Plain and Fancy: Canned Heat - The Ties That Bind (1970-74 us, awesome blues rock, 2021 remaster)

Boogie-woogie blues rockers Canned Heat serve up a gyrating platter of previously-unleashed material, all recorded during three separate studio sessions. The album’s final three cuts (“Reefer Blues”, “You Tease Me” and “Something’s Gotta Go”) are the final recorded output from Heat founder/guitarist Alan Wilson, who committed suicide a few weeks after these studio sessions were made.

The album kicks off with the good-time party ambience of “Saturday Night Fish Fry”. Track four, “Drunk”, is a reeling ‘n’ rocking slab of slide guitar magic. Then there’s the rhythm and blues grinder, “Harry’s Open Pit and Bar B Que”.

Canned Heat fell by the wayside in the ’70s with the advent of disco and punk rock, but while those musical stylings have a tendency to come off as cliche and dated today, the Heat’s blistering rhythm and blues still sounds as fresh and new as the day it was canned.

by Yvette Cadeaux

The previously unreleased Atlantic Records session from 1974. Negotiated out of their UA contract, Canned Heat moved to Atlantic where notable blues enthusiasts the Ertegun Brothers were persuaded to give the band another chance. The tapes were released back to the band after the label lost interest due to the impending disco craze, and the infamous Lester Bang’s eloquent 1973 Rolling Stone thrashing of “The New Age.” LP. Fito de la Parra released the album in 1997.

An excellent boogie-blues record in a time that didn’t understand the music, The two unreleased Alan Wilson Tracks (Get Off My Back, Somethings Gotta Go) also appear on the newly released and available “The Boogie House Tapes Vol. 2”, and are a studio and live track that were some of his last recordings.

by Brett Lemke, Maximum Ink, 2004