Canned Heat Future Blues LP 1970 original US gatefold
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Description
Canned Heat Future Blues LP 1970 original US gatefold
Original US pressing on Liberty in gatefold sleeve.
Future Blues is the fifth album by Canned Heat, released in 1970. It was the last to feature the band's classic lineup, as Larry Taylor and Harvey Mandel departed soon after its release and songwriter Alan Wilson died later that year. It was also the only classic-era Canned Heat album to feature Mandel, as Henry Vestine had been the lead guitarist on the previous albums. Their cover of "Let's Work Together" by Wilbert Harrison became a hit. "London Blues" features Dr. John.
A hard-luck blues band of the '60s, Canned Heat was founded by blues historians and record collectors Alan Wilson and Bob Hite. They seemed to be on the right track and played all the right festivals (including Monterey and Woodstock, making it very prominently into the documentaries about both) but somehow never found a lasting audience.
Certainly their hearts were in the right place. Canned Heat's debut album -- released shortly after their appearance at Monterey -- was every bit as deep into the roots of the blues as any other combo of the time mining similar turf, with the exception of the original Paul Butterfield band. Hite was nicknamed "The Bear" and stalked the stage in the time-honored tradition of Howlin' Wolf and other large-proportioned bluesmen. Wilson was an extraordinary harmonica player, with a fat tone and great vibrato. His work on guitar, especially in open tunings (he played on Son House's rediscovery recordings of the mid-'60s, incidentally) gave the band a depth and texture that most other rhythm players could only aspire to. Henry Vestine -- another dyed-in-the-wool record collector -- was the West Coast's answer to Michael Bloomfield and capable of fretboard fireworks at a moment's notice.
Canned Heat's breakthrough moment occurred with the release of their second album, establishing them with hippie ballroom audiences as the "kings of the boogie." As a way of paying homage to the musician they got the idea from in the first place, they later collaborated on an album with John Lee Hooker that was one of the elder bluesman's most successful outings with a young white (or black, for that matter) combo backing him up. After two big chart hits with "Goin' Up the Country" and an explosive version of Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together," Wilson died under mysterious (probably drug-related) circumstances in 1970, and Hite carried on with various reconstituted versions of the band until his death just before a show in 1981, from a heart seizure.
The final Canned Heat album to feature co-founder Alan Wilson, Future Blues was also one of their best, surprisingly restrained as a studio creation by the band, the whole thing clocking in at under 36 minutes, as long as some single jams on their live discs. It was also one of their most stylistically diverse efforts. Most of what's here is very concise and accessible, even the one group-composed jam -- Alan Wilson's "Shake It and Break It" and his prophetically titled "My Time Ain't Long" (he would be dead the year this record was issued), which also sounds a lot like a follow-up to "Going up the Country" until its final, very heavy, and up-close guitar coda. Other songs are a little self-consciously heavy, especially their version of Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right, Mama." Dr. John appears, playing piano on the dark, ominous "London Blues," and arranges the horns on "Skat," which tries for a completely different kind of sound -- late-'40s-style jump blues -- than that for which the group was usually known. And the band also turns in a powerhouse heavy guitar version of Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together."
Side One
"Sugar Bee" (Eddie Shuler) – 2:39
"Shake It and Break It" (Charley Patton)– 2:35
"That's All Right (Mama)" (Arthur Crudup) – 4:19
"My Time Ain't Long" (Wilson) – 3:49
"Skat" (Wilson) – 2:44
"Let's Work Together" (Wilbert Harrison) – 2:53
Side Two
"London Blues" (Wilson) – 5:31
"So Sad (The World's in a Tangle)" (Canned Heat) – 7:57
"Future Blues" (Canned Heat) – 2:58
CONDITION:
SLEEVE: VG No damage but all-over rubbing and some ring wear on back (see photos)
RECORD: EX++ to NM—
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