Canned Heat - Songs From The Road

Rating: 3/5

Review:
A disappointment

I'm afraid I don't think this is very good.  There's some decent blues and boogie playing here, but it's nothing that special and in places this is frankly pretty poor.

I think the problem is partly that I don't regard this band as the genuine Canned Heat.  Fito de la Parra and Larry Taylor are certainly part of the classic line-up, and they still form a very solid rhythm section.  I know that several people can claim to be a genuine Heat lead guitarist so I wouldn't absolutely insist on Henry Vestine, even if he is my favourite…but no Bob Hite or Alan Wilson?  Hmmm.  I think it was those two who lifted Canned Heat above being a good blues outfit and into the ranks of Great Bands, so without either of them it's a bit ordinary.  Dale Spalding and John Paulus are very good musicians, but The Bear and Blind Owl they ain't, I'm afraid.

So, overall it's a bit ordinary but might have rated four stars if it weren't for the Crimes Against Humanity which Fito perpetrates as singer  on  On The Road Again and Goin' Up the Country.  He sings in a falsetto to try to emulate Wilson, and it's simply dreadful.  There's no power or feeling and he hits so many terrible bum notes it makes me physically wince.  Great songs and a tribute to a fallen hero they may be, but these performances should never have made it on to a record.

At least the recorded sound is good (which is a relief after some of the terrible historic recordings which have recently been foisted on us), but as an album I found Songs From The Road a disappointment.  I'm sorry to be critical, but I can't honestly recommend this.