Jim Chesnut at Sonobeat’s home-based studio in northwest Austin

From introductions to recording sessions

In September 1968 folk-pop performer Jim Chesnut recorded twoHerman Nelson compositions for Sonobeat co-founder and producer Bill Josey Sr. About to Be Woman is a folk ballad Herman described as a modern love song. Leaves is a plaintive commentary on everyday life – as relevant at the moment you’re reading this as when Jim recorded it in ’68. The songs were released in November 1968 as Sonobeat 45 RPM stereo single PV-s112, which was Jim’s recording debut. Jim’s single was issued in a picture sleeve designed by Sonobeat co-founder Rim Kelley and was Sonobeat’s final custom sleeve.

The master tape for Jim Chesnut’s Sonobeat single

The “A” side of Jim Chesnut’s Sonobeat single

Jim Chesnut’s single’s custom sleeve

Jim returned to Sonobeat in April 1969 to record a series of pop and country covers including By the Time I Get to Phoenix, The Impossible Dream, They Call the Wind Maria, Woman Woman, Games People Play, Where’s The Playground Susie, Husbands and Wives, and Wives and Lovers (the latter two songs are different, although it may sound as if there’s a typo: Husbands and Wives is a Roger Miller country tune, and Wives and Lovers is a Burt Bachrach-Hal David pop song originally made a hit by Jack Jones). Bill Sr. appeared to be trying to build a commercial album release with Jim, but regardless whether that was the goal, none of Jim’s April ’69 recordings were ever released. As a side note, Jim’s April ’69 sessions may mark the first time in Austin recorded music history that an artist was backed entirely by session musicians, much the same way the famous Los Angeles-based Wrecking Crew, consisting of a revolving door of talented musicians, provided the backing tracks for thousands of rock and pop albums and singles from the ’60s through the ’80s. Because Jim was a solo act with no band of his own, Bill Sr. assembled a small hand-picked combo from the large pool of Austin musicians, including Sonobeat regular Mike Waugh on bass, to record Jim’s backing tracks.

Additional tracks recorded by Jim Chesnut in April 1969

A Liberty Recorders label used to submit Jim Chesnut’s demos to Liberty Records

Bill Sr. picked three of Jim’s cover demos for an acetate disc that he circulated to his A&RArtist & Repertoire (A&R) executives at record labels recruit and manage a roster of artists, connecting them to new songs and overseeing their recording and promotional activities. contacts at Liberty Records, looking for a major label release of Jim’s Sonobeat recordings. When delivering Sonobeat’s Johnny Winter master tapes of The Progressive Blues Experiment to Liberty Records in Los Angeles in 1968, Bill Sr. snagged a stash of Liberty Recorders tape box labels that he used whenever he hoped to make a new sale to Liberty.

Although Jim recorded no original songs of his own for Sonobeat, his career as both singer and composer in his own right blossomed in the ’70s after he moved to Nashville and took up residence as a staff writer for world-famous music publisher Acuff-Rose. A Grammy nominee for his composition Show Me a Sign, Jim recorded two albums and more than a dozen singles for the MGM, ABC, and Capitol labels and played clubs and concerts across the country. Suddenly abandoning music in 1982, Jim shifted gears, launching a career as a certified public manager (and on the side operating an audiovisual and graphics production business) in San Antonio, Texas. Twenty-six years later, in 2008, Jim returned to music, but just as his rebooted singing and songwriting career was reaching a new crescendo, he got a life-changing shock: in 2017 he was diagnosed with a malignant tumor under his tongue. Due in large part to quality medical treatment and Jim’s extraordinary fortitude and positive attitude, he made a successful recovery. By 2018, he completed and released a new album, boldly titled I Sure Do Miss My Hair, from which the country single Rode Hard and Put Away Wet was drawn. In September 2018, the single reached #1 on IndieWorld Country Record Report’s top hits chart. And, in January 2019, Jim resumed his previously-interrupted graduate studies at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, focusing on non-pharmacological methods for reducing stress in cancer patients, earning a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2020 and winning the department award for outstanding research. Today, Jim is completing a health and lifestyle guide entitled I Sure Do Miss My Hair: Living with Cancer (and Other Crap That Happens) that presents his Power Living formula for managing stress. For more about Jim’s post-Sonobeat career and current activities, visit his personal website.

A publicity photo from Jim’s early years in Nashville (circa 1972-'73)