Canned Heat - Future Blues (1970) {Iconoclassic Records ICON1046 rel 2016}

The final Canned Heat album to feature co-founder Alan Wilson, Future Blues was also one of their best, surprisingly restrained as a studio creation by the band, the whole thing clocking in at under 36 minutes, as long as some single jams on their live discs. It was also one of their most stylistically diverse efforts. Most of what's here is very concise and accessible, even the one group-composed jam – Alan Wilson's "Shake It and Break It" and his prophetically titled "My Time Ain't Long" (he would be dead the year this record was issued), which also sounds a lot like a follow-up to "Going up the Country" until its final, very heavy, and up-close guitar coda.



Other songs are a little self-consciously heavy, especially their version of Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right, Mama." Dr. John appears, playing piano on the dark, ominous "London Blues," and arranges the horns on "Skat," which tries for a completely different kind of sound – late-'40s-style jump blues – than that for which the group was usually known. And the band also turns in a powerhouse heavy guitar version of Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together."

Personnel
Canned Heat
Bob Hite – vocals
Alan Wilson – slide guitar, vocals, harmonica
Harvey Mandel – lead guitar
Larry Taylor – bass
Adolfo de la Parra – drums

Additional Musicians
Dr. John – piano, horn arrangements (tracks 5 & 7)
Ernest Lane – piano (track 9)

Tracks
01 - Sugar Bee
02 - Shake It And Break It
03 - That's All Right Mama
04 - My Time Ain't Long
05 - Skat
06 - Let's Work Together
07 - London Blues
08 - So Bad (The World's In A Tangle)
09 - Future Blues
10 - Poor Moon
11 - Wooly Bully
12 - Let's Work Together (long version)
13 - Human Condition