Lineup changes and conflicts within a rock band are pretty common since working as a team is not easy, but too much of it can be harmful. Changing band members too often can cause instability, which will not be well-received by fans or producers.
Canned Heat‘s situation is an example of this: they started their careers at a good point, only for their success to be halted by disputes and constant alteration in the band. They tried to sustain their rise; however, there was only so much they could do to have worldwide fame amidst all the misfortunes.
The band was formed by Alan Wilson and Bob Hite with the original 1967 lineup of Henry Vestine, Larry Taylor, and Adolfo de la Parra. They adopted blues as a style and aimed to spread their love for the genre. Their manager Skip Taylor tried to aid them on this path as much as possible, even when the band members were arrested for drugs.
These ‘bad boys of rock’ were imprisoned after a police officer proved they had drugs and needed $10 000 to be set free. Their manager had no choice but to sell the band’s publishing rights to Liberty Records president Al Bennett, which both contributed to their success and affected their reputation in the long run.
Before this first incident, Canned Heat started making a good name in the music industry with good reviews directed at their stage performances and first albums, aiming to reanimate the blues spirit with a new spark. For instance, Down Beat praised the band’s musical quality at the Monterey Pop Festival in their 1967 issue, claiming they ‘performed the country and Chicago blues idiom of the 1950s so skillfully and naturally.’
In the complete statement, the magazine wrote:
“Technically, Vestine and Wilson are quite possibly the best two-guitar team in the world, and Wilson has certainly become our finest white blues harmonica man. With powerhouse vocalist Bob Hite, they performed the country and Chicago blues idiom of the 1950s so skillfully and naturally that the question of which race the music belongs to becomes irrelevant.”
Following the beginning of their success, the bail incident marked the zero point of the upcoming problems. Many fights and deaths passed their way, causing their achievements to falter even though none were enough for the band to disappear entirely. Still, some of them are worth mentioning as they are significant to the band’s history, like the fight between Henry Vestine and Larry Taylor.
While they were performing live at Fillmore West, a blow-up occurred between the two members resulting from the tension that had started before the show. Due to this incident, Vestine left the band and was replaced by Harvey Mandel, only to return after Taylor quit.
Of course, this was not the only case of change within the band as the members repeatedly left, got replaced, came back, and started all over again because of several reasons like exhaustion and stress. But what was causing all this instability?
It was probably because of the Canned Heat members’ increasing drug and alcohol use, which affected their relationships, productivity, and quality. They transferred to Atlantic Records upon their manager’s suggestion as they were struggling in debt and released their 1973 album ‘One More River to Cross’ with a new sound. The album achieved subsequent attention, followed by a European tour, but the band members could not maintain their integrity and image, although de la Parra tried hard to keep the band going.
During their low times because of the drug use, they were forced to go on stage, resulting in Bob Hite going off on the audience and upsetting the three members Vestine, James Shane, and Ed Beyer, who left the band because of this. The lineup altered again and a few more times after this, with combinations of the original members coming and going until most of them lost their lives one by one at different points in the band’s career.
First, Alan Wilson died in 1970 due to a barbiturate overdose suspected to be a suicide following the release of ‘Hooker ‘n Heat.’ Similarly, Bob Hite also lost his life to overuse of drugs eleven years later in 1981. In 1997, Vestine passed away after the final gig of their European tour because of cancer and exhaustion, followed by Larry Taylor for the exact cause in 2019.
Canned Heat continued its existence after all the troubles and deaths of different musicians thanks to Adolfo de la Parra’s efforts. Still, they never recaptured the attention of the public or critics as that promising blues rock band they once were because they never got the chance to entirely focus on that goal with the instability they were experiencing. Their moderate success could have been something much more significant if not for the fluctuations caused by their relationships within the band and drugs.
