HITE MAN'S BLUES

Just as Canned Heat were reinventing electric blues for the Woodstock generation, their founder members were avidly collecting old records. Their leader Bob 'The Bear' Hite's death saw him leave behind a trove of 78s, 45s and old blues recordings. Tony Burke tells the story of a band of blues-obsessed record collectors

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Six minutes into the director's cut of the film of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, showing footage of hippies arriving at the festival site, a voice from the stage says: "Y'know, this is the most outrageous spectacle I have ever witnessed - ever. There is only one thing I wish: I sure gotta pee and there ain't nowhere to go. I believe we're gonna go up the country right now."

It was sunset on 16 August and Canned Heat's guitarist, harmonica player and singer AI Wilson launched into Goin' Up The Country, Woodstock's unofficial anthem.

The band had appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967 and were filmed by DA Pennebaker performing Hambone Willie Newbern's Roll And Tumble Blues, originally recorded by Newbern in 1929. Canned Heat's rise to fame and run of hit records through to their demise is well chronicled.

What isn't as well-known is their dedication to record collecting, on a grand scale - notably on the part of their singer and leader Bob "The Bear' Hite, one of the band's founders with AI Wilson and lead guitarist Henry Vestine, who Frank Zappa had kicked out of the Mothers Of Invention for smoking pot.

Canned Heat were blues and R&B aficionados who recorded obscure blues and R&B numbers from the 20s through to the 50s, as well as more accessible material.

Robert Ernest Hite Jr was born in Torrance, California on 26 February 1943. His parents had played in swing bands: his father played trumpet with Sammy Kaye's band and his mother sang with Mal Hallett's Orchestra. Hite's younger brother, Richard, born in May 1951, doted on him- and also had the record collecting bug.