Phoenix

	Phoenix demo tape box and 4-track session master tape notes

After Lavender Hill Express disbanded, one of its founding members, guitarist Leonard Arnold, formed Phoenix with Rodney Garrison (bass) and Tom Harmon (drums; lead vocals). In early February 1971. Sonobeat owner/producer Bill Josey Sr. recorded a demo of two of the trio's original songs, Changes and I Found Love. ALthough the location of the sessions wasn't documented, it's most likely Phoenix was recorded at Sonobeat's Western Hills Drive studio in northwest Austin, which was just large enough to comfortably accommodate a trio.

Although Bill Sr. kept recording session notes, those for Phoenix don't shed any light on the group itself, although it demonstrates how Bill intended to mix their tracks. The Sonobeat archives provide no information about why Sonobeat never released a single by the group. The sound bite we offer demonstrates that Phoenix was a tight and talented rock group with great promise. Leonard Arnold, along with former Lavender Hill Express bandmates Rusty Wier, Layton DePenning, and Gary P. Nunn, went on to help establish Austin's progressive country music movement that began in the early '70s. There's just a hint of the beginnings of progressive country in Phoenix's vocals.

Genesee

Genesee session notes (left) and master tape box (note the reference on the tape box to Phoenix)

At about the same time as the Phoenix sessions in February 1971, Sonobeat owner/producer Bill Josey Sr. recorded progressive rock band Genesee at Sonobeat's Western Hills Drive studio in northwest Austin. Genesee was a short-lived but popular band that frequently played the Club Saracen and the Jade Room in downtown Austin. Tommy Taylor, longtime drummer with Eric Johnson and king of Austin '60s music geneology, recalls that Genesee had two incarnations, the first featuring Layton Depenning (lead guitars and vocals; formerly of Lavender Hill Express), Chuck Rogers (drums), Gary P. Nunn (keyboards and vocals; also formerly of Lavender Hill Express), Jerry Potter (bass; brother of Bubble Puppy guitarist Todd Potter), and Richard Dean (rhythm guitar). However, it was the second incarnation of Genesee that Bill Sr. recorded in 1971.

Genesee's second line-up featured John Inmon (guitar and vocals; formerly of South Canadian Overflow and Plymouth Rock), Layton DePenning, Chuck Rogers, and Gary P. Nunn (who took over bass when Jerry Potter departed). Layton recalls that the first group disbanded after about a year, and the second Genesee was formed from the ashes. "This [second] group also succumbed to financial deprivation after about a year," Layton reflects, and that it "was intended to be a hard rock four piece [playing] some of The Who, Blue Cheer, the Rolling Stones, etc. True to form, however, our folk, country, and country rock roots caused us to write and perform all types of styles prevalent at the time."

The Genesee sessions were recorded on Sonobeat's half-inch 4-track Scully 280. Bill Sr.'s session notes for the third track (see image above) demonstrate how he bounced a 4-track mix down to two tracks in order to open up two more tracks for vocal overdubs. We haven't found any mono or stereo mix-downs of Genesee's recordings in the Sonobeat archives, so we've taken the liberty of mixing a sound bite of John Inmon's folk-rock ballad, Littlefield Fountain. The song's title refers to Littlefield Memorial Fountain, a University of Texas at Austin landmark on the 21st Street entrance to the campus; the fountain and its massive bronze sculpture mark the entrance to the long South Mall on the campus. We forgot to ask the origin of the band's name, but Genesee, a Native American word for pleasant valley, is the name of several small towns across the U.S. and of a major river flowing from Pennysylvania through New York to Lake Ontario.

Our thanks to Tommy Taylor, Layton DePenning, John Inmon, and Ernie Gammage for their recollections of Genesee, which Tommy declares to be "the best progressive rock band that ever played Austin."

Skipper Young

Little is known of the February 1971 recording session producer Bill Josey Sr. conducted with Skipper Young at Sonobeat's Western Hills Drive studio in northwest Austin. The Sonobeat archives hold one 4-track half inch reel of Skipper's tracks, but no session notes. The three cuts on the master are different takes of the same unknown song. Only one track represents a potentially "finished" version, with Skipper's vocal plus a harmony part sung by an unknown female. The instrumentation on all three takes includes rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, drums, and flute.

In 1970 and '71, Skipper played in a house band at Club Caravan at the Villa Capri Hotel on South Congress Avenue in Austin; the band included former Sweetarts' bassist Pat Whitefield and Austin guitar legend Jim Mings (a former member of New Atlantis). Interestingly, Bill Sr.'s session with Skipper closes a loop with Pat and Jim, since Sonobeat's first commercial release was the Sweetarts single, and Sonobeat later recorded unreleased material by New Atlantis, including a Mings' composition. While it's possible that Pat and Jim performed on Skipper's Sonobeat recordings, that remains pure speculation on our part.

There are no two-track mixes of Skipper's material in the Sonobeat archives, so the sound bite we present below is a fresh mix-down from the 4-track master.

