Join Fito de la Parra, producer and drummer of Canned Heat, for a wild ride in a world of Music, Drugs, Death, Sex and Survival in his autobiography ''Living The Blues''.

     Find out what happened to the world-famous band when Woodstock was over and the '60s ran out. Discover how Fito survived the wildly eccentric, deliberately chaotic and fabulously excessive lifestyle of a rock star to become one of today's most important artists interpreting the blues.

     The Third Edition of Living The Blues will be released in 2009. We are currently working on a Spanish Translation as well.
 
     Filled with over 100 rare and collectable photographs and artwork images from the '60s, '70s and '80s, it is available through the Merchandise Page.

   REVIEWS:

       "Fantastic read. Tales of the best white blues boogie band from Viet Nam to Venice. Captures the true flavour of the era.”
     - Eric Burdon, rock'n'roll legend

       "Riveting reading... Canned Heat's story is one wild ride."
     - All Book Guide

       "Fito pounds out a story like a boogie beat on the drums, a gripping tale that captures the spirit of the biker and blues worlds." - Dana Traxel, President Hells Angels of San Fernando Valley

       "Canned Heat were once one of the most popular musical acts on the planet... 'Ill-fated' doesn't begin to cover the blues-rock legends' bad luck... (But they) are now enjoying their most commercially successful period in a quarter-century." - London Daily Telegraph

       "As long as de la Parra is alive, the spirit of Canned Heat will never die."
       - George Thorogood, blues-rock legend

       "A rare first-hand insight into life in a popular band from the sixties to the present...
Good reading." - David Evans, Music Professor University of Memphis

       "Repugnant!" - Sonja, Ex-wife

     The German edition of Living The Blues is available through Ruf Records website. Click the cover to go directly to Ruf and order!

   REVIEW:

     '''Living The Blues' straight became my No.1 music biography - and believe me, I've read many of those. A definite Must Buy for anyone who wants to get to know the truth about life on the road and the merciless music biz. This book offers a deep view into the hearts & souls of the musicians as well as an authentic and honest report of a band which survived the psychedelic 60's, the rocking 70's, the waved 80's and the over-technological 90's - well prepared to take the Boogie into the new century. The true story is told in an entertaining manner including a lot of macabre humour (probably that's what you need at most to be able to still carry on after being on the road more than 35 years).

                                 'Once you got the Boogie you will never lose it.'

         How true. Thank you, Fito. I love you, bro!
     - Gabi - friend, music addict & (too) idealistic music(ians) supporter

     The French edition of the book has been released in France under the publishing company Beach Com Press. You can visit their website (In French) to obtain a copy by clicking on the picture to the left, go directly to the website :

     It was translated by Beniot Herr, and will be available to the public in January of 2007.

   MORE REVIEWS:

     "Motorcycles - the odd combination of BMWs and Harleys - play a key role in this rock’n’roll story, the autobiography of Fito de la Parra, drummer for the legendary blues band Canned Heat. De la Parra was there when the band hit the heights at Woodstock, and sold albums by the million, then hung on and kept the band going in the decades of ruin and death that followed. Here is the strange tale of the era when the band was managed by the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club, making one of the first rock videos with outlaw motorcyclists writing and producing. And de la Parra’s lifelong devotion to BMW motorcycles, from the time he was a struggling teenage musician in Mexico City, to the present day when a BMW is the magic machine that carries him to a crucial decision.”
                                                                                                     - Whitehorse Press

       READ A BIT out of the book

       With the heading "Canned Heat's drummer relives Denver bust. Book blames corrupt cops for planting drugs on the powerful boogie band" the following out-take from Fito's book was published at http://www.putnampit.com/blues.html:

       Even though it was hard work playing with three bands, I was living my dream.
       I joined the musician's union. I'm making money. I'm a straight-arrow, who's in love with his wife. I have my brand new muscle car, a Pontiac Firebird 400. What more could a man want?

       It was at this point that Frank Cook was starting to pull away from Canned Heat. It seems that the other band members, especially Bob [Hite, the band's singer] and Larry [Taylor, the bass player], wanted a drummer with more of a rhythm and blues orientation than Frank, who was really into jazz. By now, the band was far better known, for reasons good and bad. In the spring of 1967, it came out with its first Liberty album called "Canned Heat," which had an orange cover showing the band around a table littered with Sterno cans. It didn't contain any original material, relying on blues classics like Muddy Waters' "Rollin' and Tumblin'", Willie Dixon's "Evil Is Going On," Elmore James' "Dust My Broom" and Sonny Boy Williamson's "Help Me". It wasn't a big seller but received rave reviews from authoritative critics like Pete Welding in Down Beat.

