"Going Up the Country"
Single by Canned Heat
from the album Living the Blues
B-side"One Kind Favor"
ReleasedNovember 22, 1968 (1968-11-22)
RecordedAugust 6–7, 1968
StudioI.D. Sound Recorders, Hollywood, California
GenreBlues rock[1]
Length2:50
LabelLiberty
Songwriter(s)Alan Wilson (see text)
Producer(s)Canned Heat, Skip Taylor
Canned Heat singles chronology
"On the Road Again"
(1968) 		"Going Up the Country"
(1968) 		"Time Was"
(1969)

"Going Up the Country" (also "Goin' Up the Country") is a song adapted and recorded by American blues rock band Canned Heat. Called a "rural hippie anthem",[2] it became one of the band's biggest hits and best-known songs.[3] As with their previous single, "On the Road Again", the song was adapted from a 1920s blues song and sung by Alan Wilson.

Background and composition

Canned Heat, who were early blues enthusiasts, based "Going Up the Country" on "Bull Doze Blues", recorded in 1928 by Texas bluesman Henry Thomas.[4] Thomas was from the songster tradition and had a unique sound,[5] sometimes accompanying himself on quills, an early Afro-American wind instrument similar to panpipes. He recorded "Bull Doze Blues" in Chicago on June 13, 1928, for Vocalion Records.[6]

For "Going Up the Country", Canned Heat's Wilson used Thomas' melody on the quills and his basic rhythm, but arranged it for a rock setting and rewrote the lyrics. In addition to the bass and drum rhythm section, Henry Vestine supplied a "light electric rhythm guitar"[4] and multi-instrumentalist Jim Horn reproduced Thomas' quill parts on the flute.[7]

Although linked to the counterculture of the 1960s' back-to-the-land movement, Wilson's lyrics are ambiguous, leading some to suggest they were about evading the draft during the Vietnam War by moving to Canada:[8]

Now, baby, pack your leaving trunk, you know we've got to leave today
Just exactly where we're going, I cannot say, but we might even leave the U.S.A.
'Cause there's a brand new game that I don't wanna play

Releases and charts

In October 1968, Liberty Records first released "Going Up the Country" on Canned Heat's third album, Living the Blues, and followed it with a single on November 22, 1968.[9] The single peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on January 25, 1969, making it the band's best showing on the main U.S. chart.[10] On January 6, 1969, the song reached number 5 on the Canadian RPM charts,[11] and on January 7, 1969, the song peaked at number 19 on the UK Singles Chart.[12]

The song appears on several Canned Heat compilation albums, including Canned Heat Cookbook, Let's Work Together: The Best of Canned Heat (1989) and Uncanned! The Best of Canned Heat (1994).[9] The group performed "Going Up the Country" at the Woodstock music festival in August 1969 and the song is used in the Woodstock film[2] and appears on the original soundtrack album.[13]

References

  1. ^ Perone, James E. (15 February 2019). Listen to the Blues! Exploring a Musical Genre. ABC-CLIO. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-4408-6615-9.
  2. ^ a b Planer, Lindsay. "Canned Heat: Living the Blues – Review". AllMusic. Retrieved November 18, 2013.
  3. ^ Pearson, Barry Lee (1996). "Canned Heat". In Erlewine, Michael (ed.). All Music Guide to the Blues: The Experts' Guide to the Best Blues Recordings. All Music Guide to the Blues. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. ISBN 0-87930-424-3.
  4. ^ a b Greenwald, Matthew. "Canned Heat: 'Going Up the Country' – Review". AllMusic. Retrieved November 18, 2013.
  5. ^ Shadwick, Keith (2007). "Henry "Ragtime" Thomas". The Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues. London: Quantum Publishing. p. 411. ISBN 978-0-681-08644-9.
  6. ^ Vocalion no. 1230
  7. ^ The flute in the album version and single version differ slightly; in one version, the third note is held for only a moment, while in the other, it is held for two or three seconds.
  8. ^ Glatz, Paul Benedikt (2021). Vietnam's Prodigal Heroes: American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. p. 27. ISBN 978-1793616708.
  9. ^ a b Russo, Greg (1994). Uncanned! The Best of Canned Heat (CD set booklet). Canned Heat. New York City: EMI Records/Liberty Records. p. 23. 7243 8 29165 2 9.
  10. ^ "Canned Heat: Chart History – Hot 100". Billboard.com. Retrieved January 25, 2022.
  11. ^ "The RPM 100" (PDF). RPM. Vol. 10, no. 19. January 6, 1969. p. 5. ISSN 0315-5994.
  12. ^ "Canned Heat – Singles". Official Charts. Retrieved May 21, 2018.
  13. ^ Jurek, Thom. "Various Artists: Woodstock – Review". AllMusic. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
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