Released: 1968
According to such luminaries as John Fahey and Pete Townshend, no other band than Canned Heat has done more to keep the flame of the blues flickering, despite it’s latter retrenchment back into a niche topic.
Formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by two of its afficiandos Alan Wilson and Bob Hite and taking the name from Tommy Johnson’s Canned Heat Blues, the band of the name were regulars at festivals and built a reputation for partying as hard as they played – the 300lb Hite would later die of a heroin overdose in 1981.
Wilson would leave even earlier in 1970, but by this time he’d written On The Road Again which became their signature song. Building on the experiences suffered when his parents divorced when he was a child, Wilson poured his soul into it, adding some evil harmonica to a menacing riff that droned hypnotically. The effect was one of feeling perpetual movement, but no resolution. In proving that the blues could be kept alive in transcending death, Canned Heat were ghosts made flesh.
The Voice Of Unreason 