When I was but a wee lad in the mid 70s, my indoctrination to pop music was WLS-89 in Chicago, a top forty station (as I'm sure will come up at some point in this weekly feature, I still have quite an affinity for old top forty songs). As I hit my later teen years, my indoctrination to the fact that there was a lot of good music not being played on WLS was the film from the Woodstock concerts (and Rolling Stone, back in the day when it was still a music magazine). And the first song I fell in love with was, naturally, a poppish little hit by the band Canned Heat called "Going Up the Country."
Released in 1968 on the band's Living the Blues album (and featured since on about 9000 60s' compilations), the song has become the unofficial anthem of Woodstock and was Canned Heat's highest charting single (#11 with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was based on an old blues number called "Bull Doze Blues" by Henry Thomas that the band reworked and rewrote and turned into a magical piece of 60s' history. It features an infectious countertenor (yes, I had to look that one up) vocal by Alan Wilson, a guitar sound that can best be described as circular, free-spirited lyrics, and of all things, the catchiest flute--yes, a flute--playing you're ever likely to hear in a rock song.
And who wouldn't want to go where the water tastes like wine?
Enjoy:
Peace,
emaycee
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