Looking back and looking ahead. Revisiting the classics with an eye toward the future.

Forty years ago, there were more Shure 545 and 565 microphones onstage than any other brand.  One of those stages was Woodstock, billed then as a "music and art fair" and an "Aquarian Exposition". We're not sure what happened to the art, or even the Age of Aquarius, but the event itself became a true rock & roll legend.

As a sponsor of the 12th Annual Unisong International Songwriting Contest, Shure connected with one of its shepherds, Alex Del Zoppo, who just happened to be a member of the rock festival's all-star line-up as keyboard player, harp player and vocalist for the band Sweetwater.  Just three months after Woodstock, an automobile accident caused near-fatal injuries to the band's female vocalist, Nancy Nevins. That signaled the beginning of the end for the band.

A lot has changed for Alex and his former bandmates in the past four decades.  Some left the music business and others left this mortal coil.  He and bassist  Fred Herrera have remained in contact over the years and while they perform occasionally as Sweetwater with the completely recovered Nancy Nevins, they've remained involved in L.A.'s music industry.

Fred and Alex were kind enough to give us the benefit of their unique perspective.

We aren't the first to interview the band in anticipation of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.  Sweetwater was the first band to perform.  How did you end up with that spot?
(FRED) No one wants to be first.  And no one ever expected it to be anything more than a small, laid back affair for local rock fans in a rural area.  It was way up in the Catskills.

(ALEX) Our manager insisted that we play the event because Michael Lang, who had put on the Miami Pop Festival where we'd had a successful performance, was also behind Woodstock.  I was in the Air Force Reserves at the time and was the only shorthaired guy around.  My annual summer training began after Woodstock started on Saturday and because of that, we agreed to play but only if we were the first act on the first day.  On paper, it looked like it would work; I'd jump on the thruway, hop on a plane at JFK and everything would be fine.

Surprise ...
(ALEX) Yes, surprise.  As it turned out, with everyone trying to get in, we ended up in Liberty, New York, which was the default launching point for the performers – about 15 miles from the site.  All the roads between there are Woodstock were completely jammed.  We got about three miles into it before the staff used their walkie-talkies to call for a helicopter.  Even though we arrived the night before, we were still late arriving to the site.  They put Ritchie Havens on and they actually put him on again.  We still weren't there, so they put on Swami Satchidananda who kind of blessed the event, and (I believe) Country Joe. 

We came on after that.  It was light when we started and dark when we came offstage. We were the first amplified band to perform. Looking back, that starting position caused us to be seen in kind of a bad light.

"We were kind of the sound check band for all the amplified bands that followed us."

A bad light?
(ALEX) They didn't even have monitors onstage.   They had a fantastic sound system but if you look at any of the Woodstock photos, you don't see any monitors onstage.   They were still working things out and had just moved the venue a few weeks before.  We were kind of the sound check band for all the amplified bands that followed us.   It's a shame because a number of bands that performed at Woodstock just became huge after the event.   Our early performance was kind of shaky.

Undoubtedly, there were recordings of Sweetwater at Woodstock.  Based on what you just said, how does the band sound to you?
(ALEX) Not bad, considering.  During our set, there were occasionally some weird imbalance things going on.  The sound system was so good that you could just about whisper into the mics and have the sound come back to you, but only after bouncing off a hillside —  several seconds after! It was really hard to get our bearings, but after about half the set, we got used to it.  We ended up getting a standing ovation, so we must have done something right.

How long was your set?
(ALEX) In those days, probably close to an hour.  There was one song: "What's Wrong" that we used to do that was a full-on jam, so we'd sing the song part of it and then jam for a very long time and then come back and cap it. We did that for twenty minutes or so.  Rhino actually released a recording of that performance in 1999, but they cut it down to ten minutes and it still sounded OK. It was all recorded with Shure 545 and 565 mics.

"I asked him, ‘What are these crops?' He turned around, grimaced and said ‘Them's all people'."

What's your most vivid memory of the event?
(ALEX) Seeing that blanket of humanity. The helicopter pilot was a grizzled Vietnam vet type. As we flew over, I thought I saw wildflowers of all different colors as far as I could see in every direction – literally for miles. I asked him, "What are these crops?" He turned around, grimaced and said "Them's all people, man."  We just couldn't fathom that there was THAT many people. We'd played at some big festivals, too.  But this was immense.

How long did you stay? Were you able to get out?
(ALEX) We were there longer than we wanted to be. If I'd had better luck, I might have been able to get back to my base almost on time.  I was already on their "bad boy" list because I'd missed several weekend meetings.  There were inevitable conflicts with band dates and it was getting increasing tougher.

