. Mexican born drummer Fito de la Parra was in a band called the Sotweed Factor. When Softweed Factor broke up, he joined Bluesberry Jam. He would stay with the band until leaving to Join Canned Heat. The turning point was one night when Bluesberry Jam were playing at the Magic Mushroom sharing the same bill with Canned Heat, there were others watching de la Parra for
10557-712: The Magic Mushroom venue prior to December 1, 1967 and the Rock Archeology website places Bluesberry Jam at the Thee Experience venue on two dates in June 1969. This would indicate that rather that one band evolving out of another, Pacific Gas & Electric inherited some of Bluesberry Jam's members. Both were active separate working bands at the same time. Original Members c. 1967 Albert Walton (Vocal) Joe Matza (Guitar) Ted Greene (Guitar) Richard Fowle (Keyboard) Dave Day (Bass) David Hill (Drums) Canned Heat Canned Heat
10710-574: The Monkees . This lineup (Hite, Wilson, Vestine, Taylor, Cook) started recording in April 1967 for Liberty Records with Calvin Carter , who had been the head of A&R for Vee-Jay Records and had recorded such bluesmen as Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker . They recorded "Rollin' and Tumblin' " , backed with "Bullfrog Blues", and this became Canned Heat's first single. The first official album, Canned Heat ,
10863-596: The Moon as well as the Earth (as reflected in his song "Poor Moon"). Material from their 1970 European tour provided the tracks for Canned Heat '70 Concert Live in Europe , later retitled Live in Europe . It was a live album that combined tracks from different shows throughout the tour, but was put together in such a way as to resemble one continuous concert for the listener. Although the album garnered some critical acclaim and did well in
11016-649: The Spring of 2010 the lineup included Dale Spalding (guitar, harmonica and vocals), Barry Levenson (lead guitar), Greg Kage (bass), and classic lineup hold-over and band leader de la Parra on drums. Mandel and Larry Taylor toured with Canned Heat during the summer of 2009 on the Heroes of Woodstock Tour to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Woodstock . In 2010, Taylor and Mandel officially replaced Kage and Levenson, and as of 2012, this lineup (de la Parra, Taylor, Mandel, and Spalding) continued to tour regularly. In October 2012, during
11169-466: The Texas Heartbreakers at the end of that year but returned periodically to fill in as a favor to Hite while the band struggled to find permanent members amidst heavy drinking and drug use. Exley remarked about his time with the band, "No one ever remembers the bass player ...". This effectively reduced the band's members to just Hite and de la Parra. The popularity of the blues genre rose in
11322-620: The UK (peaking at number 15), it had only limited commercial success in the U.S.; Returning from Europe in May 1970, an exhausted Larry Taylor left the band to join John Mayall (who had moved to Laurel Canyon, California) and was followed by Mandel. With Taylor and Mandel gone, Vestine returned on guitar, accompanied by bassist Antonio de la Barreda who had played with de la Parra for five years in Mexico City and
11475-420: The back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". In 1920, the vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues", and Victoria Spivey , sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had
11628-596: The band appeared to be revitalized. In 1985, Trout had left to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, so Vestine was once again back in the band and he brought with him new musical talent from Oregon in James Thornbury (slide guitar, harmonica and lead vocals) and Skip Jones (bass). They were dubbed the "Nuts and Berries" band by de la Parra, due to their love of organic food. It was not long before former members Larry Taylor (replacing Jones) and Ronnie Barron returned to round out
11781-511: The band could be seen playing at The Shrine Auditorium on Jefferson Blvd. On November 25, 1967, they shared billing at The Shrine Auditorium with The Doors , Iron Butterfly and Sweetwater . David Hill, their original drummer did not play the Shrine on November 25, 1967, but was in that audience, home on leave from the U.S. Army. in mid 1969 playing at venues such as Thee Experience in Sunset Blvd,
11934-479: The band in 1977. Hite promptly hired a new bass player, Richard Exley, after befriending him on tour and watching his performance with the band Montana. Becoming fast friends with Hite, Exley toured the remainder of the year with the band and collaborated with Hite on many of the arrangements during their 1976 Texas Bicentennial Comeback Tour. Exley then quit the band after an argument over Hite's excessive drinking and drug use on stage. Frustrated and fed up, Exley joined
12087-404: The band recorded Future Blues , an album containing five original compositions and three covers. " Let's Work Together ", a Wilbert Harrison song, was the single chosen for release in Europe to coincide with the tour. At the band's insistence the U.S. release was delayed in order to offer the author's version a chance in the market first. Canned Heat had a big hit with "Let's Work Together" and
12240-484: The band such as Wilson's "Time Was" and a few re-worked covers like "Sic 'em Pigs" ( Bukka White 's "Sic 'em Dogs") and the original "Canned Heat" by Tommy Johnson . Within days of the album's release, Vestine left the group after an on-stage blow up at the Fillmore West between himself and Larry Taylor. The next night after Mike Bloomfield and Harvey Mandel jammed with Canned Heat, both were offered Vestine's spot in
