Cover image from the Beatles' Abbey Road

When area blues-rock vocalist Alan Sweet, aided by numerous musician friends, prepared to launch the tribute project All Sweat Productions – performing a beloved album, in its entirety, in a live concert – he knew exactly which band, and which specific release, he wanted to honor first.

Abbey Road is probably on the top of my list of albums I’ve listened to more than any other music,” says Sweet, who has served as lead vocalist for the Candymakers for the past four years. “It’s my favorite Beatles album. It’s easily on my top five of favorite albums ever. And when I decided that that was the one I wanted to do as a live show, there was this outcry of people wanting to play on it. Everybody I got a hold of was just like, ‘Yes. Yes!’”

But while one of Sweet’s stated goals with All Sweat is to “re-create the live-show sound,” he and his musical collaborators immediately realized, as every Beatles fan knows, that there was a catch to their playing Abbey Road in concert the way its creators did.

“The Beatles weren’t performing live then,” says Sweet, referencing the 1969 release of Abbey Road. “When Bret [Dale] and I were first talking about how to play songs from the album, we were like, ‘Well, we’ll just see how the Beatles played it and do it like that. And then we’d remember: ‘They never played this song live! We’re screwed!’”

Sweet laughs after saying that – perhaps because he knows that, given the talents performing Abbey Road at Davenport’s Redstone Room on May 13, the chances of their being screwed are intensely low.

In addition to Sweet and Candymakers guitarist Dale, the All Sweat Productions assemblage recruited for Abbey Road’s concert includes such familiar local musicians as Ellis Kell, Jason Carl, Zach Harris, Dustin Cobb, Erin Moore, Randy Leasman, Craig Heidgerken, and numerous others – “I think 18 to 20 people now” says Sweet during our April 27 conversation. “And that’s the way I’d like to keep it from now on. There’ll probably be over a dozen people every time we do one of these shows.”

The concept for All Sweat Productions, Sweet says, “was an idea of Dustin Cobb’s a long time ago, who talked about starting a band that specialized in playing albums – like whole albums. And when we talked about it, we knew we wanted to be able to grab a lot of musicians from the area to pay tribute to certain acts, concentrating on moments in rock-and-roll history that really affected us.

“Basically, the idea behind All Sweat Productions is to help market and produce shows in the area,” he continues, “and to find ways to get more people out to see music. And this seemed like a good way to start that, with this kind of cover-band, tribute-band thing.”

Having so many gifted musicians as friends, says Sweet, certainly aided in getting All Sweat off the ground.

Alan Sweet“When you put together something like this, you have to put a name behind it – an identity. So that’s why my name is out there. But it’s not just me. It’s all of my really close friends. I could never do this on my own. I’m not that bright,” he says with a laugh, “so I need a lot of help.” And that help certainly comes in handy when tackling an album as musically complex as Abbey Road.

“We’re doing the album just as it’s written,” says Sweet. “It’ll be ‘Come Together’ all the way down to ‘Her Majesty.’ And since the Beatles weren’t performing it live, there’s a lot of extra instruments on the songs – more than just the two guitars and the bass and the drums. There’s a lot of piano, a lot of organ, a lot of synth, some percussion things here and there ... .

“So that’s why we have so many people involved,” he continues. “ I had to hire people that could sing the parts and sound the parts. So we have a piano player, a synth player, and a total of five or six guitar players. Those guys won’t all be playing every song at the same time, with all six guitars, but if there are six guitars in one of the songs, they will. We want to have the same sounds that you hear on the album coming from the stage.”

Following May 13’s presentation of Abbey Road, Sweet has another live-album re-creation scheduled for All Sweat Productions: an August 12 celebration of Prince’s Purple Rain.

“And then, to be honest, I don’t really know where we’re gonna go from there,” says Sweet, although the River Music Experience Web site lists upcoming tribute possibilities that include Pearl Jam, Led Zeppelin, the Police, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Tenacious D. “What I would really like to do is open up All Sweat Productions to almost anybody who wants to do a show. We just want to be able to throw some good parties and have some good shows.

“Basically, it’s about trying to keep the integrity of the music alive. It’s kind of a hassle getting so many people together to rehearse,” he says with a laugh, “but when everybody’s there, it’s just smiles all around.”

 

All Sweat Productions’ ensemble will perform Abbey Road at the Redstone Room (129 Main Street, Davenport) at 9 p.m. on Friday, May 13. Tickets are $11.50-12, and more information and reservations are available by calling (563)326-1333 or visiting RiverMusicExperience.org.

For information on participating in a future All Sweat Productions concert, visit TheCandymakers.com.

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