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Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Sweetwater Elpidio Pete Cobian

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Sweetwater Elpidio Pete Cobian

Sweetwater Elpidio Pete Cobian

Elpidio Pete Cobain

Sweetwater Elpidio Pete Cobian

Continuing with my mini bios for those Woodstock Music and Art Fair performers for whom I have not found a birth date (the day I typically post the bio).

Elpidio “Pete” Cobian had been in the California version of Jay Walker and the Pedestrians, the band Robert ‘Bob’ Barboza had originally formed in Rhode Island and re-formed with different members when he re-located to Los Angeles. Cobian played congas.

Pete was with the band that April 1967 night when Nanci Nevins walked in to watch Jay and the Pedestrians play. The band, by choice, had no vocalist, but saw her standing and singing along. They invited her up to perform, not usual since the actual members in the band varied with the date. Sometimes there were 7 members, sometimes more than 2 dozen.

Pete and the others liked what they heard, but Nevins left without giving them her name or contact information. Life went on.

They eventually did find her and she briefly became a Pedestrian. Briefly because  band member Alex Del Zoppo suggested to other members Albert Moore,  Andy Friend, and Pete that with Nevins as vocalist they could expand their possibilities the four as a new band.

Sweetwater Elpidio Pete Cobian

Sweetwater

And so they sowed the seed of Sweetwater.

Their Woodstock Music and Art Fair appearance is one of the many typical side stories that that disheveled weekend tells. Stuck in Liberty because of an historic traffic jam, organizers drafted a hesitant Richie Havens to open the festival.

Finally on site, Sweetwater followed. Ironically, their opening song, one they had played dozens of times, was an echo of the now-famous rendition that Havens had closed with: Motherless Child (with Havens extemporaneous “Freedom” tagged on).

Sweetwater did not make the 1970 Woodstock album. Sweetwater did not make the 1970 Woodstock movie. And before all that, in December 1969, a drunk driver’s crashing into Nancy Nevins’s car nearly killed her and kept her out of music for nearly a quarter century.

In the meantime, the band released two more albums, but gradually broke up and members went their own way. Some continued in music.

Sweetwater Elpidio Pete Cobian

Reunion

According the the Sweetwater band site, “In 1994, Sweetwater conducted a reunion to commemorate Woodstock’s 25th anniversary. Attempts were made, but no one was able to find out what had happened to Elpidio, our former conga player. A few years later, we learned Elpidio still plays occasionally with groups, but has had a really successful career working for the film studios on their set crews. He worked on underwater sets, principally as a welder, for such hit movies as “Jaws” and “The Abyss”, among others. He has a wife, Evelyn, and two adult sons, Orlando and Mario.”

Band site

Sweetwater Elpidio Pete Cobian
Birthdays, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Sweetwater Fred Herrera

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Sweetwater Fred Herrera

Sweetwater Fred Herrera
Sweetwater Fred Herrera second from right

Woodstock’s opening band

Sweetwater is often described as the opening band at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. That is true as long as we exclude Richie Havens, Daniel Ben Zebulon, and Paul “Deano” Williams preceding performance.

Sweetwater deserves the title considering the path their lead singer Nancy Nevins and then the rest of band endured shortly after the famed Woodstock.

Sweetwater Fred Herrera

Jay Walker and the Pedestrians

Sweetwater evolved out of a band called Jay Walker and the Pedestrians, a band that bassist Robert ‘Bob’ Barboza  had formed in Rhode Island. Barboza relocated to Los Angeles and reformed his band there.

In June 1967, Pedestrians Alex Del Zoppo (keyboards) , Albert Moore (flute), Pete Cobian (percussion), and Andy Friend (guitar) along with newcomer Nevins (vocals) left Jay Walker and started a new band. It remained unnamed for a bit, but after Moore told Nevins that some stream water he’d just quenched his thirst with wasn’t bad at all, it was sweetwater, they realized they’d found a name.

