Canned Heat founder Fito de la Parra solves the mystery of the Hooker 'N Heat cover

Canned Heat founding member Adolfo “Fito” de la Parra has confirmed the mystery behind the classic John Lee Hooker and Canned Heat collaboration, the 1971 album ‘Hooker ‘N Heat’.

The album cover featured a framed photo of guitarist and songwriter Alan Wilson and what looked like a doctored photo of guitarist Henry Vestine.

Fito, the only continuous member of Canned Heat since the band started in 1967 tells Noise11.com, “There is a whole story behind the photo session for that album cover. Firstly we hired an old, funky apartment in downtown Los Angeles because we wanted to have that grim aspect to it. We were hurting. Alan Wilson had just died. Alan didn’t even get to hear the record finished. He wasn’t there when we mixed it. He was there for the recording but he died before we mixed it”.

Not only were they missing Alan but Henry didn’t show up for the photo session. “When we took the picture for the cover, Alan wasn’t there. We had to put his picture in a frame but Henry didn’t show up,” Fito says. “I don’t know what happened. I think he got a flat-tyre. He didn’t show up to the photo session at this special apartment that we rented. So Skip Taylor stood there and then later we cropped a picture of Henry onto Skip’s body”.

All of the doctoring was done manually. Remember this was decades before technology allowed you to change an image in a computer. “There was no photo-shopping back then,” Fito said. “It is easy to mess with that today but we are talking 1970. That kind of technology was not around. We got a picture of Henry and cut the face out and put it on that body standing with us with John Lee Hooker and myself”.