"When I asked you here for dinner. And you brought all your friends. I said here I am feeding half of London. And all I should be feeding here is you ..." sings Alan 'Blind Owl' Wilson in Canned Heat's London Blues. A true story apparently. And one of the last songs he recorded before his tragic death. What I love when you read about the Canned Heat guys, apart from making some great music, Al Wilson and Bob Hite were real blues obsessives, and not just a couple of schoolkids who wanted to be the Rolling Stones. The Stones themselves were blues fans, but Blind Owl and The Bear were true blues scholars and collectors. There's that lovely story about how when Son House was 'rediscovered' Al Wilson sat down and lovingly taught him all his own songs. Am I the only person in the world who has occasionally been reminded of Canned Heat when listening to Stereolab? Mind you Tim Gane was a bit of a musicologist too ...Tuesday, 15 June 2010
London Blues - Pt. 2
"When I asked you here for dinner. And you brought all your friends. I said here I am feeding half of London. And all I should be feeding here is you ..." sings Alan 'Blind Owl' Wilson in Canned Heat's London Blues. A true story apparently. And one of the last songs he recorded before his tragic death. What I love when you read about the Canned Heat guys, apart from making some great music, Al Wilson and Bob Hite were real blues obsessives, and not just a couple of schoolkids who wanted to be the Rolling Stones. The Stones themselves were blues fans, but Blind Owl and The Bear were true blues scholars and collectors. There's that lovely story about how when Son House was 'rediscovered' Al Wilson sat down and lovingly taught him all his own songs. Am I the only person in the world who has occasionally been reminded of Canned Heat when listening to Stereolab? Mind you Tim Gane was a bit of a musicologist too ...
He did mention Canned Heat in an interview circa Mars Audiac Quintet - something about taking a Canned Heat or Quo riff and just keeping up the repetition until it became something else. Maybe that's why the last Oasis album sounds like Stereolab.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87IQhui_Yy8
(And there's a connection with the video director and sleeve designer of course)
Nice one Julian. It all fits together, doesn't it? Yes, it was that repetition I was thinking of.
ReplyDeleteI love Canned Heat. Don't know if you ever saw this: http://theworldsamess.blogspot.com/2009/08/before-after-going-up-country.html
ReplyDelete