I loved " The Canned Heat" but anyone with ears can clearly see this tune was the nuts and bolts of "Going Up The Country". Yes, the guys should have given some credit and mention of Mr. Thomas tune. Knowing Al Wilsons reputation and appreciation of the music, I'm surprised actually.
I wouldn’t mind as long as they give credit where due and paid royalties to anyone who was entitled to royalties, or paid royalties to the next of kin. It still doesn’t detract from the fact that the Canned Heat version is a great music.
@@MurrayJoe I agree that it's great music, but when I realised that Wilson didn't write it...but pretended that he did, it did detract from its "worth" to me...& I'm not alone😁
Credit should be given where credit is due. Good job on digging into this! Have loved Canned Heat version since it came out, but can't say it's better than this original.
when slowing the speed down to 0.75 times, its get close to canned heat s version, and sounds far better with henry thomas than the normal speed, i love it
I saw an interview to the Bear from Canned Heat and he mentioned that he was a collector of old blues records, actually he met Alan Wilson in a music store. He said that all their songs were based on this old blues.
Oh yeah...but in this case, "Bull Doze Blues" was still in copyright control...half the money should be going to the estates of Alan Wilson and Henry Thomas... not just Alan Wilson's estate....so that's the main issue...
Yeah...& at least half of the $$$millions earned in the last 54 years, as the Henry Thomas original was NOT in the public domain in 1968...it was, in fact, still covered by US copyright law protection until 1978....but....as Henry Thomas was dead....no action was taken....
Sure did...and it was actually only about 30 years old at the time of Canned Heat's release in 1969, so it wasn't outside of any 50 year copyright protection too...even if they/he thought it was a "traditional" song, they should've credited it as "Trad arr Alan Wilson"...some people declare that "it's just the blues, derivative of all other standard blues changes etc" ...but that's total BS....just listen to how many consecutive notes are copied...over 40....it's astounding....and the flute melody is the "pop"iest supposed blues tune I've ever heard...not "blues" at all IMHO....(P.S. I always loved Canned Heat..."Future Blues" etc are favourites too, but this and "On The Road Again" are heavily "borrowed"..and at least some credit should have been afforded to the composer/artist Henry Thomas)...
@@LeonThe4th So many rip offs. This one is outrageous. Not quite as blatant but still IMO a copyright violation is the Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun" taken from "Blues in the Closet" by Bud Powell.
@@TonyWesley Oh Yeah!!! Someone steered me to that quite recently....I'd never heard it before...some say "reinvented"...or "borrowed"....or "influenced"....lol....ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Pdwq7WUz2mA.html
Thank you Leon, I came to this video after seeing your explanation of how Canned Heat plagiarised this. Just another example of black artists not receiving credit or loyalties for their talent. Anyway, love this original track!
@@michaelamato2714 You should just Google it! But here's my most recent find...plus Chuck Berry- The Beach Boys, “Surfin’ USA”...but there's WAY too many to list here & Led Zeppelin of course..."In 1972, Willie Dixon argued in court that Led Zeppelin’s “Bring it On Home” sounded way too much like his song…also called “Bring it On Home”. Led Zeppelin was forced to grant Dixon a writing credit for their song. The drama continued in court with Willie Dixon suing Zeppelin again for “Whole Lotta Love”, which he argued was copyright infringement of “You Need Love”, another song written by Dixon and recorded by Muddy Waters. It ended up settled out of court, with Dixon receiving another writing credit with Zeppelin and the band looking like unoriginal thieves. Again.
@@LeonThe4th Hi, I took your advice and Googled it! They call it black-washing, and I also found some "yellow-washing" that happened in the 1960s when Japanese bands stole from the Beach Boys and California surf bands. Bands such as Takeshi Terauchi And The Bunnys, The Rip Chords and especially The Rising Sun Trio. When I first heard these bands, I thought to myself, Geez! That's just not right! Who is paying royalties here? And when I first heard Charlie Pride, I said, boy oh boy, he is stealing the sound of Conway Twitty! But, alas, I guess ALL artists take a bit from others, that's the way the music industry rocks!
@@michaelamato2714 Yeah sure!...styles & sounds have been copied for decades, but stealing a song/tune/melody & calling it your own is vastly different IMHO...When I went to Japan a few times in the early 1990's I was gobsmacked at how many "hit" songs were just pieces of (mostly UK) Western hits strung together...a verse from The Move with a chorus from Paper Lace...that sort of thing was rife....🤯
Yeah!!! Very much a similar melody...and lyrics ...and it's 1927....over a year before "Bull Doze Blues" which added the quills melody...Canned Heat's hit sounds like a composite of the 2 songs...thanks!!!!
You can look at it 2 differnt ways. #1- they ripped the song off (which they did) they should be held accountable, or #2 - They made this original by Henry Thomas popular. I[m 37 and never heard of Henry Thomas, now I'm checking out all of his songs from 1920]
Well ....all of us now being aware of Henry Thomas in 2023... doesn't pay the relatives any money, but if his family had received at least half the earnings from such a big worldwide hit...they would have been better off...maybe significantly better off from all the earnings over the last 50 years....the money for that song's inclusion in "Woodstock" alone would have been a lot of dosh💵💲
Yeah...but ironically, if you were to release a version of it, you'd probably need to stick to the exact 1940 song & steer clear of any copying of Al Wilson's lyrics or there'd be a possible breach of copyright (depending on how much was copied of course)
@@LeonThe4th I'm actually liking the quills played in this version. It would make a great sample. I do like Canned Heat though, I didn't know theirs was a cover, but from what I've seen they seem to have bona fide blues chops (vs that heavy balloon band).
Damn! Blatant theft. No credit given to the original writer and playing it off as your own work is the ultimate dick head move . Jimmy Page is guilty of this as well with Black Mountain Side being a Bert Jansch rip off and Dazed and Confused being a Jake Holmes rip off. He credited himself with both songs on the album and claimed he never heard the original Dazed and Confused!
The original had a singer that doesn't sound like crap. No wonder I always made fun of the canned heat rip off. They robbed this dude and sound like Kermit the frog.
