Music Scene
Canned Heat loyal to party blues sounds
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer
Fito de la Parra keeps the Canned Heat flame alive.
The rhythmic and spiritual force behind the good-time boogie band for more than 30 years, de la Parra has kept the band going with a 1960s-style musical integrity, even while several founding and longtime band members have died.
Canned Heat — from left, John Paulus, Fito de la Parra, Dallas Hodge, Stanley Behrens and Greg Kage — brings its tradition of party blues to Honolulu for a concert tonight. De La Parra is the only surviving member of the original Canned Heat.
Thirty-three albums. One hundred seventy-five concerts a year. A revamped band grounded in the early days of rock and blues. Five European tours last year alone. A new book ("a story of music, drugs, deaths and survival"). An upcoming concert in Honolulu, the band's first visit in nearly a decade.
Through it all, de la Parra insists on sticking with the band's roots. "We tried some different approaches over the years, but the best is to give people that good old Canned Heat sound," he said.
Canned Heat, who opened the original Woodstock with the classic hit "Going Up To The Country" and has maintained a reputation for party blues ever since, still packs in the crowds because the music means something to people, de la Parra said. The band was never much interested in politics or protests. It concentrates on low-down and dirty blues, with an emphasis on jams.
"It's all about integrity," said de la Parra, speaking from his Los Angeles home last week. "The music business has changed a lot, but some of us still dwell on the execution of the instrument, the feelings, beauty and emotion that are lacking in a lot of current music."
Canned Heat
at The Boogie Blues Dance Party
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9 p.m. today; doors open at 8:15 p.m.
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South Seas Village Theater Restaurant (Hawaiian Hut), 410 Atkinson Drive, Ala Moana Hotel
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$25 ($22 in advance)
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941-5205
De la Parra is the only surviving member of the original Canned Heat, whose other hits included "On the Road Again" and "Let's Work Together." The deaths of founding members Alan Wilson and Bob "The Bear" Hite plus longtime guitar player Henry Vestine took a big emotional toll, he said.
"For a while, I was really afraid to go on stage," he said. "I was the drummer, the immigrant, the least famous of the band members. If people knew anyone, it was The Bear or Alan Wilson. Now the focus is on me. I'm the one that has to keep the credibility of the band."
To do that he's recreated the 21st-century Canned Heat, using musicians with solid blues ties.
Harmonica and horns man Stanley Behrens has recorded with Willie Dixon, Jimmy Smith, Mick Taylor, even Alice Cooper. Vocalist Dallas Hodge (brother of blues band leader Catfish Hodge) honed his craft with Bonnie Raitt, Cornell Dupree and Johnny Winter. John Paulus toured for years with John Mayall. Bass player Greg Kage has been with the band since 1995.
In his early days, de la Parra played with artists as diverse as The Platters, Etta James and Mary Wells. During his Canned Heat years, he often joined forces with the biggest names in blues: Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Albert Collins, Memphis Slim and in recent years, John Lee Hooker, who died earlier this year.
"Losing him hit me hard," de la Parra said. "We'd really gotten close in the last few years. I played with him on his last gig."
Nearing the end of his life, Hooker gave de la Parra the ultimate praise: "Nobody boogies like you and Canned Heat," he said.
De la Parra spent much of his free time in the last five years writing an autobiography of the band, "Living the Blues," which is just hitting book outlets.
"Man, that was demanding," he said. "I can produce a CD in a couple of hours, but I never knew how hard writing is. It's very personal, like going through psychotherapy."
