Canned Heat Bob Bear Hite

February 26, 1945 — April 5, 1981

A common love

With a common love of blues and 78 rpm records, Bob “The Bear” Hite and Alan Blind Owl Wilson founded Canned Heat in 1966 .

Hite described his love of music as emanating from his parents. His father had played trumpet with Sammy Kaye’s band, but had to quit. His mother had sung with Mal Hallett and his Orchestra.

Canned Heat Bob Bear Hite

Pre-Heat

Hite loved records and collected them from an early age. When his church’s old folks home bought a new hi-fi player, it gave him all the old 78s.

Around 1964, Hite had met fellow record and music enthusiast, John Fahey, who loaned a tape to Hite then disappeared for a year.

Around 1965, Hite got a job, no surprise, in a record shop and Fahey showed up looking for his tape. Hite invited a Fahey to his parents’ apartment to listen to music. By the end of the night Hite, Fahey, Alan Wilson, and Mike Purlaman had formed Canned Heat. The name came from, again no surprise, the name of  a 1928 Tommy Johnson song by that name.

Canned Heat Bob Bear Hite

Electric Heat

When Fahey found out that the band would be electric he left. An acoustic enthusiast, he’d go on to forge new sounds almost always on his own.

The band went through the common growing pains of personnel leaving, personnel replaced,  playing where no one cared for what they played, playing what they didn’t care to play, getting a contract, going on the road but broke.

A Fort Worth, TX radio station found and loved their ‘Boogie Music’ and ‘On the Road Again’ songs. Slowly their reputation grew, and an invitation to the Monterrey Pop Festival followed.

Canned Heat Bob Bear Hite

Wood Heat

Their Woodstock story is an interesting one. After landing in New York City, tired, and hearing reports of mayhem at the festival they almost decided to stay in New York and skip the Fair. Luckily, they made it.

Even sitting 100+  yards away, I could see Bob Bear Hite in that Saturday evening’s dusk just fine.  They followed the serene Incredible String Band and preceded the momentous Mountain. And for those of us there, we still don’t understand why their Woodstock bump wasn’t even bigger, despite their music being part of the soundtrack.

According to Hite, We played the gig and had a real good time and then couldn’t get out. We ended up ripping off one of the trucks they used for equipment and somebody left their limo there with the keys in it, so we took that. That was Woodstock. We didn’t get to see much of it. (see Traveling Boy link below)

Canned Heat Bob Bear Hite

Bob Bear Hite

On September 3, 1970 Alan Wilson died. Canned Heat continued. The band lived the life of rock, particularly Hite. In 1981, according to the Team Rock site: At the centre of it is their vocalist and harmonica player, Bob ‘The Bear’ Hite. With his scraped-back black ponytail and gut-length beard, the 38-year-old is 300lbs of Californian gregariousness and pharmaceutical fearlessness. The Bear is already sky-high.

According to Wikipedia, On April 5, 1981, during a break between sets at The Palomino Club in North Hollywood, Hite was handed a drug vial by a fan. Thinking it contained cocaine, Hite stuck a straw into the vial and snorted it. The drug turned out to be heroin and Hite turned blue and collapsed. Some roadies put Hite in the band’s van and drove him to a nearby home where he died.

• Reference >>> Bob Hite site
• Reference >>> Travelingboy site
• Reference >>> Canned Heat site

Canned Heat Bob Bear Hite

John Johnny Dawson Winter

February 23, 1944 — July 16, 2014

John Johnny Dawson Winter III was born in Beaumont, Texas. He and his brother, Edgar, both got into music early in their lives and after seeing  artists such Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Bobby Bland, they fell in love with the blues.

In 1968, Sonobeat Recording Company released Johnny Winter’s first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment. The small label’s limited distribution gave the album limited success. In December 1968, while at an Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield concert at the Fillmore East, Bloomfield  invited Winter on stage. His performance attracted the attention of Columbia Records executives in the audience and they soon signed him to “largest solo artist deal of it’s time.” (from Winter site)

Johnny Winter released his first Columbia record in 1969. He toured and performed at festival after festival, including…

• Big Rock Pow Wow,
• First Annual Detroit Rock and Roll Revival,
• First Annual WC Handy Memorial Concert
• Newport Pop Festival
• Toronto Pop Festival
• Denver Pop Festival
• Newport Jazz Festival
• Atlanta International Pop Festival
• Laurel Pop Festival
• Forest Hills Music Festival
• Midwest Rock Festival
• Atlantic City Pop Festival
• Texas International Pop Festival
• Raccoon Creek Rock Festival
• Palm Beach Pop Festival
• Miami Rock Festival
• Mid Winter Pop Festival (the festival never actually happened)

Oh yea. He played at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, the festival that turned out to be THE festival of 1969 and, in the eyes of many still today, THE festival of all time.

Johnny Winter came on around midnight (Monday 18 August) after The Band and before Blood, Sweat and Tears. He played about an hour. His setlist was:

1. Mama, Talk to Your Daughter
2. Leland Mississippi Blues
3. Mean Town Blues
4. You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now > Mean Mistreater
5. I Can’t Stand It (with Edgar)
6. Tobacco Road (with Edgar)
7. Tell the Truth (with Edgar)
8. Johnny B. Goode

Here’s a YouTube of that performance (not a film).

John Johnny Dawson Winter

Johnny Winter

Most know of Alvin Lee and his Ten Years After performance of “Goin’ Home” from the 1970 movie or album. Johnny Winter did not get the Woodstock golden touch from either because he was not in or on either.

That did not stop his career. He successfully buffeted his way through rock and roll’s many Scylla and Charybdis with a long career.

He kept on making albums (Winter discography) and fulfilled a dream by playing with and producing Muddy Waters. Winter produced Waters’ , Hard Again (1977). He again worked with Waters on I’m Ready (1978). It was another Grammy winner.

Here’s a great video from a movie on Johnny Winter. It’s called Down and Dirty and was directed by Greg Olliver.

John Johnny Dawson Winter

Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter died in Zurich, Switzerland on July 16, 2014. Writing in Rolling Stone magazine ranked him #63 of the 100 greatest guitarists. The review said: Out of all the hopped-up Caucasians who turbocharged the blues in the late Sixties, Texas albino Johnny Winter was both the whitest and the fastest. Songs like his 1969 cover of “Highway 61 Revisited” are astonishing showpieces of his lightning-fast thumb-picked electric slide playing. Jimi Hendrix sought him out as a sideman, and Muddy Waters recognized his talent at first glance, becoming a friend and collaborator: “That guy up there onstage – I got to see him up close,” Waters later said. “He plays eight notes to my one!”

• Reference >>> Rolling Stone magazine obit
• Reference >>> All Music bio

John Johnny Dawson Winter

Addendum: As you can see, this site is a dot info site, not a dot com. I do not accept advertising or any compensation for anything I post. I do not accept anything. Period.

With that in mind, in February 2020, I received an e-mail from a Joey Miller, who is an Editor at Jen Reviews.  In the e-mail he said that  they had “just published an updated, comprehensive guide on easy guitar riffs for beginners on our sister site, BeginnerGuitarHQ. It is completely free and you can find it here: https://beginnerguitarhq.com/easy-guitar-riffs/”

I don’t know if you’ll ever be as good as Johnny, but this free intro may be a start. Who knows?!

John Johnny Dawson Winter