Tom Penick

Songwriter and musician Tom Penick assisted Bill Josey during recording sessions and helped solicit business for the "Blue Hole Sounds" studio that Bill built in 1973 in an old stone church outside Liberty Hill, Texas.

Tom traded his services -- setting up mikes and running cables, positioning sound baffles, and preparing the recording equipment for Bill's recording sessions -- for studio time to record his own compositions. This Old Cowboy, recorded in August 1975, was a demo -- much like Sonosong's Herman Nelson, Bill Wilson, and Roy Headrick demo albums -- intended to interest other artists in recording Tom's material. In the sound bite we present from the Sonobeat archives, Tom demonstrates the gentle country-folk approach he took in This Old Cowboy.

Nasty Habit

Nasty Habit work tape

The last Sonobeat sessions of 1975 were with Central Texas rockers Nasty Habit, formed by Stan Gilbert and other students at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, about 70 miles south of producer Bill Josey Sr.'s "Blue Hole Sounds" studios near Liberty Hill, where Nasty Habit's tracks were recorded. Bill planned to release a stereo 45 by the group -- Does Your Mother Know backed with Listen -- but the Sonobeat archives don't document the reason the single was never released.

The master tape box mentions that a mix down of Apple Tree is also on the tape, but there are no other notes about this song in the Sonobeat archives, including whether it was recorded by Nasty Habit or was a spurious mix of another artist's recording.

Nasty Habit's young guitarist was Jesse Sublett, who after a short stint with the band, including recording the Sonobeat sessions, went on to become a seminal influence in Austin's punk rock era as a founding member of the rock/blues band Jellyroll and the punk bands the Violators and the Skunks. Unfortunately, the Sonobeat archives don't contain information about other members of the band or the names of the composers of Does Your Mother Know? and Listen.

Austin Blues-Rockers

	The Austin Blues-Rockers' master tape boxes

Still another group about which little is known, the Austin Blues-Rockers was a rhythm and bluesey act cast from the same mold as many Motown "girl groups" of the late '60s and early '70s. In December 1975 and January 1976, Sonobeat owner/producer Bill Josey Sr. began working with the group, initially recording Rock House (or House-Rocker, as it's called in some December 1975 takes), Snatch It Back and Hold It , Chicken Shack, and It's Hard to Stop, at his "Blue Hole Sounds" studio outside Liberty Hill, Texas. It's Hard to Stop and one take of House-Rocker wer completed with vocal overdubs, but the other tracks were left as unfinished instrumental backings.

Bill Josey Sr.'s session notes

In March '76, the Blues-Rockers returned to Blue Hole Sounds to cut two excellent songs: Soulful Dress and Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around). These two later tracks appear to have been intended for release as a Sonobeat single. But 1976 was a financially challenging year for Sonobeat, and if there was no other reason the Austin Blues-Rockers' intended single wasn't released, it surely would have been because Josey's ongoing battle with cancer was diverting most of his financial resources from record releases to chemotherapy treatments.

Recently discovered notes from Bill Josey Sr.'s December 21, 1975, sessions with the Austin Blues-Rockers identify the band's personnel as Al Davies (bass), Derick O'Brien (guitar), Doke Ford (harp), David (whose last name isn't indicated; drums), and Frida Borth (vocals), who in 1969 was a member of Austin group Contraband that also recorded with Sonobeat. Bill's notes indicate that he was looking to assemble enough material by the group for an album; his notes indicate that It's Hard to Stop, Rock House, and Snatch It Back and Hold It together had a running time of 15 minues 35 seconds. During the '70s, typical albums had running times of 35-45 minutes.

We're pleased to present sound bites from two of the Austin Blues-Rocker's completed vocal tracks and one instrumental.

Next: 1976