Sneak of the Week: The Wildweeds, “Belle”

Big Al Anderson’s pre-NRBQ band chased country-rock perfection.

For decades, NRBQ has had a rep as America’s quintessential cult band. Their ineffably transcendent mix of rockabilly, blues, R&B, jazz, garage rock, country, and more has seen them through an exhausting number of lineup changes over the last half century, with keyboard imp Terry Adams as the only constant. But the most beloved iteration of the band by far is the one that included guitarist, singer, and songwriter Big Al Anderson, a core Q’er from the early ‘70s through 1993.

Cultier still are The Wildweeds, the Connecticut-based band that gave Anderson his real entree to the music biz in the ‘60s. The Wildweeds’ tiny but passionate fanbase is largely built around the band’s 1967 debut single, “No Good to Cry,” a soulful, somewhat Boxtops-esque regional hit that never made it all the way to the mainstream. An even smaller subset of admirers may be conversant with the band’s 1968 single “I’m Dreaming,” where they shifted their sound from soul to psychedelia.

That’s where most folks get off the train with The Wildweeds, who only lasted a couple more years after that. But an even smaller portion of Anderson’s followers are into what wound up being the band’s final gambit. In 1970, when the likes of The Band and The Flying Burrito Bros were all the rage, The Wildweeds decided to make one last grab for the silver ring by going in a country rock direction.

They headed to Nashville to make their only album, a self-titled LP for Vanguard Records that featured support from some top-tier session hotshots including pedal steel man Weldon Myrick, multi-instrumentalist Charlie McCoy, guitarist Mac Gayden, and others. The band itself was a four-piece at that point, with bassist Al Lepak Jr., singer/drummer Bob Dudek, and percussionist Martin Yakaitis filling out the lineup.

Despite the presence of some of Music City’s finest, the album is an appealingly rough and ready affair, sounding like it was laid down before anybody had time to overthink anything. And with its blend of rock ‘n’ roll, country, folk, and blues, it’s pretty easy to see how Anderson transitioned into NRBQ, who welcomed him into their fold the following year.

Anderson is the primary singer, but Dudek takes the lead on a couple of cuts. And one of those, the crafty, concise “Belle,” is the most undeniably infectious track on the record. Barely more than two minutes long, it’s an indefatigably perky country tune with impossibly catchy melodic contours, packing a whole lot into a very small space.

Myrick’s pedal steel adds some vivid color to the band’s agreeably stripped-down arrangement, and in the track’s closest moments, a rising tide of overlapping vocal harmonies adds the coup de grace, taking things into territory not far from, say, the lightly countrified jubilation of “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” The album would turn out to be The Wildweeds’ swan song, but what a way to go.

-Jim Allen

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