Boogie Music & Them Mean Old Biker Blues
Boogie music & them mean old Biker Blues
LEANINGS
Peter Egan
GOT A PACKAGE IN THE MAIL LAST WEEK, containing a paperback book with a letter enclosed.
The letter was from a man named Fito de la Parra, who explained that he’d enjoyed a touring story I did recently for our sister publication, Motorcycle Travel & Adventure, about looking for the roots of the blues in the Mississippi Delta on a Triumph Bonneville.
De la Parra wrote, “Hell, I should have done that ride. Maybe I still will.”
He then went on to explain that he was a drummer for a Sixties blues band that’s still going strong, and said, “From the gray in your beard in the photos, you look old enough to remember my band, Canned Heat.”
The book he’d included was his autobiography, Living the Blues: Canned Heat’s Story of Music, Drugs, Death, Sex and Survival, co-written with T.W. and Mariane McGarry (available from Whitehorse Press, www.whitehorsepress.com).
Well, Mr. de la Parra got it right. Not only am I old enough to remember Canned Heat, but I’ve been a huge fan of the band ever since I heard their first hits, “Going Up the Country,” “Let’s Work Together,” and “On the Road Again” in the late Sixties.
Our own garage blues band, The Defenders, does several Canned Heat songs (imitating them as best we can manage) and we still listen to the originals over our PA. system for inspiration. 1 love their sound, and de la Parra’s superb drumming.
So, of course, I’ve been reading his book all week, and have been pleased to find that motorcycles figure heavily into de la Parra’s life.
He grew up in a well-do-do family in Mexico City, falling in love with motorcycles and American rock & roll at an early age. An outstanding drummer right from the beginning, he worked with a series of nationally famous and well-paid Mexican rock bands, and immediately went out and bought himself a new Triumph Bonneville, after seeing Marlon Brando in The Wild One.
He writes, “...just as rock music had become an instant passion for me, I realized that motorcycling was going to be a part of my life forever. I was so jazzed, I actually slept next to the bike for the first few nights.”
Old Triumphs, however, did not remain a part of his life forever. The Bon-
neville-his only transportation-broke down so often he frequently missed gigs, and also affected his love life: “My dates often ended with angry, oil-splattered girls snarling at me by the roadside...”
So he sold the Triumph and bought a BMW R60, which gave him no trouble and started a lifelong affair with BMW Boxers. In fact, there’s a picture of his entire Mexican band, Los Sinners, sitting on a row of Beemers.
After that, the book is filled with photos of de la Parra and other members of Canned Heat posing with their bikes. Their late, great singer, Bob “The Bear” Hite, was a Harley nut, always working on old Panheads, while de la Parra appears with ever-newer BMWs.
The band’s hard-driving boogie music and wild ways earned them a big following among bikers, and it seems to have been biker bars and parties that sustained them during the dark Disco Years, when work was hard to come by.
As one who shares de la Parra’s dual passions for motorcycles and blues music, it has always been interesting to me to observe how often these two interests coalesce. Riding bikes and a taste for the purer, less adulterated strains of American music-blues, rock and traditional country-just seem to go together.
Buddy Holly and Elvis went right out and bought new motorcycles with their first big earnings, as professional musicians have ever since. Most of the Allman
Brothers Band were riders (two were killed on Sportsters in accidents that were one year-and one block-apart), and then you have Bob Dylan, John Hammond, J. Geils, Lyle Lovett and so on. You could probably fill this column with nothing but a list of famous musicians who ride.
Even in our own little six-man blues band, no fewer than four of us are lifelong riders and current Ducati owners. In fact, we threatened to throw both our harmonica and bass player out of the group if they didn’t buy red Ducatis and learn to ride, but we then remembered they are two of the best musicians in the band and backed off on this possibly extravagant demand.
Sadly, our own drummer, Paul Roberts, crashed his Ducati 900SS two months ago, breaking many bones, and has been in the hospital ever since. He spent the night unconscious in a
ditch and only survived because a jogger heard his labored breathing while running along the highway early the next morning. Paul and his bike were both invisible from the road, hidden in the tall grass. He’s in rehab now, doing very well, and we hope to be playing together again soon.
I’m not quite sure what the link is between riding bikes and a passion for good traditional music, but at times it seems almost like two halves of the same gene. Our motorcycle club, the Slimey Crud Motorcycle Gang, is filled with guys who have (by my exacting and weird standards) perfect taste in music. Not a Lite Music fan in the bunch, and there are no bad tunes played at our parties, ever.
Maybe motorcyclists like to fly a little closer to the flame than the average civilian, and the soundtrack for that attitude toward life tends to exclude bland and risk-free music.
In any case, I see in the paper that Canned Heat is playing at our local Madison Blues Festival next month. Looks like I might finally get to see these guys play; I never did, being in Vietnam during their Woodstock period, when they were touring a lot.
And maybe our band can spring Paul out of the hospital and take him along to the festival for a little musical rehab.
As The Bear used to say at the end of every concert, shaking his finger at the audience like someone giving stern medical counsel, “And don’t forget to boogie!”
Sound advice. □
