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Canned Heat: Live At Topanga Corral

Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 5 June 1976

WHITE PLAGIARISTS almost killed the blues as a vital force in popular music. The perpetual rip-off of Elmore James' phrases, and the piquant cries of John Lee Hooker, B. B. King et al rendered them trite and meaningless, the butt of satirists and cynics. But the blues boom of the mid-Sixties was founded on a genuine enough passion and enthusiasm for the blues.

Total word count of piece: 349

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