Come on over, kids, and sit on your granddad’s lap. He wants to bore you to tears with tales of the good old days, when American blues band Canned Heat (what ‘cha mean ya never heard of ‘em?) were, like, Gods. Not only did they knock ‘em dead at Monterey and Woodstock, they gave voice to the counterculture zeitgeist with their ode to hippie urban flight, “Going Up the Country.” A lot of freaks listened to it, built themselves lean-tos in the woods, and got torn to pieces by grizzly bears.
And get this, Bobby and Lu Ann: Canned Heat also have the distinction of recording the longest song in rock history. The Allman Brothers’ “Mountain Jam” (which comes in at a succinct by comparison 33 minutes and 41 seconds) can’t touch it. Yes’ “Fly from Here” (which is the soul of brevity at 23 minutes and 49 seconds) doesn’t even come close. And Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Godda-Da-Vida, which clocks in less than 18 minutes, is practically a Minutemen song. (And don’t even try to sell me on J. Tull’s Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play; both are made up of individual songs strung together like a chain gang and don’t count.)
Yes, kiddies, Canned Heat hold the world record. It’s 41-minutes long and called “Refried Boogie” and you can hear it on the band’s 1968 double LP Living the Blues. Why you (or anybody else) would want to listen to it is a mystery to me, but that was the trouble with your average hippie—no quality control.
A few words about the band. Canned Heat was founded by two rabid blues enthusiasts (Alan “Owl” Wilson and Bob “Bear” Hite), took its name from every rail yard hobo’s alcoholic beverage of choice, and boasted a most excellent pair of electric guitarists (Wilson and Henry Vestine, the latter of whom had the rare distinction of being kicked out of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention for smoking pot). Wilson was a brilliant harmonica player and had one of the most distinctive voices of the hippie epoch. Hite was fat. Everybody in the band was stone ugly, which is kind of cool. Your long-hairs loved ‘em.
Living the Blues is an odd bird. Side one’s got some pretty damn good songs of average length on it. The band’s cover of Charlie Patton’s “Pony Blues” is a guitar showcase, Wilson’s “My Mistake” ditto. Hite’s “Sandy Blues” is one of those smoldering blues songs that make me hate smoldering blues songs, and Hite’s spoken interlude makes me cringe. The shuffling (and flute infested) “Going Up the Country” is an almost note-for-note copy of Henry Thomas’ “Bull-Doze Blues,” and the perfect vehicle for Wilson’s quavering space freak warble. And his harpoon playing on the band’s swinging cover of Jimmy Rogers’ “Walking by Myself” explains why John Lee Hooker called him “the greatest harmonica player ever.” As for the Heat’s not-very-funky cover of L.T. Taman III’s “Boogie Music,” it’s strictly sub-Average White Band.
Side two opens with “One Kind Favor,” a hot-wired remake of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean.” Then the going gets weird with the hydra-headed (you get nine parts!) “Parthenogenesis.” The frickin song’s over the place, from Wilson’s song-opening turn on Jew’s harp (“Nebulosity”) to guest John Mayall’s fantastico turn on piano (“Bear Wires”) to Adolfo de la Terra’s morally inexcusable drum solo (“Snooky Flowers”). “Sunflower Power (RMS Is Truth)” begins life as a total guitar freak out but goes nowhere. “Raga Kafi” is a droning Spaghetti Eastern. Both “Icebag” and “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” kick ass and should never have been buried in all this garbage. Producer and band manager Skip Taylor should have known better than to set this particular gaggle of hippies live in a studio. There’s no controlling them, short of a large fire hose.
Which brings us to “Refried Boogie,” which was recorded live before an appalled audience. Had W.C. Handy been able to look into the future to “Refried Boogie,” he’d have said, “Screw the blues. Canned Heat’s just going to come along and fuck ‘em up.” Seriously, 41 minutes? Your average person could complete a 5K in that time, and the 5K—panting, gasping, stitch in the side and all—would be a lot less painful. Hell, I’d run a 5K just to get away from the song.
But here’s the scary part: not only is “Refried Boogie” an interminable bore (bass solo, natch, drum solo, natch), it’s a sloppy interminable bore. Everybody and his acid-fried old lady swears Canned Heat was like this crackerjack live act, but on “Refried Boogie” they hardly keep things together. From the boring guitar intro (which segues into a riff straight outta ZZ Top’s “La Grange”) to Hite’s trite stage patter to, well, everything else, the song’s strictly Loserville.
I’ve heard a boatload of choogle in my day, and “Refried Boogie” is literally the worst choogle I’ve ever subjected my ears to. Why the live audience didn’t storm the stage to kill the thing I’ll never know. Hite keeps singing, “Well I’m telling you people the boogie is easy to do.” Easy it may be, but Canned Heat sure can’t do it. And here’s a real fun fact for you. Canned Heat actually recorded a condensed studio version of the song (“Refried Hockey Boogie”) and it sucks too. Fortunately, it only sucks for 11 minutes. I suspect the producer pulled the plug without telling the boys.
Kids, granddad frankly doesn’t remember what made Canned Heat so great. Granddad and Grandma saw ‘em at Woodstock, but we spent all three days in the freakout tent after ingesting some of that brown acid that was going around. And after listening to “Refried Boogie,” granddad’s glad he doesn’t recall a thing. Now get off my knee. I’ve got to go take my bong medicine.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D+
