Thomas Engström had collaboration with about fifty artists over the years in various forms, in the 70’s singers in the Anglo-Swedish rock band Shaggy, headhunted to Belgian hard rock band Castro and later on to Gothenburg based Highway with a couple of former members from Alien. Four solo albums with his ”alter ego” Joshua af Saga now releasing his 2nd solo single under his own name. The 2nd of twelve to become the album ”Pure Pop”

 

The song is adapted and recorded by American blues rock band Canned Heat 1968. Called a ”rural hippie anthem”, it became one of the band’s biggest hits and best-known songs. For ”Going Up the Country”, Canned Heat’s Carl Wilson used Henry Thomas’ melody on the quills and his basic rhythm, but arranged it for a rock setting and rewrote the lyrics. In addition to the bass and drum rhythm section, Henry Vestine supplied a ”light electric rhythm guitar” and multi-instrumentalist Jim Horn reproduced Thomas’ quill parts on the flute.