Canned Heat
Historical Figures And Ancient Heads

When reviewing their debut album, I had taken the liberty of recommending Canned Heat to lovers of late sixties blues rock and psychedelia. In general, to those still drawn to the themes, illusions, and tastes that were predominant in '68 America, particularly California. Despite not consciously intending to, the possibility of a comparison, admittedly unlikely, arose between the Heat and the Doors. Legend, the latter, almost forgotten—at least here—the former.
The gulf in resonance between the two bands (inevitable, however, if we compared the Doors to almost all their contemporaneous bands) finds a myriad of justifications, starting with the themes addressed by Morrison in his songs, undoubtedly fundamental to the creation of the lizard king's myth. That seriousness of intent, that "hallucinated lucidity" made Morrison not only the world rock star he always was, but above all, that sort of guru of a light religion that transferred oriental wisdom (or extracts of it: it is, after all, a "light" religion), transferring and bending them to western life standards. This is something Canned Heat and almost all others certainly lack, and the death of the great Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, a sublime vocalist and a superlative musician, a tortured soul with a wiccan green thumb, though also shrouded in mystery, cannot and will never be compared to that of the one who poses in posters of half the world’s population.
The albums of the hyper-prolific Canned Heat, moreover, are almost entirely stuffed with covers, and the songs they composed, although generally of good quality, are almost always in the minority. How then can one compare a band to a proto-cover band?
Finally, while the Doors were four people, the Canned Heat were primarily a collective, a group of friends: Larry "The Mole" Taylor, the drummer, leaves after two years to play with John Mayall; guitarist Harvey Mandel comes later, goes with Taylor to play with John Mayall and sporadically returns; The Bear Hite counts three pieces per album; his brother plays occasionally. "Sunflower" Vestine left the band in 1970 but returns to play with John Lee Hooker and something else... What kind of band is this if we also add the death of the Owl? How can this be considered a real band? And how can it be compared to others?

Here we are a few months after Wilson's death; without him and without Vestine the sunflower, Canned Heat are practically without guitars and with only one vocalist. Then Harvey Mandel comes to their rescue but it’s not enough: the Heat "recruit" Joel Scott-Hill, protagonist in sixties bands known as Strangers and Invaders, and who, at the end of his contract with the Heat, will go on to join the Flying Burrito Brothers at zero cost.
"Historical Figures And Ancient Heads" is an album to start, in any way, whatever path lay ahead. The band, somewhat like the Velvet Underground's "Loaded", seems to rely heavily on the new entry, who maneuvers well in piano-driven ballads, old-style pieces just as they have always delivered them, and the band even allows one of the two "non-covers", the instrumental boogie-woogie "Hill's Stomp", to be signed by him (well, the title is already eloquent in itself). The other "non-cover", the concluding "Utah" is signed by Canned Heat entirely... Yes, but who were Canned Heat?
The tracks are good overall, from the boogie "Hill's Stomp" to "Utah", a very dirty pseudo noise-blues, muffled, based on the infinite empty-full-empty of a single big riff. Rock with neither respite nor choruses in "Chekoree Dance"; "Long Way From L.A." is a classic boogie reinforced by large guitars; there's the psychedelic funky (you heard right) of "I Don't Care What You Tell Me," and a great piece sung and played with Little Richard, "Rockin' With The King", boogie-rock verses and rock n' roll refrains.
Let's be clear: this is a more than good album, quite well packed with stuff from decent upwards, with an adept use of covers reworked according to a taste that is not questioned by the eighth disc in just under five years. The crux of the matter is the sense of a recording comeback so soon after such an upheaval. The core of the issue is understanding the reason behind such inexplicable prolificity against all odds. It is not by celebrating the funeral of the Blind Owl that the practice can be considered concluded, and thus decide to put someone else in the lineup.
If, in short, the band writes one piece per album, if "The Mole" left, if the vocalist sings three pieces per album, if "Sunflower" the lead guitarist comes and goes, while the only true genius of the group has gone to heaven just before, what sense did it make to continue being Canned Heat?
In my opinion, none, with all due respect for the replacements and their skills.