We wanted to catch a helicopter out but they weren't flying any, except for emergencies.  After a few hours, a girl broke her leg and I got on the chopper they sent for her, but the pilot literally got lost in the fog.  He found a small local airport that was closed and by that time, he'd actually run out of fuel.  It was the middle of the night and we were several miles away from the Woodstock site. You could still hear people way off in the distance trying to find their way there.  An ambulance came to pick the girl up, but we were stuck there all night. There was a pay phone, but it was pitch black and we had no idea how to tell anyone where we were or how to get us. I was a day and a half late getting back to the base.

"They didn't really have the kind of miking that we have today."

What do you remember about the sound system?
(FRED) They didn't really have the kind of miking that we have today.  They may have mic'd our amps, but we couldn't tell.  And maybe they did that later, but some of the bands that came on after us sounded so much more balanced than we did.  In those days, that was very typical of rock fests – remember, they weren't expecting that many people.  So if you have one-tenth as many people or one-fifth as many, the guitar amps would have been adequate.

Was there any kind of sound check beforehand or did you just walk out on stage?
(ALEX) No.  As far as I know, no acts ever got sound checks at any rock festival.  How could they?   The attendees always arrived days early, scrimmaging for a good spot near the stage.

(FRED) It was different at the Fillmore East or at colleges, if you got there on time, but never at those outdoor events. It used to take one or two songs before the band and whoever was running the sound system were one.  But at Woodstock, it was probably more like half the set.  Most of the bands back then didn't have their own sound crews traveling with them. 
We were at the mercy of the staff there and to be fair, they didn't have any idea what we were all about.

(ALEX) Yeah, our instrumentation was really different.  They were used to seeing two or three guitars, an electric bass player, a drummer and one singer or something like that.

What was the lineup like in those days?
(ALEX) We had seven people.  Nancy and Albert were out front.  Albert played flute and sang. Then we had piano, bass, drums, a cello player and a percussionist.

"We were the only band in rock without a guitar player."

But no guitar player?
(FRED) That's right. We were the only band in rock without a guitar player.

Shure mics were pretty widely used at the event.  Is that your recollection?
(FRED) They were pretty much standard everywhere we went. I have a 565 in my garage that still works.

Critics had a hard time pigeonholing the band and defining your sound.  Some called it California folk-pop, Latin-tinged and a little psychedelic. How would you two describe it?
(ALEX) You missed classical and jazz. We were all college students and we were all classically trained and dabbled in jazz.  They didn't teach pop in school in those days.   We really formed as a jazz/rock band long before Nancy even came along. We also had a full time percussionist from Cuba so a lot of our stuff sounded a little Latin.

(FRED) Once we became Sweetwater, we were definitely a rock band.  We only added a guitar in the recording of our first album at the insistence of our producer.  He said without a guitar, record stores wouldn't know which bin to put the album in.

"Carlos Santana had a blues band back then.   Before Jethro Tull, we were using a flute player."

(FRED) We were a little ahead of the others in that way.  Carlos Santana had a blues band back then.   Before Jethro Tull, we were using a flute player.  And Nancy was one of the first female singers in a rock band.

That's right.  There were just a few – Janis Joplin, Grace Slick …
(ALEX) That's hard for younger people to understand.  Now there's a chick singer on every block.  But in those days, females simply didn't aspire to become rock stars.

(FRED) There were plusses and minuses associated with our sound.  The plus was that if you were different, you'd pique interest not only with the public, but also in the music industry.  You were able to book through major agencies, sight unseen, at college after college. 

" …radio stations didn't know what to do with us.  There were very few radio stations back then that controlled the airwaves."

The fact that we had a Warner Brothers recording contract and an album meant that we were booked on television shows the same way.  We got on major network shows just short of The Ed Sullivan Show.   The minus was that radio stations didn't know what to do with us.  There were very few radio stations back then that controlled the airwaves.

Any miking challenges back then?
(ALEX) Early on we had special problems miking the cello - which always fed back - or the flute, where you might get a lot of breath sounds.   You had to be right up on the mic to get the decent sound.  Eventually we started using pickups and 150-watt six-foot tall amplifiers, which probably explains why our hearing isn't as good as it could be.   

Let's fast-forward. You reformed for Woodstock II, right?
(ALEX) We did, but due to some contractual problems, we never actually performed there. For almost two decades, we didn't even know where Nancy was.

We don't play full time as a band but we still perform as a group for special occasions, like the AES show out here a couple of years back.  We've all gone on with our careers. Fred does all kinds of crazy stuff; he contracts orchestras for Yanni, Michael Crawford and other artists.  I run the L.A. Songwriters' Co-op and critique and judge songs for the UNISONG International Song Contest in which Shure participated.   We're all fairly busy writing, doing recording sessions, playing live & taking care of publishing matters.

Isn't there a Rhino Records compilation that includes some of your Woodstock tracks?
(FRED) That's true and those recordings were all made using Shure mics.   They're doing several box sets – one for Wal Mart, one for Best Buy, Target and QVC, as well as another for distribution in Europe.  All are slightly different.  They're using three of our songs along with an audience sing-along.  That's the way we used to end our sets.  In this case, it was the choruses of "Hey Jude", "Oh Happy Day" and "Let the Sunshine In" which the audience kept singing even after we left the stage.

