Which Californian blues-influenced boogie rock band of the 1960's took their name from the title of a Tommy Johnson blues hit of 1928 that told the story of an alcoholic who had desperately turned to drinking cooking fuel?
Tommy Johnson (musician) near Drew, Mississippi, close to the Dockery Plantation. There he met other musicians, including Charlie Patton and Willie Brown. By 1920 Johnson was an alcoholic and an itinerant musician, based in Crystal Springs but traveling widely around the South, sometimes accompanied by Papa Charlie McCoy. In 1928 he made his first recordings, with McCoy, for Victor Records, including "Canned Heat Blues", in which he sang of drinking methanol from the cooking fuel Sterno. The song features the refrain "canned heat, mama, sure, Lord, killing me." The blues group Canned Heat took their name from this song. Johnson's "Big Road Blues"
The Boss of the Blues The Boss of the Blues The Boss of the Blues is a 1956 album by the American blues shouter Big Joe Turner. Originally released on the Atlantic label, the album has been reissued many times on cassette and CD by Atlantic, Rhino and Collectables. From the 1920s through the 1930s, Turner and boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson enjoyed a successful and highly influential collaboration that, following their appearance at Carnegie Hall on December 23, 1938, helped launch a craze for boogie-woogie in the United States. After the pair separated, Turner continued to experience cross-genre musical success, establishing himself as one of