Blackburn & Snow

One of the most interesting folk-rock acts of the 1960s to totally miss out on meaningful national exposure, the male-female duo of Jeff Blackburn and Sherry Snow had a lot going for them. Their male-female harmonies were nearly on par with those of the early Jefferson Airplane, and they boasted a wealth of fine original material by Blackburn that deftly combined folk, rock, country, and light psychedelic influences into a melodic blend that was both commercial and creatively idiosyncratic. What they didn't have was a regular release schedule. Indeed, there were only two poorly distributed singles on Verve, including the classic "Stranger in a Strange Land, " before they split up in the late 1960s. However, they did record an additional album's worth of quality unreleased material, which with the singles comprised a CD of their work that finally came out in 1999. Sherry Snow began playing folk music in California in the early 1960s. Her path intersected with those of other struggling folkies on the scene that would become folk-rock and psychedelic rock stars in a few years, such as Paul Kantner (of Jefferson Airplane) and David Freiberg (of Quicksilver Messenger Service). In fact, she lived in the same apartment as Kantner and Freiberg for a while in San Francisco in the mid-1960s. In 1965 she became a romantic and professional couple with guitarist and songwriter Jeff Blackburn, and the pair were signed by Bay Area music entrepreneur Frank Werber, manager of the Kingston Trio and the We Five. In early 1966, with the rhythm section of the We Five, Blackburn & Snow recorded "Stranger in a Strange Land, " an excellent song strongly rumored to have been written by David Crosby. Although it was credited to the mysterious Samuel F. Omar, the rumor is given credence by the...