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

A couple years ago, and after some debate, I added SWEETWATER, an excellent USA band, the funny thing is that the debate was never about adding them or not, but about what sub-genre suited them best.

According to most sites in the net and the bibliography available, they are considered a Psyche band, but despite this opinions we verified that while most bands were playing with guitars, bass, drums and keyboards or some even more adventurous hired an orchestra to add some artificial intros and/or codas to pop songs, SWEETWATER was using flute, cellos, congas and extra percussion plus an elaborate vocal work to create unusually complex polyphonic structures with fantastic dissonances. They even dare to jump from Folk to Blues based Rock, Jazzy tunes and of course some clearly Psyche tracks, so Proto Prog was the correct place for them.

Many people will ask why they are so unknown, well the answer is in the biography and the excellent review by ClemofNazareth, the tragedy hits them very hard, and lost their place in Prog history. Now, lets go to album itself, which is opened by their most famous performance Motherless Child, a traditional folk tune with excellent arrangements, where the wonderful voice of Nansi Nevins is one of the highlights. This song was performed by the band in Woodstock and as a fact it was the first track performed by a band in the Festival.

The flute by Albert B. Moore and percussion by Elpidio Cobian, blend perfectly wit the strong Psyche organ and the blues based guitar, a fantastic track by SWEETWATER.

In a Rainbow is a totally different track, with an almost medieval short intro that suddenly morphs into a vocal extravaganza with incredibly elaborate chorus where the voice of Nansi is the star. The structure itself reminds me very much of Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Stones with a touch of The Mamas and the Papas and Jefferson Airplane.

Here We Go Again is a typical Psyche song, the first track you would expect from a West Coast band in the late 60's, nothing too innovative but very nice for the listener. My Crystal Spider is probably the most complex track I ever heard from a band of those days, it was common to use dissonant vocal, but real complex polyphonic music with the flute and Cello almost jamming a different tune than the rest of the bans was something very unusual, if you add the blend of genres and influences, you got a Prog track in 1968.

For Pete's Sake is a blend of Acid Psychedelia and Folk that reminds me of some songs performed years later by RENAISSANCE, mainly Prologue, a song that leads us to the short Medieval and almost troubadouresque Rondeau where the polyphonic chorus are the highlight, again an unusual song for 1968.

Come Take a Walk is a radical change from the previous tracks, a simple but very pleasant Blues based ballad blended with a hint of Country, interesting fusion of styles but nothing spectacular.

Two Worlds is probably the weakest track of the album, IMO a filler to prepare the listeners for What's Wrong a song with naive idealistic Flower Power lyrics but excellent musical structure. The first time where the band presents male and female vocals singing simultaneously, while Cobian in the percussion and August Burns in the Cello make a fantastic performance that combines perfectly with Delzoppo keyboards.

Through an Old Storybook is another almost Medieval tune that morphs into an excellent ballad based in the flute performance of Albert B. Moore, reminiscent of Carry on Till Tomorrow by BADFINGER (despite Badfinger released their hit one year later). And the band closes the album with Why Oh Why, a weird track that fuses Psyche with R&B, a funky way to close the album.

Honestly, I consider this album almost essential for any Proghead, because shows clearly one of the first stages of the genre with solid compositions performed with great skills and technique, will rate it with four stars.

Sweetwater was a fine California band that is quite forgotten nowadays. They are mostly known for performing at Woodstock and that is also the only reason I checked them out. To be fair I don't find this group so "prog" as some people will state. They sound like a mixture between Jefferson Airplane and Santana (two bands that also played Woodstock). Their best known song is a version of the traditional "Motherless Child". The other songs are written by the band and are not that strong. They are too thin in composition and too mediocre. Nothing really stands out.

I got the feeling most people grant them succes due to Nansi's accident. Which was horrible. I do believe the band had some huge potential. The next album features 2 songs by Nansi and shows a great step forward in songwriting. They could have be really big. Besides, as people also point out, the band was a cultural mix and features cello and congas. Yes that is quite unusual in rock. But then again, putting in foreign instruments doesn't immediately make you 'progressive'.