       In June, the band appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival, establishing the group as LA's answer to Paul Butterfield's Blues Band in Chicago and England's Bluesbreakers, also pioneer white interpreters of black blues.
       The festival was small by today's standards, only about 35,000 spectators, but it established a new wave of bands as the standard bearers for a cultural revolution. Up there on the same stage with Alan [Wilson] and [Bob] The Bear [Hite] were Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, the Animals and Jefferson Airplane.

       Down Beat magazine featured Canned Heat on the cover of its festival issue and the band took off. The band appeared at the Avalon Ballroom, where owner Chet Helms had a helper, a quiet young Jewish guy who collected tickets and swept the floor. His name was Bill Graham and he went on to found a music empire based on the legendary Fillmore ballrooms in San Francisco and New York, command posts of the '60s rock movement. Helms booked Canned Heat into The Family Dog, his new place in Denver, setting the stage for a drama that gave the band one of its best known songs and also saddling it with a financial burden that would have repercussions for decades.

       The Denver police hated the idea of a hippie haven in their city and had done all they could to stop the club from opening. Nothing worked. Helms was way too smooth for them and met all legal requirements. When the club finally opened, Helms and his people were subjected to a barrage of harassment and illegal searches. This prompted them to get a restraining order against John Grey, the rabidly anti-drug detective also known as the "Wyatt Earp of the West" for his promise: "I'm going to rid Denver of all long haired people".
       It was Canned Heat's bad luck to show up just as the police figured they'd get one of the bands and the bad press and legal troubles would slop over on Helms. On Saturday night October 21, 1967, the police dispatched a stool-pigeon with some weed to Canned Heat's hotel to socialize a little and get the band high. The Bear swore that the band members (knowing the city's reputation) actually didn't have drugs with them that night.
       It turned out the stool-pigeon was an old friend of Bob's -- Bear grew up in Denver -- so he trusted the guy, until he suddenly slid out the door and the cops came barging in to "discover" a lid of grass under the cushion of the chair where the "friend" had been sitting. They arrested everybody on charges of marijuana possession -- still a big offense in those days.
       Skip, the one guy who did have drugs, wasn't there. He was in his room with a girl, but the cops went after him to arrest him anyway.
       "You with that band?" asked the cop who knocked on the door.
       "Uh, yeah," said Skip, who was wrapped in a blanket from the bed. His girl was in a sheet.
       Standing on his night stand wrapped in tin foil was a flat chunk of rich dark brown Afghani hashish: it looked like a Hershey's bar. "You're going to have to come with us and the rest of the band", the cop said. As they left, the cop said to the girl: "Sorry to bother you with this ma'am. But you can finish that chocolate bar all alone."
       The only real dope in the place -- except him -- and he missed it.

       The band was hauled off to jail after the search. A judge was not available to set bail until Monday, so the boys spent the weekend in the can. Larry -- who never got high -- was thrown in a tank with 50 drunks and no sleeping facilities. The bust was immortalized in "My Crime", which tells the story best.

                           I went to Denver late last fall
                           I went to do my job; I didn't break any law
                           We worked in a hippie place
                           Like many in our land
                           They couldn't bust the place, and so they got the band
                           'Cause the police in Denver
                           No they don't want long hairs hanging around
                           And that's the reason why
                           They want to tear Canned Heat's reputation down.

       To a reporter at the time, The Bear said: "To sing the blues, you have to be an outlaw. Blacks are born outlaws, but we white people have to work for that distinction."

       Being led away in handcuffs, kicked off the band's image as the bad boys of rock, heavy-duty incorrigibles, which eventually led to our becoming a favorite band of the Hells Angels and other outlaw biker clubs. At the moment, the band was on the downside of the outlaw life.

       Skip was desperate. He had a band that was far from a sure thing but was suddenly hot. Unless they could follow up, they might get cold just as quickly. Unfortunately, they couldn't play anywhere because they were in jail.
       In a gin rummy game in Los Angeles with Al Bennet, President of Liberty Records, Skip mentioned that he had to get $10,000 right away. Bennet, a shrewd businessman, offered him that much for the publishing rights to the band's works and Skip grabbed at it.
       That sprung the band, but at the price of publishing rights that would be worth millions in the years to come. It was the start of a chain of events that created a band that rode a powerful wave of popularity in the rock explosion of the late '60s, but was always just one gig away from being broke. It was only six months later that the "Boogie with Canned Heat" album hit the stores with "On The Road Again", which became a worldwide hit.
       To this day, the band has not received a penny of the publishing rights for that song, a song that shows up regularly in TV commercials as a way of instantly creating the aura of the vanished '60s.

       This was the band I was so thrilled to get a chance to join. I just didn't know, and wouldn't learn for years, that it was already a band that was crippled financially by the same offstage life that fed its music and its fame.

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