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Sonobeat Artists

Commercial Vinyl Releases - Chronological)

1967 releases

Sweetarts

September 1967
R-s101

Lee Arlano Trio

September 1967
PJ-s501

Don Dean

October 1967
PV-s401

Lavender Hill Express

December 1967
R-s102

1968 releases

The Conqueroo

April 1968
R-s103

The Thingies

April 1968
R-s104

Lee Arlano Trio

May 1968
PJ-s1001

Lavender Hill Express

June 1968
R-s105

The Afro-Caravan

September 1968
R-s106

Winter

September 1968
R-s107

Ronnie and the West Winds

October 1968
C-s108

Bach-Yen

October 1968
PV-s109

Lavender Hill Express

October 1968
R-s110

Ray Campi Establishment

October 1968
PV-s111

Jim Chesnut

November 1968
PV-s112

Fran Nelson

November 1968
PV-s113

1969 releases

Johnny Winter

March 1969
Imperial LP- 12431

Plymouth Rock

November 1969
R-s114

James Polk and the Brothers

November 1969
R-s 115

Vince Mariani

November 1969
R-s 116

Lee Arlano Trio

December 1969
P-J 117

1970 releases

Mariani

September 1970
R-s118

Wali and the Afro-Caravan

December 1970
Solid State SS-18065

1971 releases

The Royal Lights Singers

July 1971
G-s119

The Royal Lights Singers

July 1971
G-s120

1972-1974: no releases

1975 release

Arma (Harper)

April 1975
PF-121

1976 releases

The David Flack Quorum

June 1976
DFQS-100

Jeannine (Hoke)

June 1976
PS-122

Helmer Dahl

July 1976
S7976

How Sonobeat catalogued its releases

Sonobeat used a simple alphanumeric cataloging scheme to identify its commercial singles and commercial and demo album releases. Singles used a letter code followed by three numbers, and commercially-released albums used letter codes followed by four numbers. On singles, the catalog number appears in the left central portion of the label.

The first one or two letters indicate the general musical genre of the release:

C = country
G = gospel
P or PS or PV = pop vocal
PF = pop folk
PJ or P-J = pop jazz
R = rock or rhythm & blues

Following the genre code, an "s" or "S" designates a stereo release and "m" or "M", a monaural release. A complete catalog number would appear as, for example, R-s111, indicating a rock or rhythm & blues single in stereo. Plymouth Rock's single Memorandum was miscatalogued as R-s114. Because it was issued only in a monaural mix, it properly should have been cataloged as R-m114. Similarly, Mariani's single Re-birth Day also was miscatalogued as R-S118. It, too, was issued only in a monaural mix and should have been cataloged as R-M118. Sonobeat stopped using the stereo/mono designators in 1975.

Singles released in 1967 were sequentially numbered within a block of numbers assigned to each genre: rock singles were numbered in the 100s, pop vocals in the 400s, and pop jazz in the 500s. For example, R-s101 was the Sweetarts' A Picture of Me (also Sonobeat's first release); Sonobeat's second release was the Lee Arlano Trio's pop jazz instrumental, PJ-s501; Sonobeat's third release was Don Dean's pop vocal, PV-s401; and R-s102, a single by Lavender Hill Express, was simultaneously Sonobeat's fourth 45 RPM release and its second rock release. In 1968, the awkward block numbering system was replaced with a simplified system: while still using the genre prefix, all singles were sequentially numbered, as released, from 103 through 122.

David Flack Quorum's 1976 album Mindbender broke pattern, released as DFQS-100, the letters meaning "David Flack Quorum Stereo". Sonobeat's final release, Helmer Dahl's 1976 album Toe-Tapping Tunes, was issued as S7976, which seems to be an "out of the blue" catalog number but actually was assigned by the record pressing plant as the next sequential number in its lacquer mastering queue.

Sonobeat's non-commercial album releases – primarily the Sonosong catalog demo albums – used a different cataloging system: the letter codes were either HEC or WEJ, and the numbers followed a system assigned by Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Sr. "WEJ" represent Bill Sr.'s initials. Although we're not certain, "HEC" appear to be the initials of the lacquer mastering engineer at Sidney J. Wakefield & Company, which mastered and pressed singles and albums for Sonobeat from 1968 through 1971 and again in 1976.