Sweetwater Fred Herrera

Fred Herrera

Sweetwater Fred Herrera
Fred Herrera to the right of Nancy Nevins

Fred Herrera had not been in Jay Walker and the Pedestrians.  Del Zoppo knew him from playing other gigs and knew him to be a good rock bassist. Rock was the direction that Sweetwater wanted to head in.

Keep in mind that by 1967 the definition of rock had expanded to include the influences from all areas of music. They included idea of jazz jamming along with the feel of free wheeling rock. The odd thing about the band was that it had no guitarist. 

The band became one of the main opening groups for many other suddenly famous bands like the Doors, the Grateful Dead, and Johnny Winter. They joined those bands and many more on the festival circuit.

TV had realized that this “new music” sold well–that is, advertisers would buy time on shows if they featured such bands.  On June 10, 1969, Sweetwater played on the Los Angeles TV show, “New Sound.” Unusual for these new shows, Sweetwater played live. Herrera recalls, “They actually recorded us video and audio live at the same time, which was never done at that time. All of the other TV shows we did in those day either took the feed directly from the album which we then lip-synched to, or recorded the band offstage beforehand. Then they would come in and ‘stage’ us according to the music to allow for correct camera angles. It was refreshing that they didn’t care what we did. They just turned on the camera and said, ‘Go!’ It was a lot different than just about everything else on TV that was going down then.“

Sweetwater Fred Herrera

Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Bruce Blatman was Sweetwater’s manager. He suggested the band add another festival to their 1969 summer itinerary: “an intimate, no-pressure music and art fair itn ehcountryside of upstate New York called Woodstock.”  (see Horror stories).

Keyboardist Alex Del Zoppo was in the Air Force Reserves at the time. When facing the reality of fighting in Viet Nam, many young men of the time joined a reserved branch of the US military. Though the length of service was longer, the chance of deployment was far less. Del Zoppo told Blatman that his 2-week summer training started Sunday that weekend. Blatman said they’d be the opening act on Saturday afternoon, Del Zoppo could get to JFK Airport in plenty of time to fly to California and his base on time for Sunday.

We know that didn’t quite work out as planned. The word plan that Woodstock weekend had a very loose meaning.

Sweetwater Fred Herrera

Aftermath

Sweetwater Fred Herrera

Del Zoppo got in trouble but also eventually got out of the reserves without having to serve. The point was moot since on December 8, 1969 a drunk driver t-boned the car that lead singer Nancy Nevins sat in. She was in a coma for two weeks and awoke with damaged vocal cords.

Sweetwater did not make the 1970 movie’s soundtrack or the movie itself. It became a footnote, a bar bet: what Woodstock band had no guitarist?

The appetite for Woodstock has never gone away. Surprisingly to many, there are many gen-Xers who arrive in Bethel, NY at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts seeking inspiration. Some of Sweetwater’s Woodstock music is now available . Though three of the original members have died, the others, including a recovered Nevins, continue to play music.

Herrera’s credits include playing or producing Grupo Fuego (1993), The Exies (2000 and 2003), and Father John Misty (2015).

Sweetwater Fred Herrera

2019 Bethel Woods opening

Alex Del Zoppo (right), Fred Herrera (top left) speaking w Joyce Mitchel (in charge of administration of the Woodstock Ventures offices) at the opening.

When Bethel Woods Center for the Arts had its 2019 season’s grand opening, Fred Herrera was there to speak and feel the love so many expressed to him for his and the band’s presence 50 years earlier. Those at the opening found him to be a thankful and gracious speaker.

Thank you.

Sweetwater Fred Herrera
Music et al, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

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Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

Born February 18
Jimmy Jewel Saxiphonist
From Jimmy’s FB page https://www.facebook.com/jimmy.jewell.908/photos

Jimmy Jewel was one of the horn players with the Keef Hartley Band when it played at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Here is a bit about Jimmy.