12393-423: The band taken at the performance was featured on the cover of Down Beat where an article complimented their playing: Technically, Vestine and Wilson are quite possibly the best two-guitar team in the world and Wilson has certainly become our finest white blues harmonica man. Together with powerhouse vocalist Bob Hite, they performed the country and Chicago blues idiom of the 1950s so skillfully and naturally that
12546-401: The band up touring military bases across the U.S., Europe and Japan non-stop. Returning with little pay after the difficult tour, Jay Spell quit the band. Jon Lamb stayed on for one more tour in the south and just before Christmas 1980 (and lacking the outlaw roots of the others), he too quit the band; but by then even Hite was starting to lose it. He had attempted to give it another try by hiring
12699-530: The band with no hard feelings after ten years of service to live the married life in New South Wales, Australia, and new front-man Robert Lucas came in to take his place. Mandel returned and Shumake left the band in 1996, and after the position of bassist was taken temporarily by Mark "Pocket" Goldberg, Greg Kage took the reins as the bass player, and after a reconciliation with Larry Taylor the band released, Canned Heat Blues Band , in 1996. On October 20, 1997,
12852-465: The band's lineup and Mandel accepted. The new lineup played two dates at the Fillmore before appearing at Woodstock in mid-August. Arriving via helicopter at Woodstock, Canned Heat played their set on the second day of the festival at sunset. The set included "Going Up the Country" which became the title track in the documentary , even though the band's performance was not shown. The song was included in
13005-615: The band. This version referred to by Hite and Mann as the "Burger Brothers" lineup, was soon joined by blind piano player Jay Spell, as Ronnie Barron walked out on the band after a blow-up between himself and Taylor. The Burger Brothers played the tenth anniversary of Woodstock at Parr Meadows in 1979. A recording of the performance eventually surfaced through King Biscuit Flower Hour 's Barry Ehrmann as, Canned Heat in Concert , in 1995 (de la Parra considers this to be Canned Heat's best recorded live album). Another recording made around this time
13158-544: The beginning of the 20th century. They are now lost. Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert . Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon , who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress . Gordon's successor at the library was John Lomax . In the 1930s, Lomax and his son Alan made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to
13311-647: The blues from the melodic structures of certain West African musical styles of the savanna and sahel. Lucy Durran finds similarities with the melodies of the Bambara people , and to a lesser degree, the Soninke people and Wolof people , but not as much of the Mandinka people . Gerard Kubik finds similarities to the melodic styles of both the west African savanna and central Africa, both of which were sources of enslaved people. No specific African musical form can be identified as
13464-443: The blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy: Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying the hell out of me. Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom 's " It's Tight Like That " (1928)
13617-568: The blues in the same year in Missouri ; and W.C. Handy , who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi , in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum , who published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi , and Newton County, Georgia , between 1905 and 1908. The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed proto-blues by Paul Oliver , were made by Odum for research purposes at
13770-460: The blues is usually dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863 , between 1860s and 1890s, a period that coincides with post- emancipation and later, the establishment of juke joints as places where African-Americans went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work. This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and
13923-516: The blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta . Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as " songsters " rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as
14076-459: The blues was rooted in ... the savanna hinterland, from Senegambia through Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, Niger, and northern Nigeria". Additionally, ethnomusicologist John Storm Roberts has argued that "The parallels between African savanna-belt string-playing and the techniques of many blues guitarists are remarkable. The big kora of Senegal and Guinea are played in a rhythmic-melodic style that uses constantly changing rhythms, often providing
14229-411: The blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns , in particular those of Isaac Watts , which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks. Depending on
14382-479: The boogie-woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner , based in Kansas City, Missouri , influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Dallas-born T-Bone Walker , who
