The history of Canned Heat is also the history of excesses, drug abuse, mental illness and pill addiction, combined with an affinity for internal band funerals. Drummer Adolfo Fito de la Parra recently said in an interview: Im still with Canned Heat after more than 55 years. To be alive at all is already a triumph here. After all, Fito had been with the band since their second official album Boogie With Canned Heat, which was released on the US label Liberty in 1968.
In 1970, Future Blues was released, the first album with the new guitarist Harvey Mandel. With So Sad (The Worlds in a Tangle), the album contains the bands first environmental protection song. It is about the constant smog over Los Angeles. Lets Work Together, a cover version of Wilbert Harrisons Lets Stick Together from 1962, became a top ten hit for Canned Heat worldwide. The concert recording 70 Concert: Recorded Live In Europe followed in the same year. Recorded at various venues during the tour through Europe (including Londons Royal Albert Hall), this is the bands first official live album and also the last audio document of Canned Heat with Alan Blind Owl Wilson, who died of an overdose of pills in September 1970.
With Final Vinyl, Canned Heat recently released their last album; Future Blues and 70 Concert: Recorded Live In Europe are among their essential albums, when the band in its key line-up with Al Wilson, Bob Hite, Fito de la Parra, Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor had reached the zenith of their work at the end of the 1960s / beginning of the 1970s. Wilsons death left a gap that could no longer be filled, especially as Larry Taylor and Harvey Mandel had also left Canned Heat shortly beforehand to join John Mayalls USA Union band.
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