Sweet Smoke - The South African Rock Encyclopedia

The South African Rock Encyclopedia > Vagabond’s World > Obscurities > Artists > Sweet Smoke

American prog-rock band who played in Europe in the early 1970s

Photo from back cover of "Just A Poke" album. — *Photo from back cover of “Just A Poke” album.*

Welcome, time traveller!
You’ve stumbled upon an authentic relic from October 1997.

Introduction

My name is Brian Currin and I live in Cape Town, South Africa. I first heard the album “Just A Poke” sometime in the late ’70s and fell in love with its progressive, well-produced and experimental sound. After years of fruitless search for the CD or any more info on this obscure band, I eventually found both (and much, much more) thanks to the Internet and the band members themselves!

Since putting up this page in October 1997, I have received e-mails from Andy Dershin, Mike Paris, Jay Dorfman and Rick Greenburg, all ex-members, who have been very generous in supplying more information and answering my questions.

I have also received many e-mails from Sweet Smoke fans around the world, who have helped with info for this webpage.

Bulgarian fan: Sweet Smoke is totally unfamiliar in Bulgaria. Year after year I tried to gather some news about the group but my efforts were fruitless. I didn’t even know that the members of the band are still alive, because once a friend of mine told me they had died in a helicopter crash in the early 70s…
Thanks God this is not true!
So, perhaps, you could imagine my great joy and excitement which I am trying to share with you…
For a first time I heard the album “Just a Poke” in 1986 when I was 17 – in a cold winter morning I found a lost old record dropped by someone in the street … I took it home and played it at my record-player – I found the music really great and magical and up to now this album is one of my favourite!!!
Zornitza “Ronny” Harizanova, Bulgaria, July 2001

Memories: Hi Brian, I found your Sweet Smoke site when doing a search for the band. I lived with them in late ’69 and early ’70 in Emmerich – actually the village of Huthum. Steve Rosenstein was a good friend of mine at college and he gave me the address of the band when I went to Europe. Steve wasn’t in the band yet – Victor Sacco was the lead guitar – very fast, chilly style – excellent musician though. Steve had a brilliant, very warm musical sense – been trained in classical violin, could turn anything into a beautiful, melodic piece. He played fiddle with some very good Irish bands in the mid-70s in Boston. The crew was very much like the main web pages say they were – we had a lot of fun, everyone was very close and supportive, and the music – which I had nothing to do with other than as a listener – was great. I remember that winter the Rhine was in the basement of the house a lot, and every morning we ate oatmeal with cinnamon and delicious fresh milk we’d get from the manor house a few hundred yards up the path. The Kuhn family – the father, who was a fairly renowned sculptor, mother, and a number of kids included Rochus and his brother and two girls, one of whom married Jay later on – I don’t think they’re still together. But the relationship with the Kuhns was very close and it was a great family – they had Afghans, one of which, Rita I believe, was the only dog to ever bite me – she was nursing at the time.

They all were great musicians – Mike’s solos, of course, would drive the crowd wild – fantastic on the recorder. When I went back to NY, I brought Steve the message that they wanted him in and Victor out – he was astonished and left that summer, I believe, or perhaps sooner, to join the band. It’s strange to read that none of them made a profession of music because there was a lot of experimental energy and imagination coursing through the instruments. With all their Brooklyn accents, they thought my Bronx accent hysterical and thought no one else could speak that way till my sister visited them in the summer of 1970. Last I saw of them was in the mid-70s – ran into Marvin when he was at Berklee, Mike came up to visit, Steve was around Boston, etc., but haven’t seen any of them since. However, a friend of mine about 6 years younger than me had a childhood friend visiting her last year, and both of them remembered Sweet Smoke quite well. So as you can see, your web site has stirred up some memories and it is much appreciated, because you are keeping a bit of history alive.

Best wishes, Barton Kunstler, November 2002

Where are they now? (1998-2000)

Rick Greenberg: My name has changed a few times since 1974 when ‘Sweet Smoke Live’ was released. I was Rick Greenberg then. I just wanted to let you know I’ve enjoyed seeing your web-tribute to the band. I played some gigs with Sweet Smoke in early 1970, a few years before I joined the group full-time. I was studying music in London and traveled to Holland and Germany for concerts. My first exposure to a Sweet Smoke stage forever transformed my take on music – driving rhythms with sweet exciting solos soaring, and all with a trademark chaotic mix of humor and heart.

Throughout all the years the band lived in Europe, Sweet Smoke was a loving family of musicians and friends on a spiritual search for a state of musical expression where the ego lets go and the imagination plays with joy and spontaneity. That energy erupted on and off the stage (” . . . a vision of heaven in our hearts and the devil at our feet . . .” – Just a Poke). We had many names for it, “Light,” “Baba Nam Kevalam,” even “Baloo,” but the names were only passing thoughts, like sweet smoke itself, you take it all in, you let it all out and in a moment of creation the music gives you freedom and ecstacy.