14535-400: The bulk of the material, which had been kept at Skip Taylor's house, were destroyed in a fire, and what material was rescued by de la Parra was finally restored and issued decades later, in 1997, titled The Ties That Bind . Shortly thereafter, new manager Howard Wolf set up the struggling band with a gig at California's Mammoth Ski Resort . Bob Hite, in a foul rage, went off on the crowd, to
14688-558: The charts, topping out at number 73 in February 1971. Hooker 'n Heat reunited in 1978 and record a live album at the Fox Venice Theatre in Los Angeles, released in 1981 as, Hooker 'n Heat, Live at the Fox Venice Theatre , under Rhino Records . Also in 1989, Canned Heat (and many others) guested on John Lee Hooker's album The Healer . Shortly after the original Hooker 'n Heat sessions, Wilson, who had always suffered from depression,
14841-399: The disapproval of Vestine, James Shane and Ed Beyer, who quit the band as a result. Taking the place of those who departed were pianist Gene Taylor and guitarist Chris Morgan, who both joined in late 1974. Taylor departed in 1976 in response to an argument during a tour of Germany, and after a brief fill-in by Stan Webb (of Chicken Shack ), Mark Skyer came in as the new guitar player. In
14994-489: The elite country blues groups and as being "at the zenith of blues-rock ", specializing in " psych trippy R&B " Lindsay Planer described the band's style as a blend of "amplified late-'60s electric rhythm and blues, with an expressed emphasis on loose and limber boogie-woogie ". Goldmine described them as a "earthy, outlaw boogie-blues band". Initially known for soulful interpretations of blues standards, Canned Heat would become known for lengthy psychedelic jams by
15147-479: The emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals , torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel , rhythm and blues , and eventually rock and roll ." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as Tampa Red , Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr . An important label of this era
15300-479: The end of the '60s. iLoveClassicRock wrote that "they were the first psychedelic band to gain popularity with their music catered to hipsters and any people who love to dance disco-style." Describing them as "one of America's greatest boogie bands", Rocks Off magazine said that "Canned Heat was one of the first real hippie bands to gain popularity" and were known "for their bluesy style mixed with psychedelic funk ." SputnikMusic staff wrote that "Canned Heat used
15453-449: The evolution of Pacific Gas & Electric. While it is true that a number of Pacific Gas & Electric's members did come from Bluesberry Jam and at least one member of Pacific Gas & Electric left that band to Join Bluesberry Jam, Pacific Gas & Electric didn't evolve out of Bluesberry Jam as such. The Pacific Gas & Electric website states that neither Tom Marshall or Brent Block were members of Bluesberry Jam and Fito de la Parra
15606-429: The expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the development of blues music in the early 1900s as a move from group performance to individualized performance. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon
15759-468: The fall of 2008. He died, age 46, on November 23, 2008, at a friend's home in Long Beach, California; the cause was an apparent drug overdose. Other more recent deaths of band members included Hite's brother, bassist Richard Hite, who died at age 50 on September 22, 2001, due to complications from cancer. Also, former bassist Antonio de la Barreda died of a heart attack on February 17, 2009. From late 2008 to
15912-412: The first (triple) Woodstock album ; while the second album, Woodstock 2 , contained "Woodstock Boogie". The expanded 25th Anniversary Collection added "Leaving This Town" to the band's collection of Woodstock performances and "A Change Is Gonna Come" was included on the director's cut of the documentary film; leaving only "Let's Work Together" to be released. Before their European tour in early 1970,
16065-430: The first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics, the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. Early traditional blues verses often consisted of a single line repeated four times. However, the most common structure of blues lyrics today was established in the first few decades of the 20th century, known as the "AAB" pattern. This structure consists of a line sung over the first four bars, its repetition over
16218-466: The fold, bringing along Ron Shumake on bass to take some of the load off of Larry Taylor. Mandel, however, left the band after a few tours, so singer and guitarist Becky Barksdale was brought in for a tour of France, Germany, and Hawaii, but lasted no longer. Smokey Hormel was also considered but only played one gig before friction between de la Parra and Larry Taylor caused Taylor to bitterly go his separate way with Hormel in tow. The revolving door that
16371-535: The form of a loose narrative. African-American singers voiced their "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times". This melancholy has led to the suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues, because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook on life when they were enslaved. Other historians have argued that there