You weren't in the film.  Why not?

(ALEX) Maybe it was because we had that shaky first set. And remember, we were just on our way up, even though we second-lined all the major acts of that time.  The Doors at the Forum, acts like that.  We were on the rise, but within three months, Nancy had a horrible car accident that almost killed her.  That put us on hold, and I'm sure that had a bearing on our possible inclusion.

In the intervening years, you played in other bands, right?

(ALEX) Oh yes.  We all did. I played with Eric Burdon, recorded with the Beach Boys & Gene Clark of the Byrds, stuff like that. Fred & I both played with Chi Coltrane.
(FRED)  I also played with Oliver for a while. Nancy became a teacher, earned a Master's degree and teaches English Literature in college.

When you play together now, what's the line-up?
(ALEX) Three of the original members have passed away.  So when we came back together, we decided not to try and recreate the past.   We took a more conventional approach. 

Nancy, Fred and I are still here – we all sing and play our instruments, but we finally got a guitar player. Fred's the bass player.   We have a new percussionist and drummer. 

(FRED) We've done the House of Blues in L.A. and Chicago, a couple of college towns up in the Bay Area and on some of these, we added cello and flute.  We played some of the older songs along with newer ones.

(ALEX) We did a live recording in 2001 and since Fred contracts orchestras, we had our pick of the best players.  One of our background vocalists was Cleto Escobedo, Jr. before he got his gig as bandleader for the Jimmy Kimmel Show.  I play keyboard and have a much wider array to work with now.  I used to bring along a Wurlitzer electric and a clavinet that I had to tune just about every time we flew.  Now I play electronic instruments that don't have those problems.

"The 565 is a spare in case the SM58®s fail, but the SM58s never do."

I guess you've used a lot of Shure mics over the years.
(ALEX) The 55SH is my favorite for looks. We have a whole bunch of SM58s and the 565 I mentioned before.  When we need to bring our own mics, that's what we use.   The 565 is a spare in case the SM58s fail, but the SM58s never do.

I also use the "Green Bullet" 520DX when I play harp and occasionally I run it through an effect box of some kind.    Having its own volume knob allows me to leave it plugged into an amp and never having to worry about it feeding back, until I pick it up to play harp through it.  That thing rocks!

(FRED) The Shure mics that we used in Sweetwater really took a beating. We found a brass 40mm bullet shell from World War Two that we used as a cowbell. The percussionist would beat on that thing – once in a while, he'd miss and hit the mic with his drumstick.

(ALEX) Before we became Sweetwater,  and I used to play in a bar that was pretty much known for brawls. And of course, frat parties at UCLA.  We always had Shure mics and every week, someone would drop them, spill beer all over them or worse.   The next week, they'd smell like beer but they still worked fine.

Let's talk about the present and the future
(ALEX) I'm doing a CD for the first time. Until now, I never felt the need to do a solo project, since I'd worked with other artists and written for other artists and kept busy doing that.

How would you describe that music?  What's it like?

(ALEX) It's thoroughly modern music – not quite as jammy or wildly unusual as the Sweetwater stuff.  It's definitely rock and some of it is a little dark.  There are so many musical influences in L.A. – it's really unique; the rest of the country isn't really like that.  So I incorporate a lot of that into my music. And Fred is playing on it!

Most of our readers are part-time or full-time musicians, some of them have done or want to do the kinds of things that you two have.  Any advice for them?

(FRED) The greatest thing is that everyone can be on YouTube or Facebook now.  They can expose their music to a great number of people.  Marketing is a lot easier - even if there are more people doing it.  There's more competition now, but the playing field is leveling.

"Follow your dreams – there's nothing more to say about it than that."

If you have a dream, you have to work on your craft to be able to deliver the goods.  Follow your dreams – there's nothing more to say about it than that.  Anyone who's successful has done that.

(ALEX) For those of you who are already out there doing it a little bit, continue to do what you do.  Improve your singing, your writing and your playing in small, attainable increments.  When you're looking at a goal that's slightly ahead of where you are right now, the music will get easier and remain exciting.  All the great minds tell us to do what we love and that way, we'll always love what we do.

And you know, we're better musicians now.

You know all the chords
(FRED) We know most of them.

FREE SWEETWATER DOWNLOADS!

If you missed Sweetwater the first time around, catch them here:

	"In a Rainbow"
	Live at Woodstock "What's Wrong?"

Shure Notes thanks  Fred and Alex for the generous gift of their time.

Check out the band's website for upcoming dates or to order Sweetwater CDs.  Rhino Records is set to release "40 Years on Back to Yasgur's Farm", a boxed set that includes Sweetwater live at Woodstock in August 2009.
Nancy Nevins can be reached at: nancynevins.com
and ALEX Del Zoppo at: alexdelzoppo.com