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

Before Hartley

Jimmy trained as a chorister in St Pauls Cathedral Choir as a child, with the National Youth Music Theatre as a teenager, and is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

From AllAboutJazz site: Jimmy Jewell started out in 1962 playing tenor sax with various R & B and jazz bands in the north of England. In 1963 he decided to turn professional and joined the group Kris Ryan and the Questions, originally a rock band, which due to his influence, switched to playing R&B and Soul/Jazz, a la Ray Charles & James Brown. The band got a record deal with Mercury and 2 singles and an EP were released. The manager of the band wanted it to move in a more commercial direction and, Miss Ann, a solo single by Ryan was released. Jimmy left the band in 1965.

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

London

He moved down to London in 1966 and played briefly with a soul band, Mack’s Sound. While on tour in Germany with the Paramounts, backing Chris Andrews, he accepted an offer to join a Berlin band, the Magics. He toured with them in Germany until Spring 1967, then returned to London. He did a few gigs with Screaming Lord Sutch, then joined another soul band, the Stewart James Inspiration. He toured with them in England and Germany until they disbanded in 1968.

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

Keef Hartley Band

In 1969 he joined the Keef Hartley Band, a progressive blues/rock group, along with trumpeter Henry Lowther. A few weeks later, they were one of the few British bands to play the Woodstock festival, critics at the time comparing them favorably with Blood Sweat And Tears. He appeared on the album The Battle of North West Six (1969) then left together with Lowther while the band was recording The Time is Near (1970).

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

Since Keef Hartley Band

In 1971 he recorded with McGuinness Flint on the album Happy Birthday Ruthie Baby.

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

1972

In 1972 he appeared on the Coulson, Dean, McGuiness, Flint album Lo and Behold. In 1973 he appeared on Dennis Coulson’s solo album and on the Seeds album by Gallagher and Lyle, a Scottish songwriting duo who were former members of McGuinness-Flint.

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance

He also toured Britain with them and Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance. In 1974 he appeared on their next album, The Last Cowboy and did more live dates with them as well as Ronnie Lane’s Passing Show.

Jewel also appeared on Lane’s first album Anymore for Anymore. The period 1975 through 1977 saw further touring work with Gallagher and Lyle and appearances on two further albums Breakaway, and Love on the Airwaves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hje8Wrb4MF0&index=1&list=PLLJdvYp8D5xfKLtxj0MHXlPEln3PotZHq

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

Session/Solo Work

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

Session work included appearances on the Joan Armatrading album and Fairport’s Gottle o’ Geer album.

In 1976 he recorded his first solo album, I’m Amazed, released in 1977 by UK label Affinity records. A second solo album From the First Time I Met You was recorded in 1977, and released by Affinity in 1978.

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist

In November 1978 he moved to Chicago, where he played in various blues bands and also his own jazz quartet, as well as doing session work with various blues artists at Alligator records.

He came back to London in 1984 and in 1985 released an album of his own jazz compositions, Dawn of the Dragon on cassette with a quintet featuring US trumpeter Chris Albert and drummer Hughie Flint. Subsequent work was sporadic. In 1995 he started a jazz trio with bass and drums only, but later expanded to a quintet with trumpet and trombone. The band had a weekly residence at an east London pub until 1996. During 1996, this quintet recorded an album as Jazz Alembic which is now released on Spherious Music.

In 1997 he moved to Kent due to family health problems. An outbuilding at the back of his house has been converted to a recording studio. A record label, Spherious Music has been set up to release his work, the first release being a compilation from the two solo albums, which is available now.

Jimmy founded artist management agency JWL in 2005 which he continues to run. Jimmy currently sits on the board of the British Youth Music Theatre, on the committee of the Night for Life for the National Brain Appeal and was Chairman of Cancer Research UK North Essex for three years. In 2015 Jimmy was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for his ‘outstanding contribution to the UK music industry’.

Jimmy Jewel Saxophonist