16524-417: The genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performers. However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure". A form of this pre-blues
16677-614: The group. Versions of this lineup would record the live album, Boogie Up The Country , in Kassel, Germany, in 1987 and also appear on the Blues Festival Live in Bonn '87 Vol 2 compilation. Barron, just as before did not last long in this lineup, nor did Vestine, who was once again ousted from the band due to pressure from Larry Taylor. Replacing Vestine on lead guitar was Junior Watson ; his style emulated Hollywood Fats (who died in late 1986) and
16830-454: The huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts . A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas . All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from twelve- , eight- , or sixteen-bar . The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known. The first appearance of
16983-434: The individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine stated that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did." There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because
17136-408: The last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans. Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa . The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the African-American community,
17289-471: The late 1970s and early 1980s with the release of the musical-comedy film The Blues Brothers (1980), starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi . During this time, de la Parra had bought into the partnership of an East Hollywood recording studio at which he was again working with former bandmate Larry Taylor. Taylor had been associating with guitarist Mike "Hollywood Fats" Mann and pianist Ronnie Barron and before long Taylor, Barron and Hollywood Fats were in
17442-586: The low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time. Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi , and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton , who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey , who remembered first hearing
17595-478: The meantime the band had worked out a deal with Takoma Records , and this "Human Condition/Takoma" lineup recorded the 1977 album Human Condition . Despite the appearance of the Chambers Brothers on the album, it was met with very little success, largely because of the growing popularity of disco music in the late 1970s. Before long, more arguments ensued, and Mark Skyer, Chris Morgan and Richard Hite all quit
17748-516: The music industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include " How Long Blues ", " Trouble in Mind ", and Big Bill Broonzy 's " Key to the Highway ". There are also 16-bar blues , such as Ray Charles 's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and Herbie Hancock 's " Watermelon Man ". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are occasionally used, such as
17901-452: The next four, and a longer concluding line over the last bars. This pattern can be heard in some of the first published blues songs, such as " Dallas Blues " (1912) and " Saint Louis Blues " (1914). According to W.C. Handy , the "AAB" pattern was adopted to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lyrics are often sung in a rhythmic talk style rather than a melody, resembling a form of talking blues . Early blues frequently took
18054-432: The old folk blues style played by legends such as John Lee Hooker as a platform, enriched it with driving boogie elements and served it with a psychedelic vibe." Adolfo "Fito" de la Parra, who joined the band in 1967, said in a 1991 interview, "Bob Hite and Alan Wilson started Canned Heat in 1966 as a jug band , just to have fun. Both of them were musicologists, record collectors, not musicians." Blues Blues
18207-552: The popular biker-themed anthem "The Harley-Davidson Blues", written by James Shane. The era of the late 1960s was changing, but nonetheless the band embarked on another European tour, during which they recorded a session with Memphis Slim in Paris for the album Memphis Heat . They also recorded with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown , while still in Paris, for the album Gates on the Heat (both were released by Blue Star Records). Footage from this era
18360-489: The propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand". The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles. Another development in this period was big band blues. The " territory bands " operating out of Kansas City , the Bennie Moten orchestra, Jay McShann , and
18513-408: The question of which race the music belongs to becomes totally irrelevant. D.A. Pennebaker 's documentary captured their rendition of " Rollin' and Tumblin' " and two other songs from the set, "Bullfrog Blues" and " Dust My Broom ", found a place later in a boxed CD set in 1992. Canned Heat also began to garner their notoriety as "the bad boys of rock" for being jailed in Denver, Colorado, after
18666-458: The religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music
18819-462: The rest of the band, and drummer de la Parra decided to call it quits. He was talked out of it by Hite, and it was Scott Hill and de la Barreda who left the band instead. New additions to the group were James Shane on rhythm guitar and vocals, Ed Beyer on keyboards, and Richard Hite (Bob Hite's brother) on bass. This lineup recorded what was the band's last album for Liberty/ United Artists Records , The New Age , released in 1973. This album featured
