On the Road Again

There is no artifice whatsoever in this Canned Heat recording — it sounds like field music, like something captured on a front porch rather than constructed in a studio. Alan Wilson's falsetto is reedy and lonesome and utterly distinctive, a voice that seems to belong to an earlier century of American music even as it was being recorded in the late sixties. The harmonica playing is the backbone of the song, wailing and crying over a shuffle rhythm that feels organic and unforced. The tempo is relaxed but never lazy — there's a barely-contained energy underneath, like a train moving at a comfortable speed that could accelerate at any moment. The song draws directly from the deep well of American blues wandering songs, the tradition of movement as both freedom and escape, the open road as both promise and uncertainty. Canned Heat's genius was their deep reverence for that tradition combined with a California looseness that gave even their most faithful performances a slightly psychedelic shimmer around the edges. This is music for actual movement — windows down, no fixed destination, the kind of driving where the drive itself is the point. It asks nothing of you except to keep moving.