Canned Heat is an American blues/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965.
The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material
as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of 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
Monterey and Woodstock, at the end of the 1960s the band acquired
worldwide fame with a lineup consisting of Bob Hite, vocals, Alan
Wilson, guitar, harmonica and vocals, Henry Vestine (or Harvey Mandel)
on lead guitar, Larry Taylor on bass, and Adolfo de la Parra on drums.