Country Nu-Notes

Country Nu-Notes session tape box

On a Sunday night in February 1974, Bill Josey hauled his 2-track Ampex recorder and portable audio mixer down to the Broken Spoke, one of Austin's most popular and, to this day, infamous honky tonk dance halls. There he recorded a live performance by the Country Nu-Notes. By the mid-'70s, Austin had already become the world headquarters for the "outlaw" country movement, but bucking that trend, the Country Nu-Notes' music remained true to the classic country tradition. The Broken Spoke session may have been intended to yield a live album for release on the Sonobeat label; spanning three full 7" tapes, the total running time of the recorded material -- 29 songs -- was about 90 minutes. It's unclear from the Sonobeat archives whether Josey circulated any demos of the Country Nu-Notes to national record labels, as he had done with tapes of so many other groups.

The Country Nu-Notes were formed by Johnny Lyon (who now operates the Texas Hall of Fame in Bryan, Texas) when he was a high school student, and the Sonobeat recordings were made during the band's first year together. Lyon has kept the band together and performing for over 30 years, albeit with many personnel changes. The Country Nu-Notes' recordings and the single by the Afro-Caravan -- which was recorded at HemisFair '68 in San Antonio -- are the only known live recordings made by Sonobeat.

No other artists are known to have recorded unreleased material at Sonobeat Studios in 1974. This is partly because in mid-'73, Bill moved the Sonobeat Studios to an old stone A.M.E. church outside Liberty Hill, Texas; it took him almost a year to get the new facility ready. Notably, Bill's "Blue Hole Sounds", as he called the new Liberty Hill studios, were still not ready in February '74, so Bill was forced to record the Nu-Notes at the Broken Spoke.

Next: 1975