Leaping back out of Springsteen's Pink Cadillac, we continue our road journey with two 1968 hits by the Los Angeles blues band – a cover of a cover a cover – and also go back down the dusty track to see where it all came from. Canned Heat certainly upped the pace of earlier blues hits, and lead singer and harmonica player Alan Wilson gave them a distinct falsetto-voiced charm, and Henry Vestine's electric guitar adding that psychedelic twist. But this is another of myriad examples of pop and rock's enormous debt the those Delta and other African-American bluesmen.
It was also a tragedy that Wilson also became a member of what was later called the 27 Club, dying a barbiturate-related end at that all-too young age in 1970. Here though let's travel along a musical road to see how these two hits evolved.
First up, On The Road Again proves that you can always write a great song with one chord, especially with a drone style, and the words are full of tragedy and pathos, of being orphaned and lonely. Canned Heat's version is really a cover of Floyd Jones's slower blues version, but that in turn was a reworking of his 1952 Dark Road However, adding some key lyrics, this all came from Tommy Johnson's Big Road Blues, recorded in 1928. Unlike Wilson, his blues forbears lived far longer - Jones died age 72 in 1989, and Johnson, a huge influence on Jones as well as Howlin' Wolf, at least went down having fun, having a heartache at a party where he was performing aged 60 in 1956. Let's compare the versions:
Well, I'm so tired of crying but I'm out on the road again
I'm on the road again
Well, I'm so tired of crying but I'm out on the road again
I'm on the road again
I ain't got no woman just to call my special friend
You know the first time I traveled out in the rain and snow
In the rain and snow
You know the first time I traveled out in the rain and snow
In the rain and snow
I didn't have no payroll, not even no place to go
And my dear mother left me when I was quite young
When I was quite young
And my dear mother left me when I was quite young
When I was quite young (When I was quite young)
She said: "Lord, have mercy on my wicked son"
Take a hint from me, mama, please, don't you cry no more
Don't you cry no more
Take a hint from me, mama, please, don't you cry no more
Don't you cry no more
Cause it's soon one morning down the road I'm going
But I ain't going down that long old lonesome road
All by myself
But I ain't going down that long old lonesome road
All by myself
I can't carry you, baby, gonna carry somebody else.
The more upbeat Going Up The Country has become an anthem of the hippie era, evoking Woodstock and more, and can't help but add some sunhine but Wilson's added words about "we might even leave the U.S.A. /'Cause there's a brand new game that I don't wanna play" might refer to the back to the land counterculture, or give a darker edge. The other key change is from the original, from that very early bluesman Henry Thomas, who recorded Bull Doze Blues in 1928 only a couple of years or so before his death. His quill solo (a form of panpipe) was replaced by Canned Heat's Jim Horn on the flute.
I'm going up the country, baby, don't you wanna go?
I'm going up the country, baby, don't you wanna go?
I'm going to some place where I've never been before
I'm going, I'm going where the water tastes like wine
I'm going where the water tastes like wine
We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time
I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away
I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away
All this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure can't stay
Now, baby, pack your leaving trunk, you know we've got to leave today
Just exactly where we're going I cannot say, but
We might even leave the USA
'Cause there's a brand new game that I wanna play
No use of you running or screaming and crying
'Cause you've got a home as long as I've got mine
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