On the Road Again
Canned Heat was fundamentally a blues preservation society disguised as a 1960s rock band. For "On the Road Again," guitarist and vocalist Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson repurposed a 1953 Chicago blues track by Floyd Jones....
Canned Heat was fundamentally a blues preservation society disguised as a 1960s rock band. For "On the Road Again," guitarist and vocalist Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson repurposed a 1953 Chicago blues track by Floyd Jones. Wilson possessed a haunting, high-pitched falsetto and an incredibly precise, country-blues harmonica technique. Accompanied by a driving, hypnotic boogie rhythm from the rest of the band, Wilson's eerie vocal delivery and droning harmonica lines perfectly captured the mesmerizing, trance-like qualities of the deep Delta, successfully translating rural acoustic traditions into a massive, psychedelic-era pop hit.