expand Canned Heat

Canned Heat formed in 1966, coalescing around Al "Blind Owl" Wilson, guitar and harmonica, and Bob "The Bear" Hite, vocals.  They were two blues fanatics and aficionados.  Add to the mix Henry "The Sunflower" Vestine from The Mothers of Invention on guitar, Larry "The Mole" Taylor on bass who had played with the Monkees and Jerry Lee Lewis, and Adolfo "Fito" de la Parra on drums.  Fito played with everyone from the Sinners to Etta James, The Shirelles, The Platters and the legendary T-Bone Walker.  

The band played the Monterey Pop Festival, opening up the second day of the festivities.  This show landed them a large international audience.  1968 saw the release of 'On The Road Again', followed by 'Going Up The Country' in 1969.

1969 also saw the band performing at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.  It is a testimony to their art that they managed to make blues rock anthems still heard around the world.  The kicker for me is the band recording with their label mates, the Chipmunks.

RDC

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  Padraig Green Shared
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  Debra Lee Chadwick love this group

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  R Dean Chandler for nv posts....look in that box post by others. they are all there. fb shut down my account this morning! have a nice day!
• The NEW LA Free Press POST-MONTEREY SERIES (thru '67) with LA Free Press Era Rock Historian, Bruno Ceriotti, now featuring...
  CANNED HEAT
  (Part 1)
  >> In July, just one month after their appearance at Monterey, Canned Heat released their self-titled debut album. To promote the album, that fared reasonably well commercially, reaching #76 on the Billboard Hot 100 album chart, the band toured all over the United States, from West Coast to East Coast and vice versa, throughout the summer and the fall of ’67.
  >> The most famous gigs the band played during that national tour were on October 20 and 21, at Chet Helm’s Family Dog in Denver, Colorado. Actually it was what happened later that made
  these gigs famous.  In fact, the night after their 2nd and last show, the police burst into their hotel room at the local Rancho Manor Hotel, and arrested all the band members (except Alan Wilson who miraculously managed to escape arrest!) for possession of some joints, a small amount of hashish, and two hundred grams of marijuana. They spent the weekend in jail.
  >> When they returned to LA, the band held a press conference and claimed that their arrest had been orchestrated by the local police in Denver only as some sort of signal to all the Hippies. Eventually, after a lot of different processes and legal fees, the band members were all acquitted.
  >>  Back to the music now, and here, below, one of the best songs taken from the band debut album, ‘Dust My Broom’. Enjoy!
  

The NEW LA Free Press POST-MONTEREY SERIES (thru '67) with LA Free Press Era Rock Historian, Bruno Ceriotti, now featuring...
CANNED HEAT
(Part 2)
>> On November 20, a month after their arrest in Denver, Canned Heat played at the Magic Mushroom in Studio City, California. The band manager, Skip Taylor, hired The Bluesberry Jam  as an opening act.  They were a local, unknown band with an amazing Mexican drummer, Adolfo de la Parra, aka “Fito”. Tayl so hated Canned Heat’s drummer Frank “Mr. Fuzzy” Cook and so loved “Fito”, that he orchestrated this show only because he hoped that Bob Hite, Alan Wilson and company would see “Fito” plays that night and see that he was so much better than Cook that they will fired the latter, and replace him with “Fito”.
>> Taylor's secret plan went right and, in fact, after the show, around 3 am, he approached “Fito” to ask him if he wanted to auditioned for the band the next day and, obviously, the drummer says “yes, of course!”. The audition went well and, as everyone knows, “Fito” replaced Cook as Canned Heat's new drummer (and, in a sort of exchange, Cook replaced “Fito” in The Bluesberry Jam).
>> On December 1, the new lineup played two shows at the Men’s Gym of the California State College in Long Beach, California. The show went so well and the new drummer was so good, that Bob Hite threw candy in the audience to celebrate the band's happiness! A few days later the band closed the year recording their 2nd album, the masterpiece ‘Boogie with Canned Heat’, that was released in January, 1968 and that included, among others, one of the greatest blues songs ever, ‘On The Road Again’. Enjoy!

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  With our original Adverts now part of our NEW ~
  LA Free Press POST-MONTEREY SERIES (thru '67)...
  
  ... here's what we think is the perfect selection ~ nice art with the Artist we just showcased... Canned Heat... AND with Top Billing for the next Artist coming up ~ Country Joe and The Fish !
• http://losangelesfreepress.com/images/M67NAH15608CXW.jpg
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  Chip Beers haven't heard this in ages !
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  Rain Equine Not many drummers sing! Everyone in this band had a GREAT voice! My father(Michael Equine) and I used to perform duets while he played GUITAR!!! He's an awesome musician- I'm grateful he shared his genes...
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  Mark Hughes This Recording is special for another Reason! They were playing "LIVE", but many times when they did this, they would get paid true wages...just a small royalty paymeny, not the more ,(Much More!) that they should get...(Union Scale?)...
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  Mark Hughes So, in order to PROVE they played "Live" Bob Smith sort of, lighty, fudged the Words, (If you look carefully, you can see he's sort nervous when he does it...THEN, at the end, Michael Equine,(the Drummer.), does an extra roll on his drums!!! LOL! I love these Guys!

