The Swamp Salad

Dave Donovan began his career in NZ playing alongside Mike Perjanik in several popular local acts before moving to Sydney in the late 60's. As an in demand session guitarist during the 70's he played with the cream of Australia's entertainment world including John Farnham, Don Lane and Marty Rhone. He appeared on more than 200 albums and played on over 8000 commercial jingles. In 1971 he stepped out on his own cutting the album On The Country Line as Swamp Salad, putting together prolific sessionmen plus vocalist Christine Barnett. This may well have been intended as a country/rock cash-in, however, the final result was nothing of the kind. Covers of ‘Witchita Lineman’ and ‘Ode To Billy Joe’ fit the ‘country’ tag well enough, but much of the rest is bluesy underground rock jamming covered in fuzz guitar and owing a heavy debt to Jimi Hendrix. The album is known with two different covers: one with a black-and-white band photograph and the other with a much more attractive full-colour psychedelic painting.