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Singer, songwriter, sidekick

In mid-1973, when his studio lease was up at the KVET building in downtown Austin, Texas, Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Sr. relocated Sonobeat’s recording studios to the outskirts of Liberty Hill (population around 300 at the time), in the Hill CountryThe Texas ”Hill Country” is that portion of Central Texas sitting on the Edwards Plateau and featuring beautiful rolling hills and grasslands. The 31,000 square mile region is considered the geographic border between the American Southeast and Southwest. 30 miles north of Austin. There he had found a spacious old stone church used by its small A.M.E. congregation every other Sunday. The church was mostly one big room, with a raised platform for the pulpit and altar at the front and the sanctuary occupying the remainder. Instead of pews, for Sunday services the congregation simply set up folding chairs that were stowed in a small back room. But the sanctuary, with chairs stowed, became a vast open space, serving perfectly as a recording floor.

It took Bill months to prepare the church for use as a studio. He wired the building for sound, soundproofed doors and window coverings, and added insulation and air conditioning. But Bill needed physical help, especially insulating and rewiring the building. Enter singer-songwriter Tom Penick, who lived eight miles down the road in Leander and also happened to be an electrician. Tom recalls that he and Bill were introduced via mutual friends in Liberty Hill. Tom helped Bill insulate the ceiling and complete the rewiring. When the studio was finally completed, opening its doors as “Blue Hole Sounds” (named for a popular nearby swimming hole), Tom’s band Innerphase played the grand opening, earning dubious compliments for being on time (Tom recalls his bandmates were notoriously late to gigs) and not playing too loud.

Bill had spent a lot of money refurbishing the church building. He now needed to offer out the recording studio facilities and his producing and engineering services on an hourly fee basis to make ends meet, so the next task he asked Tom to help with was publicity. Tom circulated hundreds of Blue Hole Sounds fliers throughout Austin and the Hill Country, alerting musicians who’d previously recorded with Bill at Sonobeat’s Western Hills Drive and KVET Building studios in Austin to Sonobeat’s new location as well as attracting acts that had never recorded with Bill before. Meanwhile, Bill continued to scout and develop new acts to record for Sonobeat itself. Between the paying acts and those he was nurturing as potential Sonobeat artists and who, therefore, he didn’t charge, Bill hoped to keep the studio booked multiple days each week. For that, he needed even more help.

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Tom assisted Bill in the studio from early 1974, when Blue Hole Sounds officially opened, to mid-1976, setting up microphones, laying out cables, positioning sound baffles, and preparing the equipment for Bill’s recording sessions. When paying acts used the studio, Bill paid Tom for his assistance, and when Bill recorded acts he was developing for Sonobeat itself, Tom volunteered his services, as he had when he helped Bill prep the church building.

In August 1975, Tom recorded This Old Cowboy at Blue Hole Sounds at Bill’s request, as Bill had interest in the song. The recording was a demo much like the Herman Nelson, Bill Wilson, and Roy Headrick song demo albums that Sonobeat previously had recorded for its sister publishing company, Sonosong Music. Indeed, the This Old Cowboy tape box is marked “SONOSONG COPY”, indicating that it was left with Bill to shop to his major label 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 for the purpose of soliciting a nationally-known country singer to cover the song. This Old Cowboy is the only song Tom recorded at Blue Hole Sounds, as he had his own recording equipment at home. Tom’s friend Andrew Szuch, Jr., a rock drummer out of San Antonio, Texas, played on the track, which also included bass guitar. Although the Sonobeat archives don’t list the bass player’s name, odds are it was Mike Waugh, who Bill used frequently as a session player on numerous other recordings.

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Tom worked as an electrician for 24 years, starting in 1974, before earning an electrical engineering degree in 2001 from The University of Texas in Austin. As an electrical engineer, he specialized in industrial embedded design, instrumentation, switchmode power, and wireless data communications. He presently lives in the Central Texas community of Oatmeal and works for Loram Technologies in Georgetown, designing, building, and operating equipment for inspecting and maintaining railroads. But Tom’s never given up music: since 2012, he’s fronted Tomzap Good Time Rock and Roll Band, playing a mix of originals and covers of alternative, classic rock, and pop songs at public and private gigs throughout Central Texas.

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