Helen Sweetland of Half Moon Bay has died. She is a former member of the Northern California Bluegrass Society Board of Directors and a founder, singer, and bass player of the traditional bluegrass band Highway One, which performed frequently at the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival, at other NCBS/SCBS events, and at many other area festivals. She was the publisher of Sierra Club Books.
Her bandmates wrote this tribute:
We’re so, so sorry to confirm the passing of our much beloved, self-described “chick singer,” bass player, and chief of harmony police, Helen Sweetland, following a brief and brave fight with cancer. If we’re each put on the earth for just one purpose, Helen’s calling was to sing harmony!
The spark for our band was struck when Helen, Tom, and Scott first played together in a late-night jam session at Wolf Mountain in 1997; Highway One was officially launched in early 1998. That’s a long time ago in both bluegrass and dog years! We’ve all decided that there is NO Highway One without Helen, so 23 years will be it for us—BUT we hope to see all of you somewhere, someplace in the near future and sing some songs together (though we’ll, of course, be singing them WRONG).
Helen recorded Hazel Dickens’ classic “Won’t You Come and Sing For Me” on the first Highway One CD, and it was one of her signature songs, but she became too emotional to sing it on stage because it reminded her so much of her own mother’s passing. Here’s the first part:
—
I feel the shadows now upon me
See the angels beckoning me
Before I go dear sisters and brothers
Won’t you come and sing for me
Sing those hymns we sang together
In that plain little church with the benches all worn
How dear to my heart how precious the moments
We stood shaking hands and singing a song.
Then there’s the song by Bob Amos, called “Reunion,” that she discovered and brought to the band in the last few years. We never officially recorded it, but we performed it a lot:
There are songs that we play at the end of the day
And their sweet words and melodies tell
Of a wonderful time when old friends reunite
And never again say farewell
And I’ll meet you there, I will meet you there,
I will meet you there, my friends
I will meet you over the hills
In the land of our long journey’s end
And we’ll all be together again.
—
Sense a theme? You were all Helen’s cherished friends and community. And now, we hope, the words of those beautiful songs might remind you of her, as well….
— Highway One
