Today marks the 40ieth anniversary of bluesman Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson’s suicide in Topanga Canyon, California, on Bob Hite’s property. Blind Owl is an oft-forgotten member of the fabled 27 Club and his death marked the first of three 27s over the course of the fall of 1970; Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix were to follow.

Alan Wilson grew up in a Boston suburb and studied music at Boston University. From an early age he was, using a contemporary label, an ardent conservationist and environmentalist. Out of all the musicians who played Monterey in ’67 or Woodstock in ’69, Wilson truly held nature sacred, both in actions and in words. Canned Heat’s Future Blues record included a short plead in the gate-fold where Alan Wilson urged people to save his beloved California Redwoods from extinction. At the time, logging posed a huge threat to the last swaths of these primeval, majestic forests.

Instead of sleeping in hotels while on tour, Blind Owl preferred to roll out his sleeping bag in nearby fields and spend the early morning hours collecting samples that he’d stuff in a huge botany book that he liked to travel with.

When it came to playing music, Blind Owl’s chops on the harmonica and guitar, be it acoustic, electric or slide, was in a sense unrivaled. He possessed an in-depth knowledge of all forms of the blues and a true blues scholar. During the Hooker N Heat sessions, which took place shortly before his death, he proved seasoned enough to follow John Lee Hooker’s odd beats every step of the way. You can hear Hooker mutter in amazement that the pale, bespectacled kid always seemed to know where the old master was going. “You musta been listenin’ to my records all your life!” Hooker says. But Hooker was just one of many masters whose style Alan Wilson knew intimately. Six years earlier, in 1964, Wilson taught Son House, who had long retired from music, to play the songs House had recorded back in the 1930s.

While Alan Wilson’s chops were top-notch, he suffered with severe and chronic mental illness. His bandmates in Canned Heat provided support, but probably not the kind of stability someone like Wilson needed. He had already attempted suicide a couple of times before he did himself in with a handful of reds and a bottle of gin.

During the research for The 27s–The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll, manager and friend Skip Taylor told us that when he discovered Alan’s body, the musician finally looked peaceful and happy.

Wilson’s songs and music live on through “On the Road Again” and “Up In the Country,” but his talent covers obviously much more than the famous hits. Seek out his work with John Fahey, the aforementioned Son House and John Lee Hooker, as well as “Five Owls” and “Raga Kafi” from Living the Blues‘s trippy “Parthenogenesis.” Yup, that’s Wilson on the hypnotic sitar.

Skip Taylor is currently shopping around a “solo” record that features released and unreleased Alan Wilson material with and without Canned Heat. We’re not holding our breath for this one, but hope it’ll be released sometime in the not-so-distant future.

Be sure to listen to the Stephen Stills clip below where he dedicates “Blues Man” to our tragic guitar hero.

Robert Johnson

Born: May 8, 1911, in Hazlehurst, Mississippi
Died: August 16, 1938, in Greenwood, Mississippi

Robert Johnson lived and died in relative obscurity. He was a rootless, restless, sly, street-smart, womanizing, whiskey-drinking hobo with a guitar and a gifted ability to pick up and synthesize the music he heard in juke joints and from records and radio. He played mills and barrooms and is only known to have recorded 29 tracks over two recording sessions, yet his music helped father rock & roll.

A 1961 release titled King of The Delta Blues Singers bore the painting of a faceless man hunched over his guitar—none of the two known photographs of Robert Johnson had surfaced (not until 1986 and 1989). Robert Johnson sounded primal, sang with lived passion about dark meetings at crossroads, love in vain and hellhounds on his trail, and died from poisoning under strange circumstances. Robert Johnson is an enigma and an amalgam elevated by white rockers to the pantheon as a mysterious folkloric hero. When alive, Robert Johnson was never the King of The Delta—just a talented minstrel—but his influence makes him the grandfather of rock.

An assorted collection of artists who have covered the songs of Robert Johnson include (in no particular order) The Rolling Stones, Canned Heat, Cream, the Blues Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ry Cooder, Eric Clapton, Cowboy Junkies, John Hammond, Peter Green, Cassandra Wilson, the Radiators, Fleetwood Mac, ZZ Top, Freddie King, Elmore James, Asylum Street Spankers, George Thorogood & the Destroyers, Keb ‘Mo’, Walter Trout Band, Lucinda Williams, Rocky Lawrence, Rory Block, Pyeng Threadgill, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Chris Thomas King, the Jeff Healy Band, Pussy Galore, White Stripes, Foghat, Status Quo, Johnny Shines, Roy Rogers, Led Zeppelin, Muddy Waters, Bonnie Raitt, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Grateful Dead, and Widespread Panic.

Alan C. Wilson (“Blind Owl”)

Born: July 3, 1943, near Boston, Massachusetts
Died: September 3, 1970, in Topanga Canyon, California
Bands and affiliations: Canned Heat, Son House, John Lee Hooker, John Fahey

The least glamorous of The 27s, Alan Wilson was more than anything a pure and frail human being, a blues scholar, a great harmonica player, and a guitar player with a solid foundation in Delta blues. Raised in Boston, Alan left for California to help John Fahey with his thesis. Fahey gave Alan the nickname “Blind Owl,” due to his coke-bottom glasses, and introduced him to Bob “The Bear” Hite, another record collector. Together with Henry Vestine, a Mothers of Invention alum, the trio formed Canned Heat in 1966.

Canned Heat started out as a purveyor of the Delta blues tradition, but got caught up with the psychedelic ’60s and added more of a contemporary spin to their boogie. The Bear had a gravelly voice, while Alan sang with a high-pitched, often tortured lilt. Although Canned Heat is now largely forgotten (the band still tours with one member from the golden age, Fito de la Parra) it was one of the more popular bands of the late 1960s. Canned Heat headlined both the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock and the group’s songs pop up in movie soundtracks and commercials.

Struggling with chronic depression, Alan Wilson overdosed in Bear’s backyard on the eve of departure for a German festival that also marked one of Jimi Hendrix’s last performances.

BlindOwl.net