Canned Heat
Vintage

1970 is the year when Canned Heat "split in two." It's not just because they released two albums that year (as they also did in '68), but because their two releases seemed to take conceptually opposite directions. This is evident from the titles: "Future Blues" on one hand and "Vintage" on the other. From conception, from the very idea, Canned Heat aimed to reach opposite poles, to envision the future and to recreate, almost like a studio reincarnation, the past of the blues.
And if the past is past, as the saying goes, why not start with pieces that not only belong to the ancient times of blues but are also present in their early albums? The past of blues and the past of Canned Heat: both together in two songs. "Big Road Blues" and the famous "Rollin' And Tumblin'" are the tracks in question, obviously reimagined in a more faithful, retro style, or perhaps it's better to say untouched by the sound of that time. The result is that "Big Road Blues" resembles one of those old (and many) fathers of rock and roll, and "Rollin' And Tumblin'" goes back to being rural blues.
If the "Future Blues" endeavor, as we've already seen, turned out to be a missed opportunity, things turned out better for "Vintage," an album that has the merit of having no frills, no ambitions other than to sound like the fathers and grandfathers of the genre would. A false ambition for a band that at twenty, and from their first album, seemed like veterans.
So you come across the eternal (and catchy) blues rock of "Dimples," the traditional superboogie "Can't Hold Out," the yet another blues ballad "Louise," born to try the usual long, clunky guitar notes between the verses. And then there are pieces so bare, skeletal, without seasoning, that they cannot fail to convince the listener.
The intent to truly be vintage leads the caned boys to reach levels and arrangement tastes outside time and trends. Like everything vintage, however, they do it only "falsely," "for fashion." The impression is that you're listening to a record from the forties, right from the opener "Spoonful," in the rapid boogie of "Got My Mojo Working"; and the same for "Straight Ahead," a fun boogie, anorexic in its ways and falsely, deceptively simple. Beautiful all of it. But all without soul.
It's easier to replicate the past, if you're a great craftsman, rather than inventing the future, it's clear, and "Vintage" is a quite solid rock to cling to if the spaceship of "Future Blues" should crash into the sea, but nonetheless, the guys, heart or no heart, are truly skilled, which won't escape the great fathers of the genre, starting with John Lee Hooker, who, as we've seen, will record a double album with them the following year. And he will have the chance to be amazed by the quality of these musicians.