Sonobeat and the 1970s: a lot and a little

For the next few months, we’ll be focusing on Sonobeat Recording Company’s activities in the 1970s. Although founded in mid-1967, and with most of its vinyl record releases occurring between then and the end of 1969, Sonobeat was most active from 1970 through mid-1976, when its co-founder, Bill Josey Sr., fell too ill to continue operating the company. The 1960s was the decade of extraordinary growth in Austin’s indigenous music scene, but by 1970, its laid-back, non-corporate approach to music culture – likely attributable to a Univeresity of Texas student body approaching 40,000 strong along with dozens of live music venues – became a magnet for musicians outside Central Texas. In fact, the first act Sonobeat recorded in 1970 was The Ohio Express, a nationally recognized act that already had half a dozen top 10 radio hits to its credit on major record labels. In the 1970s, the Austin music scene made a dramatic shift to progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and outlaw or progressive country. Sonobeat recorded more than double the acts in the 1970s than it did in the 1960s, but it released only 1/5th the number of phonograph records in the 1970s than it had in the scant 2-1/2 years of its operation at the end of the ’60s.