COMING on 9/30, written especially for THIS website(!) Michael Equine's (CM's Drummer) 'inside' story of what may have made Woodstock the 'chosen' site.  He was there.  He tells us here.

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  Mike S Handley i saw them 2nd bill under Hendrix as Chicago Transit Authority in April of 69 at the Forum
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  The Los Angeles Free Press 60's Music Site At THIS concert? http://lafpmusic.com/images/M69M2E0184ABX.jpg

  

  http://lafpmusic.com/images/M69M2E0184ABX.jpg

  lafpmusic.com

  
  
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  Mike S Handley Cat Mother & The AllNite Newsboys opened, then Chicago Transit Authority, then the Jimi Hendrix Experience!
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  The Los Angeles Free Press 60's Music Site SO appreciate your response! Will add the info to our database... We posted Cat Mother here months ago - the ONLY Artist Jimi ever produced an album for! You can SEE them PLAY now with a click on our WEBsite link. And soon - CM's Drummer - Michael Equine's own story (written especially FOR us!) on what may have made Woodstock the 'chosen' site. He was there.http://lafpmusic.com/artist/cat-mother-all-night-news-boys

  

  Cat Mother & The All Night News Boys | The Los Angeles Free Press 60's Music Site

  lafpmusic.com

  COMING on 9/30, written especially for THIS website(!) Michael Equine's (CM's Dr

  ummer) 'inside' story of what may have made Woodstock the 'chosen' site.  He was there.  He tells us here.

expand Country Joe & The Fish

Inspired by an anarchic Fugs show in Berkeley, Country Joe (as Stalin was ‘popularly’ known) McDonald & the Fish (Barry Melton… for this one you’re gonna have to check out Mao Zedong’s definition of a true revolutionary) became a rock band.  They had been many things prior to becoming that band,  a protest song writer's work shop, a magazine, a folk act with washtub bass among other things.  I like any band that can say they half expected to be arrested for singing their songs.
 
Their first performance was highlighted with them smashing their instruments, throwing shredded IBM cards on the audience and the singer passing out and falling backwards off the stage.  Sounds like definite Hall of Fame material to me.  

1967 saw the release of what many believe to be the first psychedelic album of all time "Electric Music for the Mind and Body'.  The band could be every bit as trippy as the Doors.  Their record label talked them out of having 'I Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die' on the album in fears of a conservative backlash.  Subsequently, they song became the title track of their follow up release which remained on the Billboard charts for 2 years.  

The band was featured at both the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock.  Joe had come down early to check out the scene at Woodstock which was fortunate as most of the acts at the beginning were stuck in hotels, miles from the venue, or trying to make their way to the stage through a half million people.  

Joe, who just happened to be on stage at the end of Richie Haven's set, was handed a guitar and went out and knocked 'em dead, as they say.  The 'Fish Cheer' became legendary from that performance and the band had fulfilled its intention, telling the establishment to 'get f#^ked' and done in such a way that almost everyone has seen.  The band released two more albums, played hundreds of shows and went their separate ways to very pleasing results.

RDC

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  The Los Angeles Free Press 60's Music Site And so we present a look back... http://lafpmusic.com/catalog/127

  

  Country Joe and The Fish | The Los Angeles Free Press 60's Music Site

  www.lafpmusic.com

  Music and political posters, poster-work, and advertisements from the original L

  os Angeles Free Press series (1964-1978) made available for purchase. Original content.

http://losangelesfreepress.com/images/M67NAH15608CXW.jpg

The NEW LA Free Press POST-MONTEREY SERIES (thru '67) with LA Free Press Era Rock Historian, Bruno Ceriotti, now featuring... COUNTRY JOE AND THE FISH
(Part 1)
>> On July 22, just one month after their appearance at the Monterey, Country Joe and The Fish appeared at another California outdoor music festival (actually a 'happening'), the Fantastic Flight of the Mystic Balloon, held at the Casa Loma Swim Club in Lafayette.
>> The band performance was filmed by director Jack
O’Connell, and a segment of them playin’ their classic Vietnam protest song ‘I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag’, was included in O’Connell’s new underground movie documentary, Revolution. Enjoy!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdwoat_country-joe-the-fish-vietnam-son...

The NEW LA Free Press POST-MONTEREY SERIES (thru '67) with LA Free Press Era Rock Historian, Bruno Ceriotti, now featuring... COUNTRY JOE AND THE FISH
(Part 2)
>> From July to September, Country Joe and The Fish were in New York City to record their 2nd album ‘I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-
To-Die’. The title track was, of course, the band's most known song and, arguably, one of the greatest anti-Vietnam War protest songs ever. The album was released in November, but the band couldn't promote it immediately because they'd broken up by then! >> To cut the long story short, one month earlier, in October, the band leader, “Country Joe” McDonald, left his own band to embark on a solo tour of the Pacific Northwest, while the remaining members of the band briefly changed their name to The Incredible Fish and fulfilled a number of engagements. However, just two months later, in December, the problems are patched up and the band is back together!
>> Here, below, is one of the songs taken from the album, ‘Janis’, that Country Joe wrote as a “love testament” right after he broke up with his girlfriend, Janis Joplin.  Enjoy!