Swallow
Out Of The Nest

Formed in 1969 and extant for five years, Swallow was an orchestrated rock band from the Boston area known for touring with B.B. King, The Supremes, and Traffic, as well for making two LP-albums for mighty Warner Bros. Records. Released in 1972, “Out Of The Nest” LP was their debut album, which demonstrated a huge potential of this 11-piece ensemble. Yes, Swallow were somewhat unusually for a traditional rock band. The line-up included 5-piece horn section and featured 2 keyboardist and harpist in addition to a regular rock section of guitar-bass-drums fronted by a blind blues singer George Leh. Two more band’s member shared vocal duties with their extraordinary frontman – harpist Parker Wheeler and guitarist Vern Miller (also with Barry & The Remains) who wrote most of the band's songs. One of the songs featured appearance of guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter (of Ultimate Spinach, later with Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, and Spirit). The music on the album can be defined as jazzy orchestrated Rhythm’N’Blues with very strong influences from Gospel, Spiritual, Country, Funk, Afro-Beat and Delta-Blues. Early Blood, Sweat & Tears could come in mind, but Swallow, to my taste, are more grounded into root-music and more authentic in this sense. Both song-writing and performance levels are top-notched. And the sound quality of the re-mastered CD-edition by Wounded Bird is just perfect. Highly recommended for lovers and collectors of vintage Jazz-Rock rarities.