Bill Miller Group (Cold Sun)

Who and what was the mysterious musical collaboration that Sonobeat owner/producer Bill Josey Sr. referred to as, simply, the "Bill Miller Group"? Internet sources indicate Bill Miller's "group" was called Amethyst before beginning the near-mythical 1971 Sonobeat sessions, but, at some point during the sessions, the "group" changed its name to The Daily Planet. The Sonobeat sessions produced a highly programmatic album that was tentatively entitled Cold Sun. Over the years, the group itself came to be referred to as Cold Sun.

Bill Miller Group proposed single master tape box

Sonobeat's archives list the following artists on the Cold Sun sessions: Bill Miller (electric autoharp, harmonica, slide guitar, electric guitar, and vocals), Tom McGarrigle (electric guitar, bass, and vocals), Hugh Patton (drums and percussion), and Mike Waugh (bass). Waugh had played bass on Jim Chesnut's country-pop single for Sonobeat and on Herman M. Nelson's second demo album for Sonosong Music. All songs on the unreleased album were written by Bill Miller, except Fall, co-written by Miller and Winston Taylor, and the album's epic finale, Ra-Ma, based in part on Egyptian mythology, which was written by Miller and McGarrigle with lyric contributions by Herman Nelson.

Miller's electric autoharp, perhaps an analog to the 13th Floor Elevators' amplified jug, added a significant contribution to the distinctive sound of the Cold Sun tracks. Recording the autoharp challenged Josey, and, after a variety of miking techniques were tried and discarded, he opted for direct injection, plugging the autoharp's pickups directly into the mixing console.

Cold Sun album master tape box

Cold Sun, recorded over several months starting at Sonobeat's Western Hills Drive studio in Northwest Austin and finishing at the Sonobeat Studios on North Lamar in Austin, was never released by Sonobeat, although producer Bill Josey Sr. contemplated releasing a stereo single featuring See What You Cause and Twisted Flower, but the reason he eventually decided against the release is not documented in the Sonobeat archives. In a shift from his customary practice, Josey did not make a test pressing of the Cold Sun album. Instead, he circulated inexpensive audiocassette dubs of the album to the major record companies, hoping to license the masters for a national release. Unfortunately, there were no takers for the esoteric, psychedelic recordings. Although dubs of the master tapes have circulated for 35 years, the album was not publicly released until 1989 when specialty label Rockadelic issued a limited edition of 300 copies under the artist name Cold Sun and album title Dark Shadows, a title selected by Miller as homage to the '60s cult TV series. Miller went on from Cold Sun to perform with Roky Erickson and the Aliens and performs today under the name Billy Angel.

Synthesis

Synthesis demo tape box

In mid-July 1971, Bill Josey Sr. recorded four songs with Austin progressive rock band Synthesis, hoping to glean one more stereo single release on the Sonobeat label for 1971, already a marginal year for the company. Synthesis was the third group Bill Sr. recorded at his new Sonobeat Studios in the KVET building on North Lamar in Austin. The group's songs, all originals, included vocals Parliamentary Magistrates and Hocus Pocus and instrumentals Paroxysm and Horrible Adventures of a Man From Nell (that's right, "Nell", not "Hell").

The session tapes were mixed down from Sonobeat's Scully 280 half-inch 4-track machine to two tracks on Sonobeat's second half-inch 4-track machine, a Stimco, so that two additional tracks of overdubs could be added. The Sonobeat archives don't list the personnel in the band or the reasons why a single was never released, but the songs are interesting nonetheless to demonstrate how Austin's jazz-rock fusion movement was advancing in the early '70s.

Jess DeMaine

Jess DeMaine 4-track demo tape reel

Austin, Texas, country singer/songwriter Jess DeMaine (Fred Frieling Jr.) recorded at the Sonobeat studios on North Lamar in Austin beginning in November 1971 and continuing, off and on, through 1973. The sessions, produced and engineered by Sonobeat owner Bill Josey Sr., demonstrate Jess' impressive vocal talents. Partially paralyzed in a motorcycle accident later in the '70s, Jess overcame the disability and went on to write a George Strait hit, Love Comes from the Other Side of Town, as well as the children's song Little Cowpoke, and presently serves as director of the Hearts In Spirit band at Christ Lutheran Church in Austin.

Although Jess's first Sonobeat sessions were in 1971, we feature sound bites from four tracks he recorded at Sonobeat in 1972 and 1973. His minimalist performance -- just guitar and vocal -- of the Jerry Foster/Bill Rice songs, Hand of Hurt and Your Kind of Man, certainly show off Jess' powerful and expressive voice. In the second version of Hand of Hurt (recorded with a band this time, probably Tommy Hill and the Country Music Revue, with whom Jess recorded at Sonobeat in 1972), Jess is coached by a band member. Bill Sr. may have prepared mono or stereo mixes of these songs, but none have been found in the Sonobeat archives; therefore, these sound bites are freshly mixed from the original 4-track half-inch master tapes.

Next: 1972