henry vestine

Henry Vestine (* 1944/12/25 in Washington) played with The Mothers in the mid-sixties. He was actually hired. His contract is dated nov.15, 1965. He quit the Mothers because he wasn't satisfied with the music he had to play. Later, he played with Canned Heat and with the Vipers. In 1991, Jimmy Carl Black contributed to Vestine's "Guitar Gangster" solo album. Henry Vestine died at the age of 52, while touring, in the neighbourhood of Paris, France. (1997/10/20, Paris, France)

	canned heat: canned heat (1) (1967, lp, usa, liberty) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: boogie with canned heat (2) (1968, lp, usa, liberty) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: living the blues (3) (1968, 2lp, usa, united artists) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: hallelujah (4) (1969, lp, usa, ) - feat.henry vestine, elliot ingber
	canned heat: vintage heat (5) (1970, lp, usa, ???) - feat.henry vestine
	sunnyland slim: slim's got his thing goin' on (1969, lp, usa, ??) - feat.henry vestine
	albert ayler: music is the healing force of the universe (1969, lp, usa, impulse 9191) - feat.henry vestine
	albert ayler: the last album (1969, lp, usa, impulse as 9208) - feat.henry vestine
	john lee hooker & canned heat: hooker 'n heat (8) (1971, 2lp, usa, emi records) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: live at topanga corral (9) (1971, lp, usa, scepter records) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: historical figures and ancient heads (10) (1972, lp, usa, united artists) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: new age (11) (1973, lp, usa, united artists) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: one more river to cross (12) (1974, lp, usa, atlantic) - feat.henry vestine
	clarence "gatemouth" brown: gate's on the heat (1975, lp, usa, ??) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: boogie up the country (18) (1988, cd, usa, in.akustik ) - feat.henry vestine
	john lee hooker: healer (1989, cd, usa, ??) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: live at the turku rock festival finland (20) (1990, cd, usa, bear tracks) - feat.henry vestine
	john lee hooker: ultimate collection (1948:1990) (1991, cd, usa, ??) - feat.henry vestine
	henry vestine: guitar gangster (1991, cd, usa, ??) - feat. jimmy carl black
	various artists: don't mess with austin (compilation) (1992, cd, usa, ??) - feat.henry vestine
	vipers: venom (1993, cd, usa, ??) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: internal combustion (22) (1994, cd, usa, aim records) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: blues band (24) (1997, cd, usa, rowyna ) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: the ties that bind (25) (1998, cd, usa, archive alive) - feat.henry vestine
	canned heat: the boogie house tapes - 1967-1976 (27) (2000, 2cd, usa, ruf records) - feat.henry vestine
72	frank zappa: joe's corsage (2004, cd, usa, vaulternative records)

From: Patrick Neve (splat@darkwing.uoregon.edu)
Influential Guitarist of Canned Heat, blues record collector/revivalist. He was contracted as a member of The Mothers on Nov. 15, 1965. (Source: photocopy of contract). I don't know why it didn't pan out. He lived in Eugene, Oregon through the 80's and 90's, and played a mean guitar with local bands and Canned Heat reunions. His band The Vipers continue to play in and around Eugene.

photo by John Yorke

"Who Are The Brain Police?
The Mothers were rehearsing at a club in Hollywood called 'The Trip'. Henry Vestine was the other guitar player in the band then. Frank came in with a new score he had just written the night before and presented it to us.
Henry took one look at the music and said, "I can't play this shit! I'm quitting an' I'm gonna go join a blues band!"

PARIS (The Associated Press) - Guitarist Henry Vestine of the rock band Canned Heat, best known for its hit "Going Up The Country" and its 1969 performance at Woodstock, has died near Paris. He was 52.
Vestine died on Oct. 20 from heart and respiratory failure in a hotel outside Paris after the band completed a tour of France, said Beth Comstock, a spokeswoman for Tapestry Artists, which represents the group. When other band members went to Vestine's hotel room to pick him up for the flight home, they found him dead, she said. A wake and funeral for Vestine were held Nov. 19 in Eugene, Ore.
Before Vestine died, he asked that his ashes, now buried at Oak Hill Cemetery, eventually be transported to a crater on the dark side of the moon named after his father, a noted astrophysicist.
Born Christmas Day, 1944, Henry "The Sunflower" Vestine joined Canned Heat in 1966 after playing in Frank Zappa's band, The Mothers of Invention.
A passionate collector of blues records, Vestine found his artistic home with Canned Heat, an electric boogie band formed in 1965 by blues fanatics Alan Wilson and Bob Hite, a 300-pound singer nicknamed "The Bear."
Along with "Going Up The Country," the band's biggest hit was "On the Road Again" in 1968. Canned Heat was notable for performing at three of rock 'n' roll's most famous festivals - the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, Woodstock in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in England in 1970.
In a 1995 interview, another Canned Heat guitarist, Junior Watson, described Vestine's trademark angry, buzzing guitar sound as "blues with that kind of obnoxious rock and roll attitude." Canned Heat never recovered as a creative unit after Wilson's death from a drug overdose in 1970. After Hite died in 1981, the group "became nothing more than a name," according to the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll.
Vestine briefly left the group in 1969 to perform with jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler, and returned in 1970. Members of rock group ZZ Top cited Canned Heat as one of their biggest influences.
Vestine is survived by his teenage son, Jesse, a press release issued by Tapestry Artists in Encino, Calif., said.