Alan Christie Wilson (July 4, 1943 – September 3, 1970), nicknamed "Blind Owl", was an American musician, best known as the co-founder, leader, co-lead singer, and primary composer of the blues rock band Canned Heat. He sang and played harmonica and guitar with the group, live and on recordings. Wilson was the lead singer for the group's two biggest U.S. hit singles: "On the Road Again" and "Going Up the Country".
Early years Alan Christie Wilson was born on July 4, 1943, to John (Jack) Wilson, a bricklayer, and Shirley Bingham, an artist. He grew up in the Boston suburb of Arlington, Massachusetts. He had an older sister Darrell. His parents divorced when he was three and both later remarried.
Wilson was highly intelligent, setting him apart from his peers. As a result, he was often bullied by his schoolmates. His father, Jack, was a ham radio operator. Alan became involved with amateur radio as a child but his interest soon turned to music after his stepmother Barbara bought him a jazz record. Some of Wilson's first efforts at performing music publicly came during his teen years when he learned trombone, teaching himself the instrumental parts from the record. Later he formed a jazz ensemble with other musically oriented friends from school, called the Crescent City Hot Five.
Wilson was into traditional New Orleans music, and, later, classical European and Indian music. He was also on the high school tennis team. Eventually, Wilson quit trombone. Around the same time, Wilson began to develop a fascination with blues music after a friend played a Muddy Waters record for him, The Best of Muddy Waters. Inspired by Little Walter, he took up harmonica, and, soon after, the acoustic guitar after hearing a John Lee Hooker record. Some of Wilson's other major influences included Skip James, Robert Johnson, Son House, Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, John Lee Hooker, and Bukka White.
After graduating from Arlington High School in 1961, he majored in music at Boston University. His academics had earned him a National Merit Scholarship and the F.E. Thompson Scholarship Fund from the Town of Arlington. Wilson developed into a dedicated student of early blues, writing a number of articles for the Broadside of Boston newspaper and the folk-revival magazine Little Sandy Review, including a piece on bluesman Robert Pete Williams. Anxious to play music rather than study it, Wilson quit school after only a year and a half. To make ends meet, Wilson worked with his father as a bricklayer, and occasionally gave harmonica and guitar lessons.
Career In 1962, Wilson met Harvard student and fellow blues enthusiast David Evans in a record store, and the two began playing as a team around the Cambridge coffeehouse folk-blues circuit, with Evans on vocals and guitar, and Wilson on harmonica and occasionally second guitar. The two played a repertoire of mostly classic-era blues covers. Heavily influenced by Skip James, Wilson eventually began singing in a similar way to James' high pitch. In high school, Wilson studied James' 1931 recordings with great ardor. Some of his first singing attempts took place behind a closed bedroom door; and when a family member overheard him, he was embarrassed. Wilson eventually perfected the distinctive falsetto for which he would become known.
The early 1960s saw a "rediscovery" of pre-war blues artists by young, white blues enthusiasts, including James, Mississippi John Hurt, Bukka White, and Son House. In 1964, blues enthusiast Tom Hoskins located Hurt, who at the time had been working on a local farm in his native Mississippi. Hoskins persuaded Hurt to come north to Cambridge for a gig. Wilson was invited to accompany Hurt on harmonica. Said Hoskins, "He was brilliant."
House, considered by Wilson to be one of the greatest singers in blues history, was located in Rochester, New York, in 1964, but it was evident that House had forgotten his songs due to his long absence from music. Wilson played House's old recordings from 1930 and 1943 for him and demonstrated them on guitar to revive House's memory. House recorded Father of Folk Blues for Columbia Records in 1965. Two of the selections on the set featured Wilson on harmonica and guitar. In a letter to Jazz Journal, published in the September 1965 issue, House's manager Dick Waterman remarked the following about Wilson and the project:
It is a solo album, except for backing on two cuts by a 21-year-old White boy from Cambridge by the name of Al Wilson. Al plays second guitar on "Empire State Express" and harp on "Levee Camp Moan." Al never recorded before, but he has backed John Hurt, Skip James, Sleepy John Estes, Bukka White and many others. He is good, and the record will prove it.Jazz Journal, published September, 1965
Al Wilson taught Son House how to play Son House. I can tell you, flatly, that without Al invigorating and revitalizing Son, there would have been no Son House rediscovery. All of Son's successful concert appearances, recordings and him being remembered as having a great second career—all that was because of Al rejuvenating his music.
Canned Heat During his time performing in Cambridge, Wilson met the American guitarist John Fahey, the "Father of American Primitive Guitar". With Fahey's encouragement, Wilson moved with Fahey to Los Angeles in 1965 with the aim of having Wilson assist with his UCLA master's thesis on Charley Patton. Because Wilson forgot his glasses during the trip, Fahey gave him the nickname "Blind Owl" owing to his extreme nearsightedness, roundish facial features and scholarly nature. In one instance, when he was playing at a wedding, he laid his guitar on the wedding cake because he did not see it. As Canned Heat's drummer Fito de la Parra wrote in his book: "Without the glasses, Alan literally could not recognize the people he played with at two feet, that's how blind the 'Blind Owl' was."