Sweet Smoke lives on. At the reunion last summer, the same energy from the early Seventies immediately manifested and kept us joking, storytelling, laughing and playing music, and like smoke from a wizard’s fire, the atmosphere was filled with magic.
Rick Rasa, April 2000

Jay Dorfman: I was the founding member and drummer of the band through all three recordings, this weekend we had a 30 year reunion where all members of the band regrouped, I have lots of rare orginal photos available and would like to make them available for the site… and yes feel free to post my e-mail on your site…
Jay Dorfman, Unherd Of Productions, 9th August 1999

Andy Dershin: I left Europe in ’73 and returned to the US and I went to Berklee college of music in Boston. There I studied jazz and improvisation. I continued playing music up till 1980. At that point I got tired of not being able to play the creative style of music I had been accustomed to. In reality I also found it hard to earn a living. So I went into the crazy world of business. I still play but just for enjoyment of it. In the States if your not playing what’s hot and popular, it’s very hard to earn any money. But I have done OK in business and life is great. The other guys in the band have mostly done the same.
Jay is in the video production field.
Mike is a heavy computer programmer.
Steve is now a lawyer and lives in Los Angeles, but I’d hate to be one of his clients.
Marvin still plays but mostly just for weddings and such. He also sells advertising for cable TV.
Marty is a programmer and works with Mike.
John is a manager of a retail store.

So as life has gone on we still miss each other and the great music we created.
Andy Dershin, February 1998

Discography

Just A Poke

Tracks

Baby Night (Sweet Smoke) (16:24)
Silly Sally (Sweet Smoke) (16:22)

Some pressings have the track order swopped around. See Artwork below.

Release information

LP: 1970 Columbia, 1C 064-28 886, Germany

See Discogs for all releases around the world.

Musicians

Andrew Dershin: Bass
Jay Dorfman: Drums and percussion
Marvin Kaminowitz: Solo guitar, Vocals
Michael Paris: Tenor sax, alto recorder, vocals, percussion
Steve Rosenstein: Rhythm guitar, vocals

Sweet Smoke responsible for all manner of percussion.

Rosie Schmitz and Winfried Ebert: Producers
Conrad Plank and Klaus Lohmer: Engineers

Cover art: Jan Fijnheer

Liner Notes (from Italian and French pressings)

Nay — Sweet Smoke is neither a new cigarette nor an invitation to smoke hashish. Sweet Smoke — originally Sweet Smoke of the Happy Plant Pipeful — is a new band with Michael Paris (Saxophone and Vocals), Andy Dershin (Bass Guitar), Marvin Kaminowitz (Lead Guitar and Vocals), Jay Dorfman (Drums, Percussion) and Steve Rosenstein (Rhythm Guitar). It has become popular to pretend that each new group has a particular, individual sound, though they may sound like all the other bands. The particular quality of the Sweet Smoke is their instrumental perfection, the rhythmical versatility and the wealth of harmonic invention. The music of Sweet Smoke reveals tension and inner logic, and it is up-to-date.

Comments

“Baby Night” fuses “In The World Of Glass Teardrops” by Jeremy (Steig) and the Satyrs and “The Soft Parade” by The Doors into a trippy amalgam. There is also a section (at about 6:40) where the bassline is reminiscent of the Finale from Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells, Part One”, which was released in 1973.

In The World Of Glass Teardrops / The Soft Parade / Tubular Bells, Part One (Finale)

“Silly Sally” features a 5 minute long phased percussion section that starts at about 7 minutes.

Artwork

Sweet Smoke - Just A Poke (LP Germany 1970, back cover) — Sweet Smoke – Just A Poke (LP Germany 1970, back cover)

Sweet Smoke - Just A Poke (LP France, back cover) — Sweet Smoke – Just A Poke (LP France, back cover)

German and French back covers courtesy of Vinyl Records Gallery

Italian album cover scans supplied by Gigi from Italy June 2005.

Reviews

From the German Amazon website.

Sweet, sweet, sweet: First bought this as an album in 73-74 while in Germany as a GI. We all loved it then and now since I’ve turned-on my friends here in the States they all love it. I know of 2 others that have ordered it through Amazon since I got it on disc a couple months ago through Amazon. This album will bring you up when down, mellow you when needed and thoroughly blow your mind. Full of surprises and fantastic solos. Sweet, sweet, sweet; thank you for making this available Amazon!
Richard M Huff from Iowa, USA

Awesome: This has to be one of the most awesome albums I have ever heard, and I’ve been listening to rock music for more than 40 years! Excellent solos throughout, and even a cover of the Doors ‘Soft Parade’ hidden in there. I guarantee you’ll love it!!
A Music Fan from USA