Sonobeat’s first country single

In early September 1968 Austin, Texas-based Sonobeat recorded its first country single, by popular local swing band Ronnie and the West Winds. The “A” side of the West Winds’ single was leader Ronnie Prellop’s original tune, Can’t Win for Losing, a duet with an interesting pedal steel guitar figure by Ronnie’s cousin Larry Prellop accompanied by a solidly twangy rhythm guitar that Ronnie himself played. The “B” side was an upbeat country swing instrumental, Windy Blues, written by Larry and a show-off piece for his steel guitar. Both songs featured tight performances. With a running time under 90 seconds, Windy Blues was the shortest track Sonobeat commercially released.

How can these kids be so good?

Perhaps more unusual than the fact that this was Sonobeat’s first country single are these facts: first, the band was composed entirely of high school classmates – still in high school when the Sonobeat single was recorded – who attended Redeemer Lutheran School in north Austin and, second, the West Winds session was recorded at The Vulcan Gas CompanyThe Vulcan was Austin’s first successful hippie music hall, opening in 1967 in an old warehouse at 316 Congress Avenue and closing in 1970. Its better known successor was Armadillo World Headquarters. on Congress Avenue in downtown Austin. The Vulcan was a psychedelic, hard rock, and blues-oriented venue that featured the likes of The 13th Floor Elevators, The Conqueroo, Shiva’s Headband, and Johnny Winter and therefore was a little foreign to the West Winds, who were more accustomed to performing at The Broken Spoke, Dessau Dance Hall, Club 195, and other Austin and Central Texas country music venues. But this was not a live performance, no audience was present, and The Vulcan had extraordinary acoustics, so it was as good a venue as any to use to record the West Winds. At the time, Sonobeat had no recording studio facility of its own, so it used nightclubs and music halls during off-hours, particularly those with large dance floors, as “remote” recording studios. The Vulcan was one of its favorites.

Can’t Win for Losing received airplay on Austin country station KOKE and sold modestly well throughout Central Texas.

Ronnie and the West Winds broke up shortly after the band members graduated high school in order to avoid being drafted into the Army by joining the Texas National Guard instead. The year the West Winds recorded with Sonobeat and graduated high school, 1968, was the height of the Vietnam War, and few young men wanted to risk life or limb in an unpopular southeast Asia guerrilla conflict. By 1970, Ronnie rebooted (no pun intended) the band with three of the original core members, this time as Ronnie Prellop and the Country Road, who played country-western venues throughout Central Texas until 1977.

Some backstory on Ronnie and his ”real” job: in 1953, when he was an infant, Ronnie’s father Herb opened a neighborhood grocery store in the lazy north Austin Crestview area – Crestview is bordered on the west by Burnett Road, on the east by North Lamar, on the south by Justin Lane, and on the north by Anderson Lane. Within a few years, the store moved a couple of blocks, renamed as Crestview Minimax, and became a local legend for its ultra-friendly service. Ronnie began working for his father at the store when he was “tall enough to look over the sacks”, eventually taking over management of the store in 1991 when Herb passed away. Under Ronnie’s leadership, Crestview Minimax was awarded The Austin Chronicle newspaper’s Best Neighborhood Grocery Store in June 2014. Ronnie sold the store in 2016.

The West Winds’ Sonobeat single

A newspaper ad for a Ronnie and the West Winds appearance in Bastrop, Texas