SWEETWATER

Another semi-legendary proto-progressive band from the late sixties, Sweetwater were a flash in the pan that were robbed by time and circumstance of the chance to leave a stronger mark with their music. This is their first and arguably best album, releasing in 1968 not long after the group was formed and only a few years before they would fade into obscurity.

This band was unusual in many respects: the band initially had no prominent electric guitar, favoring instead flute, cello and bass as their primary instruments. All their compositions prominently features vocals, with lead singer Nancy Nevins (sometimes spelled Nansi) setting the tone for multi-layered, folkish harmonies to which nearly all the band’s eight members contributed. The California band also predated Santana with a heavy presence of Caribbean and Latin influences, including Elpidio Cobian on congas and liberal use of hand percussion instruments. They were also one of the first interracial American bands, and at the time the only one I know of that featured a white female lead singer. Nevins was also one of the rare female hippy band singers who sounded more like Grace Slick than she did Janis Joplin, and at times she bore a striking resemblance to It’s a Beautiful Day vocalist Linda LaFlamme as well.

The band’s style is difficult to classify, as their studio albums were all over the place in terms of influences, and they were known to perform covers and traditional folk standards in concert as well. The high point of the band’s career was undoubtedly their appearance as the first band to perform at Woodstock, following the solo performance of Richie Havens that kicked off the first night. Half of their 10-song set consisted of songs off this album: “Motherless Child”, “For Pete’s Sake”, “What’s Wrong”, the funky “Crystal Spider”, and the closing track “Why oh Why”.

“(Sometimes I Feel Like a) Motherless Child” is an old American negro spiritual composed by author and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson shortly after the Great Depression. This has to be considered an essential American folk standard, and has been covered by too many artists to list in the years since it was first performed by Johnson himself.

The rest of the tracks are all original compositions, most of them written by Nevins or by keyboardist Alex del Zoppo, except the final track “Why oh Why” which was penned by flautist the late Albert Moore. The styles vary from hippy folk (“What’s Wrong”, “Rondeau”) to mildly psychedelic (“Here we go Again”, “In a Rainbow”, “My Crystal Spider”) to pop (“For Pete’s Sake”, “Two Worlds”) to even country (“Come Take a Walk”). “Through Am Old Storybook” is hard to classify, and sounds an awful lot like the Association.

The highlight of this album is probably “My Crystal Spider” with its heavily drug- suggestive keyboard dirge and erratic cello solo (how often do you hear that statement when referring to a progressive album?!). The overall feel is of kind of a precocious “White Rabbit”, and this was reportedly a concert favorite.

Naïve flower-power abound, particularly in “Two Worlds” and the too-idealistic “What’s Wrong”, but given the time in which this was released this is rather understandable.

Tragedy became a trademark of the band beginning just four months after Woodstock when Nevins’ car was struck by a drunk driver on the Ventura Highway, leaving her temporarily in a coma and with permanent damage to her vocal chords, as well as internal organ and spinal injuries. The band labored on through her partial recovery and managed to record a couple more albums, but the magic was gone and public tastes were changing, so the band eventually split after a short tour to support their third and final studio album ‘Melon’. Nevins survived the obligatory years of drug abuse to emerge relatively unscathed as a school teacher before reuniting with the band in the hype surrounding the 25th anniversary of Woodstock in 1994. Drummer Alan Malarowitz was no as fortunate, as he perished in his own auto wreck in the Mojave Desert in 1982. Flautist Albert Moore succumbed to cancer in 1994, and cellist August Burns perished following a freak elevator accident in Germany following the band’s breakup.

The remaining members managed to make a go of a revival to some extent, and found some notoriety in a 1999 film release chronicling their career. As far as I know they still manage to appear live on occasion, and there was a modest live album released in 2002, but the significant days of the band ended shortly after they appeared on stage at Max Yasgur's farm in 1969.

This is more interesting as an historical piece than it is as an artistic one really, but it’s not a bad album, and taken in the context of the time it should be considered a pretty good one. This type of music hasn’t stood the test of time all that well, but this is a decent addition to any serious American folk fan’s collection, and wouldn’t be out of place in most progressive music collections either. Three stars seems reasonable.

peace