Missing Bob Hite

DEATH HAS no mercy. It's a blues line that applies to everyone, naturally, just as it did to Bob Hite, 38, leader and "Bear" extraordinaire of Canned Heat, late last Sunday night after a set in a city club. Taken ill following the finish of the first half of the evening, Hite died in the band's van shortly after. The man went out playing, and while there's little consolation in such a tragic loss of a young musician, there's also a sort of solace in that he played long and suffered little.