Once in Los Angeles, Fahey released The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death. Wilson provided the liner notes under the pseudonym of "Charles Holloway". In 1966, Wilson recorded a series of traditional Indian ragas on Fahey's Takoma label but that set was not issued. Four of Wilson's ragas later appeared as the nine-part soundscape "Parthenogenesis" on Canned Heat's third album, Living the Blues. A portion of "Raga Kafi" is performed on the chromatic harmonica. Fahey's 1992 album Old Girlfriends and Other Horrible Memories features more of "Raga Kafi" in "Fear & Loathing at 4th & Butternut", although Wilson was not credited.Davis, Rebecca (2013). Blind Owl Blues: The Mysterious Life and Death of Blues Legend Alan Wilson. Blind Owl Blues. pp. 62–63. ISBN 978-0-615-79298-9
In Los Angeles, Wilson met fellow blues enthusiast and record collector Bob "The Bear" Hite at a record store. Together they founded Canned Heat in 1965. The band's name was taken from Tommy Johnson's 1928 song "Canned Heat Blues", about an alcoholic who turned to drinking the cooking fuel Sterno. Originally beginning as a jug band, Canned Heat initially consisted of Hite on vocals, Wilson on bottleneck guitar, Mike Perlowin on lead guitar, Stu Brotman on bass, and Keith Sawyer on drums. The group landed gigs at the Ash Grove in Hollywood, and, after Perlowin dropped out, Hite invited his friend Henry "The Sunflower" Vestine, from Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, to join on guitar.
Johnny Otis produced the group's first full-length album in 1966. It featured Hite, Wilson, Vestine, Brotman, and new drummer Frank Cook in Otis's studio just off Vine Street in Los Angeles. The record was not released until 1970, and Vintage, as it was titled, has since become the most repackaged and bootlegged record in Canned Heat's discography. Over a summer hiatus, Brotman left Canned Heat and was replaced by Larry "The Mole" Taylor, an experienced session musician who had played with Jerry Lee Lewis and The Monkees.
Canned Heat's first year was marked by infrequent gigs and public indifference. Wilson later told Melody Maker, "The first year we were together, we worked for three weeks. We'd get a gig, play three days and get fired ... because we refused to be a human jukebox." After a particularly disastrous engagement, the group briefly disbanded in August 1966. Wilson and Vestine moved on to join the Electric Beavers, an ensemble featuring a full horn section. The band lasted for a short time on a rehearsal basis only. Canned Heat re-formed in November 1966. During a gig at the Ash Grove, Canned Heat earned the attention of singer-songwriter Jackie DeShannon, who was married to the head of A&R at Liberty Records, Bud Dain.
In July 1967, the band released their first album, Canned Heat, featuring reworkings of older blues songs, for Liberty Records. Their first big live performance was on June 17, 1967, at the Monterey Pop Festival, where they performed renditions of "Rollin and Tumblin", "Bullfrog Blues", and "Dust My Broom". DownBeat praised the band's performance: "Technically, Vestine and Wilson are quite possibly the best two-guitar team in the world and Wilson has certainly become our finest white blues harmonica man."
Wilson wrote and sang the band's break-out hit, "On the Road Again", an updated version of a 1950s composition by Floyd Jones, on the band's second album, Boogie with Canned Heat. In an interview with DownBeat, Wilson remarked, "...on 'On the Road Again' I appear in six different capacities – three tamboura parts, harmonica, vocal, and guitar, all recorded at different times." "On the Road Again" peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100, and at number 8 on the UK singles charts, which signified the band's popularity in Europe. Drummer Frank Cook left the band in December 1967 and was replaced by Adolfo "Fito" de la Parra.
Canned Heat's third album, Living the Blues, included the band's best-known song, also sung by Wilson, "Going Up the Country". The song, an incarnation of Henry Thomas' "Bull-Doze Blues", was rewritten by Wilson and caught the "back to nature" attitude of the late 1960s. The tune was a hit in numerous countries around the world, peaking at number 11 in the US. The "rural hippie anthem" became the unofficial theme song for the Woodstock Festival where Canned Heat performed at sunset on August 16, 1969. Although Canned Heat's live performance was cut from the original theatrical release of the Woodstock film, they were featured in the 25th-anniversary "Director's Cut". The studio version of "Going Up the Country" was featured in the Woodstock film; and in recent years has been heard in television commercials for Geico Insurance, Subaru, and Pepsi.
Around this time, Wilson became disillusioned with Canned Heat and considered quitting the band on several occasions. Upset over Vestine's departure in July 1969 and becoming more averse to touring, Wilson expressed the possibility of still recording but not touring with the band. Wilson arranged to join Vestine's new band Sunn, and Frank Cook's group Pacific Gas and Electric; however, both options fell through. Eventually, Wilson ended up leaving Canned Heat for about two weeks in late 1969 and again shortly before his death in 1970. But each time, he felt guilty and decided to return and tour again. His increasing isolation became obvious, as footage of the band at this time showed Wilson standing apart from his bandmates, and often hiding behind rows of amps.Davis, Rebecca (2013). Blind Owl Blues: The Mysterious Life and Death of Blues Legend Alan Wilson. page 225. ISBN 978-0-615-79298-9.