Coldwater Army - Peace (2017)

Singer/guitarist Bobby Golden and his older brother/bassist Kenny Golden grew up outside of Macon, Georgia. While in their teens, they started forming and playing in local bans such as The Golden Boys and The Golden Arcade. By 1969 they'd expanded their repertoire beyond top-40 covers and soul revue, to include original material as the Coldwater Army. I'm guessing the name was inspired by the American temperance movement, though it was interesting name choice for a band that was formed near Warner Robbins Air Force Base.

1971 found Coldwater Army signed to the Nashville-based Starday-King affiliated Agape label. With a line-up consisting of singer Bob Garrett, lead guitarist Bobby Golden, bassist Kenny Golden, drummer Richard Hughes, trumpet player Nick Jones, sax player Dale Miller, and keyboardist Bob Spearman, the band went into the studios with producer Bobby Smith. Allowing an unknown band to record an album of original material seemingly reflected one of two things- Agape had significant faith in the band's commercial potential or, 2.) Agape had no interest in the band. Having listened to "Coldwtaer Army" dozens of times over the years, my guess is the latter category.

Not that you're going to find a lot of on-line reviews for this obscurity, but the ones you'll stumble across routinely tag this one as Southern rock. On tracks like 'Dreams' and 'Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday' there were clearly Southern rock influences, but don't be mislead, this really wasn't a Southern rock album. Remember that when the album was recorded, the majority of the band members were still in their late teens. They had come out of bands that focused on top-40 and soul covers so originality wasn't something they'd necessarily gotten around to. That made much of this album one of those fun, spot-the-influences collections. It's all here - Blood, Sweat and Tears horn charts, Chicago blues-rock ('Away'), even Paul Revere and the Raiders top-40 ('Smiling Faces').

The album carried a dedication - "Dedicated to David M. Allen - Killed in Vietnam, October 10, 1970". I live outside of Washington, D.C. and have visited the Vietnam War Memorial several times so I looked Allen up on the Virtually Vietnam Wall project. Allen can be found there with a brief description of the circumstances of his death. Sadly, one of 58,000 ... Speculation on my part, but I'm guessing the album title was related to Allen's death.