Vince Nash - organ, piano, clavinet, harmonica, vocals; Roy Garcia - lead vocals; Michael Freeman- bass; Pat Little - guitars; Unknown - drums
Several bands have performed over the years using the name Nimbus. This particular group was visible during the mid-1970s in Northern California, where this set was recorded at promoter/manager Bill Graham's Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. On this night, Nimbus was second on a triple bill that also included Earthquake as headliner, and a then-unknown singer/songwriter from New York named Eddie Money as the opener.
At the time, Nimbus was unsigned but fairly popular in the Bay Area, offering a mix of hard rock and Southern boogie that borrowed heavily from the Allman Brothers Band. The group appeared at Winterland a number of times in 1975 and 1976, and had a great supporter in Graham, who gave them wide exposure as an opener for national acts.
The group had some fairly strong material ("Make Me Happy," "You're My Friend," "Get On Up,") and showed enormous talent with its musicianship, especially guitarist Pat Little and keyboardist Vince Nash. Still, despite their ability to deliver some slamming guitar licks and drum fills, the band was too derivative of other, already established acts.
Aside from the musical similarity to the Allmans, singer Roy Garcia sounds remarkably close to Randy Bachman of BTO and Danny Joe Brown of Molly Hatchet fame. Some of the material is essential a re-working of already known songs, such as "Hot Sheets" which is just a re-working of Rare Earth's "I Just Want To Celebrate," and some of the other material, such as "Rock & Roll Is Still Alive," could have passed as a Frank Zappa parody composition, they are so stereotypical of the "C'mon, people… lets boogie" genre. There is one highlight in particular: The band's electrified re-make of the Louis Jordan jive-blues classic, "Choo Choo Ch-Boogie." Although not as good as the version most people know by Asleep At The Wheel, it rocks nonetheless.
Not much is known about this group, but by 1977, they had split up. Of the all the members, keyboardist Vince Nash has remained the most active, working now in a popular Salsa-jazz group called the Q Band.