Robert Lucas, Canned Heat Singer, Dies at 46
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 25, 2008

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Lucas, who until recently fronted the blues rock band Canned Heat and was known for his barrelhouse vocals, died Sunday at a friend’s home in Long Beach, Calif. He was 46.

The cause was an apparent drug overdose, his former manager Skip Taylor said.

Beginning in 1994, Mr. Lucas, one of four frontmen for Canned Heat over the years, had two stints as lead singer, harmonica and bottleneck guitar player for the band.

Canned Heat, a Los Angeles blues and boogie band, was formed in 1965 and had hits like “Going Up the Country” and “On the Road Again.” Mr. Lucas recently left the band to pursue his solo career. He wrote and recorded seven solo albums.

He also performed with Big Joe Turner, Eddie Vinson and Percy Mayfield.

Mr. Lucas is survived by his parents, a sister and a teenage son.
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Musician played, lived the blues
Posted: 11/24/2008 10:30:58 PM PST
Tim Grobaty
PressTelegram.com

Long Beach fans are mourning the death Sunday of local blues legend

R.I.P: As quick as a jolt of smack blasts into the brain and whips through the nervous system, that's how the news of the death Sunday afternoon of local blues legend Robert Lucas shot through the blues community that evening, bringing an army of guitarists, drummers, harp-blowers, bass-players and vocalists to the Blue Dog Tavern on Viking Way in Long Beach.

The equally legendary White Boy James was hosting his Sunday afternoon Blues Jam at the Dog, and as friends of Lucas who'd heard of his death that day, reportedly of an overdose of heroin, started showing up, James turned the event into a tribute for the 46-year-old local talent, whose career included a couple of stints with the blues-boogie band Canned Heat (1995-2000 and 2005-through earlier this year).

Lucas had a tremendous set of roadhouse pipes, played a mean harmonica and was pretty sharp on guitars ranging from battered electric Gibsons to old-school acoustics.

If you think you've never heard him, you probably at least caught his retooling of the classic Canned Heat 1970 hit "Let's Work Together," which was snapped up for a bit recently by Target for a TV campaign. The Target commercial was hardly indicative of his talent, but it might've put a dollar in his pocket.

Otherwise, he was notable for playing hundreds of gigs hereabouts by himself or with his Luke & the Locomotives. In addition to recording with Canned Heat, he put out seven solo LPs. He performed
with a mess of big blues names, too, including Big Joe Turner, Lowell Fulsom and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson.

"He'd been my friend since 1986," says Whiteboy James, a recovering heroin addict himself. "We were roommates for a while, rented a room at (blues harpist) Shady Lane's house in Cypress. That room was the most disgusting pad you've ever seen, man," laughs James. "Cockroaches wouldn't come near it."

He said he and Lucas became buddies immediately - "Why wouldn't we be? We had all the same interests," says James. "Blues, heroin ... Man, I thought if I could quit heroin, anybody could. But that's when you OD; when you've been off for a while, you just do too much and someone waves it around in your face one day. ...

"I'm pretty tore up about it."

Vince Jordan, local blues promoter and one of the founders of the Blue Cafe in downtown Long Beach, booked him at that club "as much as I could. I started putting him in the club as soon as it opened."

Jordan went to school with Lucas at Hill Junior High (now Hill Middle School, in Long Beach).

"I don't think he did real well in school. He kinda got bounced around a lot.

"He was a helluva musician." says Jordan. "Very talented guitarist, harp player, vocalist - I mean, he was the frontman for Canned Heat for a long time. You have to be a big talent to do that.

"He should've been a pretty happy guy, but he wasn't" says Jordan. "I mean, here he was fronting Canned Heat, going all over the world on tour, making probably some OK money.

"But he seemed miserable so much of the time," says Jordan. "I don't know why he was that way. He was getting all these gigs, a lot of work, but still he always seemed to be angry or wanting something more. We were good friends, but sometimes we had some pretty heated conversations at the club."

While most of the blues musicians we've known go into it and stay at it for the 0sheer joy of playing blues, others identify more with the genre's darker side, with the misery that sometimes attaches itself to life, with being down too long, or feeling swamped and beaten by those very things that mark the words of so many blues numbers.

It can send you down so low that sometimes drugs, and particularly heroin, make it all go away for a while, or, perhaps in Lucas' case, for good.