Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson
Susie Macdonald/RedfernsAlan “Blind Owl” Wilson of Canned Heat on stage at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Circa 1970.
Alan Christie Wilson, born on the 4th of July in 1943, had two loves: nature and blues music. As the founding member of Canned Heat, the guitarist and songwriter from Arlington, Mass. was able to indulge one of his passions. The other one might have played a role in his death.
Called “Blind Owl” because of his extreme nearsightedness and scholarly nature, Wilson performed at both Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival, the latter of which would launch his band Canned Heat into stardom — despite Wilson’s non-rock-star looks.
The band’s drummer, Fito de la Parra, recalled the first time he saw Wilson: “His glasses were held together with Scotch tape. But then all this beautiful music came out of him.”
The introverted Wilson was indeed an unlikely rock star; instead of partying he went to museums. He lived a life of solitude, choosing to sleep outdoors most nights behind the home of fellow band member Bob “The Bear” Hite due to his love of nature.
But Wilson’s ever-growing concern over pollution and the reckless harvesting of the California Redwoods soon sent him into a serious depression.
Tucker Ranson/Pictorial Parade/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesAlan Wilson at Woodstock. August 1969.
The band was leaving on a European tour in September 1970 and nobody had been able to locate Wilson in the couple days beforehand. Finally, they were forced to leave without him. Manager Skip Taylor soon found Wilson’s body out behind Hite’s property inside a sleeping bag, a bottle of the barbiturate Seconal nearby.
“He was smiling and looking at the sky,” Taylor later said. “He looked happy”.
Officially, the cause of death was an accidental overdose of barbiturates — but De la Parra thinks the overdose was no accident. Wilson had been clinically depressed; just a few months before, he’d been hospitalized after trying to kill himself by driving off of a Los Angeles freeway. As De la Parra believes Alan Wilson’s death was a suicide, his entry into the 27 Club may have been a way out of a painful life.
And with his death, one more young star burned out before they’d had time to fade away.
After this look at the 27 Club, see photos from Jimi Hendrix’s last performance in England at the Isle of Wight festival. Then, and then read about Lori Maddox, rock and roll’s most notorious — and underage — groupie.
