1981-1982

The Sweetwater Band was the first band that I ever put together and booked myself, (outside of the family band) and let me tell ya…..it was a great band. I hired Chuck Elliott whom I had met when I played on the road with his dad in the ‘Travelers Four’ band earlier. Actually,….when I was 15 years old, I auditiond for a band called ‘The 20th Century Drifters’, got the job and rehearsed with that band for two weeks getting ready to hit the road. Then they didn’t take me. They took their old drummer Chuck Elliott. (Chuck and his dad had quit that band earlier) Chuck was now a bass guitar player, and the voice that came out of him was amazing. I couldn’t believe that big voice was coming out of that skinny little body.

So anyway, I hired Chuck as a bass man; Ted Hurley (who at the time was one of my best friends, and like a dad to me) on lead guitar and fiddle; and last but not least, Galen Leonard (who I had met through Chuck) on drums. Galen wasn’t the greatest drummer at that time, but he had good timing, a good aditude, was dependable, and fit the band really well.

So together we made up the Sweetwater Band. We rehearsed a lot in the begining, learning songs that not every band in the area was doing. I wanted a band that had the type of arrangements that if someone in the band got sick, you couldn’t just get another player to fill in. They had to know our arrangements. And I think I succeeded in doing that because we had a sound all our own. We worked all the time in the Buckeye Lake, Reynoldsburg, Ohio area.

Later on we hired another lead guitar player singer named Tim Fields. Tim was a great addition to the band. He brought more of a Country-Rock type sound to our music and we actually got to play at the Country Jubilee in Columbus, Ohio. That was a real treat because they only hired ‘road bands’ at the time.

Shortly after that, the band split up.

Sweetwater is a great memory, and I learned a lot working with that band.