Johnny and Janet

Sonobeat co-founder and producer Bill Josey Sr.’s first connection to the Country Nu-Notes was in 1973, when Nu-Notes founder Johnny Lyon and his singing partner Janet Lynn recorded two songs at Sonobeat’s North Lamar studio near downtown Austin. Bill’s ultra-abbreviated session notes uniquely are written on masking tape affixed to the half-inch 4-track tape reel on which the masters of several artists, including Johnny and Janet, are sequenced. Unfortunately, Bill didn’t jot down the names of the tunes. We found no stereo or mono mix-downs of Johnny and Janet’s tracks in the Sonobeat archives, so in 2017 we made a fresh stereo mix from the half-inch 4-track session master to demonstrate the pure country music heritage that the singing duet embodied in the ’70s. Oh, we should mention that Johnny and Janet were only a “singing” couple, not a “married” couple (Johnny’s wife was Suzy Joseph), and, of course, they were backed by the Nu-Notes on the sessions.

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A night of non-stop country classics

Fast forward to a chilly February 24, 1974, night, when Bill hauled his Ampex 2100 tape deck, half a dozen microphones, and portable audio mixer down to The Broken Spoke, one of Austin’s most popular honky-tonk dance halls, devoting the entire evening to recording the Country Nu-Notes featuring Johnny and Janet. Spanning three full 7" tape reels, the total running time of the recorded material – 29 songs in all – is about 90 minutes. The March sessions may have been intended to yield a live album, or perhaps two, for release on Sonobeat Records, but it’s clear from the Sonobeat archives that Bill never released any of the band’s material on the Sonobeat label. But it’s unclear from the archives whether Bill circulated any demos of the Nu-Notes to national record labels to gauge interest, as he typically did with material by many other acts he recorded.

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The band was known by many names, often in the same time frame: for example, in 1971, Austin American-Statesman newspaper ads referred to the band as the “Country-Western Nu-Notes”. By 1974, Johnny Lyon was sometimes advertised as headlining the band, and in other newspaper ads Johnny Lyon and Janet Lynn were co-headliners. Just as often, newspaper ads referred to “Johnny Lyon and the Country Nu-Notes featuring Janet Lynn”. When Bill recorded the band at The Broken Spoke in ’74, it was most often referred to in newspaper ads as just the “Country Nu-Notes”, which Bill reflected in his session notes and markings on the session master tape boxes. Regardless how it was billed, the band was always Johnny’s. A Bryan, Texas, native, he founded the band while an undergrad at Texas A&M in College Station (both Bryan and College Station, which are four miles apart, are about a two hour drive east of Austin), where he also was a member of the Air Force R.O.T.C. Following graduation and officer training camp, Johnny did a tour of duty in Viet Nam. When he returned in 1970, he rebooted the band in Austin, even while serving as an Air Force major at Austin’s Bergstrom Air Force BaseBergstrom Air Force Base, part of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, was decommissioned by the U.S. government in 1993, the land sold to the City of Austin, and in 1997 reopened as Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.. Remarkably, Johnny kept the Nu-Notes together and performing for over 30 years, albeit with many personnel changes along the way.

The Country Nu-Notes’ recordings and Sonobeat’s stereo 45 RPM single by The Afro-Caravan – recorded at the HemisFair ’68 world’s fair in San Antonio, Texas – are the only known live recordings made by Sonobeat; however, we don’t hear any actual audience noise, such as applause or chatter, on the Nu-Notes’ tapes, suggesting that the Nu-Notes sessions may not have been “live” recordings after all but, rather, were recorded on a Sunday evening when The Broken Spoke was closed to the public. So, if the Nu-Notes’ recording were not actually “live”, why did Bill record the Nu-Notes at The Broken Spoke rather than at Sonobeat’s studio? In mid-’73, Bill relocated the Sonobeat studio from Austin into an old stone church on the outskirts of rural Liberty Hill, Texas, about 30 miles north of Austin. It took Bill months to refurbish the old church into a recording studio. Blue Hole Sounds, as Bill called his new Liberty Hill studio, was only partially operational in February ’74, when he recorded the Nu-Notes. So, Bill recorded the band where it was most comfortable performing... at The Broken Spoke. It was easier for Bill to take a few pieces of recording equipment there than to have the band bring all its equipment – instruments, kit, amps, and speaker boxes – to Liberty Hill.

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Post Sonobeat

After the Sonobeat sessions, Janet (who grew up with the nickname “Bubbles”, given to her by her mother) moved to Nashville to pursue her singing career, working with dozens of country music legends of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. In 1999, she received the SXSWSouth By Southwest, also known as “SXSW” or “South By” and whose name was inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock thriller North By Northwest, began in 1987 as an Austin-based music festival and since has expanded to cover feature films and interactive media. SXSW pretty much takes over Austin during The University of Texas spring break every March. Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame, and, in 2000, she was inducted into the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame. In 2007, Janet returned to Austin, where she still performs regularly, having done a long stint as an actress/comedian at Austin’s iconic Esther’s Follies on Pecan (6th) Street. She currently tours throughout Texas with her band Janet Lynn & Friends. She also owns the Aus-Tex record label and Get Your Act Together, where she provides vocal coaching for aspiring and established singers alike.

In 1978, Johnny established the Texas Hall of Fame, celebrating Texas country music, in his hometown, Bryan. Johnny passed away on November 28, 2010. Just over a year later, in December 2011, and after 33 years celebrating traditional live country music, the Hall of Fame closed.

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