18972-510: The single direct ancestor of the blues. However the call-and-response format can be traced back to the music of Africa . That blue notes predate their use in blues and have an African origin is attested to by "A Negro Love Song", by the English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor , from his African Suite for Piano , written in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes . The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of
19125-406: The southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver , Tampa Red , "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style. The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee ,
19278-466: The term "blues" was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase ' blue law ', which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. In 1827, it was in the sense of a sad state of mind that John James Audubon wrote to his wife that he "had the blues". In Henry David Thoreau 's book Walden , he mentions "the blues" in the chapter reflecting on his time in solitude. He wrote his account of his personal quest in 1845, although it
19431-465: The term in this sense is in George Colman 's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). The phrase 'blue devils' may also have been derived from a British usage of the 1600s referring to the "intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal". As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils and came to mean a state of agitation or depression. By the 1800s in the United States,
19584-446: The trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove . Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music . The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&;B wave that started in the mid-1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff
19737-762: Was Mark Andes , who lasted only a couple of months before he returned to his former colleagues in the Red Roosters, who adopted the new name Spirits Rebellious, later shortened to Spirit . After joining up with managers Skip Taylor and John Hartmann, Canned Heat finally found a permanent bassist in Larry Taylor , who joined in March 1967. He was a former member of the Moondogs and the brother of Ventures' drummer, Mel Taylor , and already had experience backing Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry in concert, and recording studio sessions for
19890-478: Was "the greatest harmonica player ever". The planned format for the sessions called for Hooker to perform a few songs by himself, followed by some duets with Wilson playing piano or guitar. The rest of the album featured Hooker with some backing by the group (sans Bob Hite, who co-produced the album along with Skip Taylor). The album was finished after Wilson's passing and became the first album in Hooker's career to make
20043-408: Was Canned Heat continued as Vestine and Watson made their returns to the lineup as the "Heavy Artillery" band. Several former members including Mandel, Barron, and Taylor joined up in de la Parra's effort for the album Internal Combustion , which was released in 1994, but saw only limited release due to the returning manager Skip Taylor's falling out with Red River Records. In 1995, James Thornbury left
20196-484: Was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been
20349-688: Was as this Group that played the Magic Mushroom in Los Angeles with Canned Heat, and the Hullabaloo Club in Hollywood on October 3, 1967 David Hill (original drummer) was drafted into the US Army, having received his draft notes later the same day as that of the Magic Mushroom performance. Bluesberry Jam came out of Los Angeles and were among the three most popular blues bands of that era, the other two being Pacific Gas & Electric and Canned Heat . Canned Heat shared their first musical bill with Bluesberry Jam at
20502-399: Was closely related to ragtime , which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music". The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as
20655-409: Was for Cream Records , who desired a more R&B-style sound than what Canned Heat was currently offering. This upset Hollywood Fats and Mike Halby was brought in to finish the project; which would not find commercial release until 1981 when former band member Tony de la Barreda put it out under RCA as a tribute album called, In Memory of Bob "The Bear" Hite 1943–1981—"Don't Forget To Boogie" . After
20808-630: Was found on a hillside behind Hite's home. De la Parra and other members of the band believed that his death was a suicide. Wilson died at the age of 27, just weeks before Jimi Hendrix , and then Janis Joplin , died at the same age. Joel Scott Hill, who had played with the Strangers and the Joel Scott Hill Trio, was recruited to fill the void left by Wilson's death. The band still had a touring contract for September, as well as upcoming studio dates. That fall they toured Australia and Europe; including
20961-457: Was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers , expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content". Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Although blues (as it is now known) can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and
21114-567: Was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers . Performers such as Frank Stokes , Sleepy John Estes , Robert Wilkins , Kansas Joe McCoy , Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard , fiddle , kazoo or mandolin . Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style
