Canned Heat is an American blues and rock band that was formed in Los Angeles in 1965. The group has been noted for its efforts to promote interest in blues music and its original artists. It was launched by two blues enthusiasts Alan Wilson and Bob Hite, who took the name from Tommy Johnson's 1928 "Canned Heat Blues", a song about an alcoholic who had desperately turned to drinking Sterno, generically called "canned heat". After appearances at the Monterey and Woodstock festivals at the end of the 1960s, the band acquired worldwide fame with a lineup of Hite (vocals), Wilson, Henry Vestine and later Harvey Mandel, Larry Taylor (bass), and Adolfo de la Parra (drums).
Rockabilly is an early style of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre, it blends the sound of Western musical styles such as country with that of rhythm and blues, leading to what is considered "classic" rock and roll. Some have also described it as a blend of bluegrass with rock and roll. The term "rockabilly" itself is a portmanteau of "rock" and "hillbilly"; the latter is a reference to country music that contributed strongly to the style. Other important influences on rockabilly include western swing, boogie-woogie, jump blues, and electric blues.
Electric blues is blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters in the 1940s. Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, which differed from earlier, predominantly acoustic-style blues. By the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica using a small hand-held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier. Although it took a little longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand-up bass by the early 1960s. Electric organs and especially keyboards later became widely used in electric blues.
Myron Carlton "Tiny" Bradshaw was an American jazz and rhythm and blues bandleader, singer, composer, pianist, and drummer. His biggest hit was "Well Oh Well" in 1950, and the following year he recorded "The Train Kept A-Rollin'", important to the development of rock and roll; he co-wrote and sang on both records.
The Reverend Horton Heat is the stage name of American musician James C. Heath as well as the name of his Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio. Heath is a singer, songwriter and guitarist. A Prick magazine reviewer called Heath the "godfather of modern rockabilly and psychobilly".
James Edward "Snooky" Pryor was an American Chicago blues harmonica player. He claimed to have pioneered the now-common method of playing amplified harmonica by cupping a small microphone in his hands along with the harmonica, although on his earliest records, in the late 1940s, he did not use this method. In 2023, he was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame.
Rod Piazza is an American blues harmonica player and singer. He has been playing with his band The Mighty Flyers, which he formed with his pianist wife Honey Piazza, since 1980. Their boogie sound combines the styles of jump blues, West Coast blues and Chicago blues.
Walter Horton (April 6, 1921 – December 8, 1981), known as Big Walter (Horton) or Walter 'Shakey' Horton, was an American blues harmonica player. A quiet, unassuming, shy man, he is remembered as one of the premier harmonica players in the history of blues. Willie Dixon once called Horton 'the best harmonica player I ever heard'.
James Henry Cotton was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who performed and recorded with many fellow blues artists and with his own band. He also played drums early in his career.
Savoy Brown were an English blues rock band formed in Battersea, south west London, in 1965. Part of the late 1960s blues rock movement, Savoy Brown primarily achieved success in the United States, where they promoted their albums with non-stop touring. Founder, guitarist and primary songwriter Kim Simmonds was the sole constant member of the band from its formation in 1965 until his death in 2022.
Isaiah Ross, known as Doctor Ross, was an American blues musician who usually performed as a one-man band, simultaneously singing and playing guitar, harmonica, and drums. Ross's primal style has been compared to John Lee Hooker, Blind Boy Fuller and Sonny Boy Williamson I.
Malcolm "Papa Mali" Welbourne is an American record producer, guitarist, singer, and songwriter who grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States, and lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.
Omar And The Howlers is a Texas based electric blues and blues rock band, The original Howlers was formed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1973. Three years later they moved to Austin, Texas. The band has regularly toured European countries. Led by singer/guitarist Omar Dykes, they are best known for the 1987 album Hard Times in the Land of Plenty which sold over half a million copies and whose title song was a top 20 hit in America.
Christian Dozzler is an Austrian blues, boogie woogie and zydeco multi-instrumentalist and singer, now based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He plays piano, harmonica, accordion and organ, and writes most of his recorded material. He has been nicknamed "Vienna Slim".
Mitch Woods is an American modern day boogie-woogie, jump blues and jazz pianist and singer. Since the early 1980s he has been touring and recording with his band, the Rocket 88s. Woods calls his music, "rock-a-boogie," and with his backing band has retrospectively provided a 1940s and 1950s jump blues style.
Mark Hummel is an American blues harmonica player, vocalist, songwriter, and long-time bandleader of the Blues Survivors. Since 1991, Hummel has produced the Blues Harmonica Blowout tour, of which he is also a featured performer. The shows have featured blues harmonica players such as James Cotton, Carey Bell, John Mayall and Charlie Musselwhite. Although he is typically identified as performing West Coast blues, Hummel is also proficient in Delta blues, Chicago blues, swing and jazz styles. Hummel also plays with the Golden State Lone Star Revue, Mark Hummel & Deep Basement Shakers, as well as the current edition of the Blues Survivors.
Steve Nardella is an American blues, rock and roll, blues rock and rockabilly guitarist and singer. The Allmusic journalist, Cub Koda, described Nardella as a "strong, American roots-music performer, equally adept at rockabilly and low-down blues".
Walter de Paduwa is a Belgian radio DJ, musician and rock'n'roll historian best known for his association with Canned Heat.
Victor Mac who is better known as Little Victor, The Beale Street Blues Bopper, and also DJ Mojo Man, is an Italian-American blues and roots singer, guitarist and harmonica player, as well as a record collector, musicologist, entertainer, disc jockey and record producer. He is best known for his association with Louisiana Red, on the albums Back To The Black Bayou and Memphis Mojo.
Chicago/The Blues/Today! is a series of three blues albums by various artists. It was recorded in late 1965 and released in 1966. It was remastered and released as a three-disc album in 1999.
