(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Boasting a repertoire among the most substantial in Southern pop, and one of the most talented singers, the Swimming Pool Q’s didn’t leave the mark they could have largely because they ended up in the wrong place: they were connected to the “grass-roots revival,” not to R.E.M.

The album The Deep End (DB, 1981) revealed a singular quintet from Atlanta, the Swimming Pool Q’s, led by singer-songwriters Jeff Calder and Anne Richmond Boston, drawing equally from the danceable Athens sound (Big Fat Tractor), rhythm and blues (Rat Bait), and raw Southern boogie (Stick In My Hand). Their strength lay in generational anthems with echoes of Patti Smith (Little Misfit, The A-Bomb Woke Me Up, and Restless Youth). The vocal harmonies of the two leaders straddled the line between country lament and the neurosis of the B-52’s.

Three years passed before the band was “discovered” and could record another album, self-titled (A&M, 1984). That collection disappointed some fans: the ballads The Bells Ring and Pull Back My Spring somewhat tempered the group’s ambitions; She’s Bringing Down The Poison and Silver Slippers were largely personal showcases for Boston.

But the following album, Blue Tomorrow (A&M, 1986), definitively established them, balancing the schizophrenic mix of old (the martial Now I’m Talking About Now, worthy of a military anthem; the ethereal and dreamy Pretty On The Inside; the country-rock More Than One Heaven) and new (the zany B-52’s-style funk with 1950s-style backing vocals of She’s Lookin’ Real Good). All the songs were sung (mostly by Boston) and performed with an intensity more reminiscent of a mass than a rock record.

After the single Firing Squad For Good (DB, 1987), and with the singer gone, Calder’s new Swimming Pool Q’s became one of the many Southern “bar bands.” The concept album World War Two Point Five (DB, 1989), devoted to America’s moral decay in the postwar era, is full of atmospheric blues-rock ballads but lacks truly memorable tracks. Tim Lee of the Windbreakers later joined the group.

Meanwhile, Boston recorded The Big House Of Time (DB, 1990), accompanied by her husband Rob Gal, former leader of the Coolies.

It took ten years to complete the metaphysical concept album Royal Academy of Reality (Bar None, 2003), that promotes Jeff Calder to the role of Brian Wilson, conducting a virtual orchestra of overdubbed instruments (synthesizer, Hammond organ, accordion, dulcimer, mellotron, toy piano, sax, and found sounds) and reveals enchanted mountains of sounds such as The Discovery of Dawn.