Sweetwater

 
 Left to right - Art - Bob R. - Brian - Bob M.

On January 8^th 1976 Bob MacEachern bounced back from the remains of the ‘Dug Bond & The Maple Street Show Band’ with Sweetwater, utilizing drummer Art MacKenzie, rhythm guitarist Bob Robbins and bassist Brian Holliwell, all members of the previous group. The brand new band made their debut at the Paris Inn, Paris, ON, less than a week after Maple Street’s New Year's Eve farewell gig in Brampton.

Bob MacEachern and Bob Robbins first worked together beginning in 1972 with the band 'Seven Dollar Gin' which later featured drummer Art Mackenzie. The bassist of that band was Neil McIntyre who had originally played with Big Jim Allison's "Canadian Rhythmaires." At that time the two Bob’s wrote a single together which was recorded at Gerry Risser’s Counterpoint studio over the summer of 1972, and issued later that year, ‘Seven Dollar Gin/Take a Walk in The Sunset.’ Gerry provided session drummer Eric Fournier to give the two songs a backbeat.  Bob’s wife Marybeth sang vocals on the B-Side. Marybeth had an amazing voice which she owed to her mother Martha who used to sing professionally in the 1940’s with several Big Bands.

The great thing with Sweetwater was that all four guys could sing, and they swapped main vocal parts depending on the song. There was no front man like their previous band, it was all for one and one for all. The boys kept quite busy over 1976, and Big Jim Allison took the band on. All the members were already signed with Thunderbird as members of 'Maple Street,' and Jim wanted to lead them to stardom. (They were the 16th act signed to the label) He really wanted them to cut an album and some singles. This lead to some major songwriting sessions, which were all published by Chihuahua Music, which also took the rights to the 1972 MacEachern/Robbins penned songs ‘Take a walk in the sunset’ and ‘Seven Dollar Gin.’  There was even talk of re-recording these two songs on the forthcoming debut album. 

Front to back - Brian, Bob M., Bob R. and Art.

Between Bob Robbins and Bob MacEachern there were twelve original songs published with Chihuahua Music. Jim thought if they could get in the studio by March, he could have their album 'New Band In Town' ready for May with two singles, leading off with 'Blinded Values.' The boys liked the way Jim talked. Now Jim had paid for all the studio costs for Dug Bond’s 1975 album, so Sweetwater assumed that he would do the same for them. However things had changed since then and by March of 1976 Jim required all the costs up front. Of course the band couldn’t see the point of using Jim if they were going to pay all the bills and probably do all the footwork as well, so they eventually passed on his offer. It was yet another unreleased album for Thunderbird which was going from bad to worse. 

July 26th 1976

During August of 1976 the two Bob’s got into a serious fight under the influence during a Sweetwater gig in Niagara Falls. At the end of the fight both Brian Holliwell and Bob MacEachern quit the band, Bob returned to Ron McLeod’s group after a four year hiatus. 

Art MacKenzie and Bob Robbins replaced Bob and Brian with guitarist Al Norman and bassist Mark Sayles. With this major change in the band's line-up, the recording of the Sweetwater album became moot, as they weren't going to record any MacEachern songs. At this point Bob Robbins only had four originals, plus the two he had written with MacEachern.

The band continued to play live gigs until 1978 when Art Mackenzie got a factory job in Brantford. Mark Sayles went on to play with Rick Harrott in The Decades. This marked the end of Sweetwater and the Maple Street legacy which had begun in earnest in 1969 and ended nine years later. 

Robert Bruce ‘Bob’ MacEachern 1941 - 1986 

Arthur Gerard 'Art' Mackenzie 1950 - 2018