21267-511: Was longtime manager Skip Taylor, who had left after the band joined Atlantic. Atlantic producer Tom Dowd tried to get one more album out of Canned Heat, despite their drug use and heavy drinking; they ultimately recorded an album's worth of material at Criteria Studios in Miami , Florida, during 1974 (featuring some collaboration with former member Mandel), but Atlantic ended its relationship with Canned Heat before it could be released. The masters for
21420-407: Was never a member of Pacific Gas & Electric. There are sites that credit future Pacific Gas & Electric front man Charlie Allen as being the drummer for Bluesberry Jam. The fact that certain members of the bands had switched places has added to the confusion. Pacific Gas & Electric was formed in 1967 and their first album released in 1968. The Canned Heat website places Bluesberry Jam at
21573-659: Was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart. The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by Baby Franklin Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews ); "Dallas Blues", by Hart Wand ; and " The Memphis Blues ", by W.C. Handy . Handy
21726-474: Was not published until 1854. The phrase "the blues" was written by Charlotte Forten , then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she "came home with the blues" because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted
21879-586: Was perfectly suited for the band as witnessed by the well-regarded album Reheated . Unfortunately, the album was released only in Germany in 1988 due to disagreements with the Chameleon Music Group Record label. In 1990, the "Would-Be" lineup of James T, Taylor, Watson, and de la Parra also recorded a sequel live album in Australia entitled Burnin' Live . The lineup dissolved in the early 1990s as Junior Watson went his own way and Mandel came back into
22032-420: Was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as " dow , da dow , da dow , da" or " dump , da dump , da dump , da": it consists of uneven, or "swung", eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues "
22185-510: Was previously a member of the groups Jerome and Sam & the Goodtimers. This lineup went into the studio to record with John Lee Hooker the tracks that would yield the double album, Hooker 'n Heat . The band had originally met Hooker at the airport in Portland, Oregon, and discovered they were fans of each other's work. Hooker and Canned Heat became good friends and Hooker had stated that Wilson
22338-430: Was published in 1912; W.C. Handy 's " The Memphis Blues " followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith 's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford 's " Crazy Blues ". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890. This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles, and partly because of
22491-586: Was released three months later in July 1967. All tracks were re-workings of older blues songs. The Los Angeles Free Press reported: "This group has it! They should do very well, both live and with their recordings." Canned Heat fared reasonably well commercially, reaching number 76 on the Billboard chart. The first big live appearance of Canned Heat was at the Monterey Pop Festival on June 17, 1967. A picture of
22644-507: Was replaced by the term rhythm and blues . This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by Billboard magazine's Rhythm & Blues chart . This marketing strategy reinforced trends in urban blues music such as the use of electric instruments and amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle , which became ubiquitous in rhythm and blues (R&B). This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music, which, together with jazz and gospel music , became
22797-517: Was said by some to have attempted suicide by driving his van off the road near Hite's home in Topanga Canyon. Unlike other members of the band, Wilson did not have much success with women and was deeply upset and frustrated by this. His depression also worsened over time. On September 3, 1970, just before leaving for a festival in Berlin, the band learned of Wilson's death by barbiturate overdose; his body
22950-444: Was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in
23103-536: Was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records . Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole . Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style
23256-459: Was the album, which was later 1971 released with the deceptive title, Live at Topanga Corral (later renamed Live at the Kaleidoscope ), by Wand Records because Liberty Records did not want to release a live album at the time and manager Skip Taylor did not want a lawsuit. The band ended 1968 in a big way at a New Year's show at the Shrine Auditorium , in Los Angeles, with Bob Hite riding
23409-471: Was the band's only top forty hit to feature the vocals of Bob "The Bear" Hite. The album featured piano by Dr. John and an atypical jump blues style also. Some controversy was sparked by the Moon landing / Iwo Jima album cover and the upside-down American flag. The upside-down flag was Wilson's idea and was a response to his love of nature, growing environmentalism and concern that humankind would soon be polluting
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