Description
The history of Canned Heat is also a history of excesses, drug abuse, mental illness and pill addiction, combined with an affinity for internal band funerals. Drummer Adolfo 'Fito' de la Parra recently said in an interview: 'I'm still with Canned Heat after more than 55 years. To still be alive at all is a triumph here'. After all, Fito had been with the band since their second official album 'Boogie With Canned Heat', which was released on the US label Liberty in 1968.
In 1970, 'Future Blues' was released, the first album with the new guitarist Harvey Mandel. With 'So Sad (The World's in a Tangle)', the album contains the band's first environmental protection song. It is about the constant smog over Los Angeles. 'Let's Work Together', a cover version of Wilbert Harrison's 'Let's Stick Together' from 1962, became a top ten hit for Canned Heat worldwide. The concert recording ''70 Concert: Recorded Live In Europe' followed in the same year. Recorded at various venues during the tour through Europe (including London's Royal Albert Hall), this is the band's first official live album and also the last audio document of Canned Heat with Alan 'Blind Owl' Wilson, who died of an overdose of pills in September 1970.
With 'Final Vinyl', Canned Heat recently released their last album; 'Future Blues' and ''70 Concert: Recorded Live In Europe' are among their essential albums, when the band in its key line-up with Al Wilson, Bob Hite, Fito de la Parra, Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor had reached the zenith of their creative output at the end of the 1960s / beginning of the 1970s. Wilson's death left a gap that could no longer be filled, especially as Larry Taylor and Harvey Mandel had also left Canned Heat shortly beforehand to join John Mayall's 'USA Union' ban.
