Going Up the Country is the sunny anthem of Woodstock, but the band that played it was drowning in drug busts, smuggling and death. Canned Heat began in 1965 in Topanga Canyon when record collectors Bob Hite and Alan Wilson formed a jug band to play the 1920s blues they studied, took their name from a 1928 song about drinking Sterno, and added guitarist Henry Vestine, fresh from being fired by Frank Zappa, bassist Larry Taylor and drummer Adolfo Fito de la Parra.

This episode follows their Monterey Pop breakthrough, a Denver drug bust whose $10,000 bail was paid by selling their publishing rights, hits like On the Road Again and Going Up the Country, a helicopter arrival at Woodstock, and the Hooker 'n Heat sessions with John Lee Hooker. It then confronts Alan Wilson's death in September 1970 at 27, the debt, biker bars and drug-running of  ...