Based on the music alone, I find the album pretty weak. It's a nice listen but not for repeated listenings. For me the best Sweetwater songs are the Nansi songs "Day Song" and "Look Out" which are included on the second album. This album sounds more like a Jefferson Airplane tribute.

Best known as the very first band to play at Woodstock following Richie Havens and Swami Satchidananda, the Los Angeles based SWEETWATER was unusual for a so-called psychedelic folk rock band in that it featured eight members and featured instrumentation such as cello and a conga / bongo section before Santana popularized Latin percussion in rock music. Sounding most like Jefferson Airplane, SWEETWATER followed in that band's footsteps by integrating jazz and psychedelic rock into its folky style. The band existed from 1968 - 1971 and released three albums.

The members were multi-ethnic and despite never really finding a major breakthrough with its three albums before lead singer Nansi Nevins was killed in a car accident even though they toured with virtually every major band of the era including Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Cream, the Grateful Dead, Big Brother & The Holding Co. w/ Janis Joplin, C S N & Y, the Who, Frank Zappa, Jefferson Airplane, Chicago, Chuck Berry, Spirit, the Allman Bros., E.L.P., Joe Cocker, War, Linda Rondstadt, Santana, Joan Baez, Beach Boys, Steve Miller, Chambers Bros., and many others.

Add to that SWEETWATER had a major television presence and was featured on Red Skelton, Steve Allen, Playboy After Dark, Hollywood Palace, American Bandstand amongst others and of course got international exposure throughout the decades as a performer at Woodstock. This self-titled debut was released in 1968 and featured their best known track, the opening "Motherless Child" which is a traditional black spiritual song that dates back to the end of the slavery era and was the track they opened with at Woodstock.

SWEETWATER's debut is a warm collection of psychedelic pop songs that features a more sophisticated style than is usual for much of the so-called sunshine pop of the 1960s. The cello and and flute give the album a chamber folk flavor while the dead ringer for Grace Slick vocals make the album sound like Jefferson Airplane had they gone a completely different musical direction. The band was also unusual in that it completely avoided electric guitar with most of the electric string parts being played on the bass however acoustic guitars were deemed ok.

In many ways SWEETWATER sounded very much like a 60s psychedelic folk rock band but the band was just a bit more complex than the average pop band with compositions that took on darker tones and off-kilter breaks that deviated from the main melodic flow. Tracks such as "My Crystal Spider" showcase how the band would interrupt the pop melody flow in order to add little breaks of progressive deviations. Tracks like "Rondeau" showcased the band's connection to medieval folk styles which were brought to life by the warm flute lines. The tracks are well crafted with catchy pop hooks but offer a much larger band experience than the average guitar / bass / drum / keyboard limitations of most 60s folk rock bands.

SWEETWATER's debut is not to be missed by lovers of warm melodic chamber pop / folk from the 1960s. It contains all the best aspects of the 1960s without falling into the trap of sounding cliche and despite Nansi Nevins' similarity in style to Grace Slick, the music is quite different than Jefferson Airplane and i actually prefer the sound of SWEETWATER to the majority of Airplane's output. This album is chock full of beautiful melodies and the excess instrumentation gives it an orchestral feel that really allows a tapestry of woven melodic counterpoints to come to life. The tracks are diverse with a huge range of influences with more upbeat rockers as well as tender ballads.

I'm really shocked that SWEETWATER wasn't met with a larger success story given they had all the right opportunities and exposure. I guess the world wasn't quite ready for this brash and over-the-top sound and the band never really got rediscovered. Although Nansi Nevins died from a drunk driver crashing into her on December 1969, the band had enough material with her to release two more albums but called it quits in 1971. The surviving members reunited for Woodstock '94 but the band still remains a relative obscurity considering the significant exposure they received which is too bad because i really love this debut.