Sonobeat Artists

SouTH CanadiAn oVerflOw

Wild ’60s Austin band.
Wild ’60s Austin sounds.

South Canadian Overflow
Home base: Austin, Texas
Genre: Rock | Psychedelic Rock
Recorded with Sonobeat: 1967
No Sonobeat releases

A wild name for a wild band

Austin rock (and occasionally psychedelic rock) band South Canadian Overflow might have been named for some kind of natural disaster in Canada but was actually named for the south fork of the Canadian River that passes through Oklahoma and north Texas. While driving through Oklahoma, bandmates John Inmon, Tommy Langford, and Donnie Dolan noticed a sign reading “South Canadian Overflow” on a bridge that ran across the river’s spillway. The sign made such an impression that when the threesome – then members of The Reasons Why based in Temple, Texas – left in 1967 to form a new band, they appropriated the words on the sign as the new band’s name. Like contemporaries Lavender Hill Express, South Canadian Overflow benefitted from the break-up of not just The Reasons Why, but two of Austin’s hottest mid-’60s bands, The Baby Cakes, which provided South Canadian Overflow with lead singer Chuck Bakondi, and The Wig, which provided SCO with lead guitarist Johnny Richardson. A win-win for two then-new Austin ’s60s bands.

Overflow below ↓

South Canadian Overflow

Sonobeat Artists


South Canadian Overflow


Popular Austin ’60s supergroup

South Canadian Overflow made it inaugural public appearance on September 9, 1967, playing the “Rock for Bach” benefit fundraiser for Austin community radio KFMA-FM. In October and December ’67, the band recorded six original songs with Sonobeat: Psychodelic, Silent Night Blues (that, if we can use the title as a clue, may one of only two holiday-themed songs recorded by Sonobeat, although the instrumental bed itself has no holiday vibe to it), Why Even Try, and three unidentified instrumental tracks. Although all six tracks are South Canadian Overflow originals, unfortunately, the Sonobeat archives don’t include the names of the composers. The October South Canadian Overflow session was recorded at Swingers Club in north Austin, and the December session was recorded at the legendary 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. in downtown Austin. In both cases, although recorded at nightclubs, the recordings were made when the clubs were closed to the public, rather than before live audiences. Sonobeat co-founders Bill Josey Sr. and Rim Kelley“Rim Kelley” was the pseudonym used by Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Jr. as a radio deejay in Austin, Texas, during the 1960s and as a Sonobeat producer from 1967 to 1970. were general manager and rock ’n’ roll deejay, respectively, at Austin’s KAZZ-FM and earlier in 1967 had enlisted the station’s chief engineer, Bill Curtis, to design and build a portable 6-channel stereo audio mixer for the fledgling record label. Curtis engineered the South Canadian Overflow sessions, recording to a quarter-inch 2-track Ampex 354 tape deck through the portable, battery-powered mixer he’d put together. Early in Sonobeat’s history, it had no studio facilities of its own and, instead, used nightclubs during off-hours as makeshift recording studios, which explains why South Canadian Overflow’s recordings were made at Swingers Club and The Vulcan. The six SCO tracks were never completed; no vocals were ever overdubbed, despite the fact that SCO had a great lead singer in Bakondi.


South Canadian Overflow tape box
South Canadian Overflow’s first session (November 1967)
South Canadian Overflow master tape box
South Canadian Overflow’s second session (December 1967)
South Canadian Overflow tape reel
A SCO tape reel

Club Saracen newspaper ad
Club Saracen newspaper ad for a South Canadian Overflow appearance (1967)

South Canadian Overflow appeared frequently at The Vulcan Gas Company, sharing the stage with Shiva’s Headband, The Thingies, and the originators of psychedelic rock, The 13th Floor Elevators. At its height, the band was so popular with Austin’s hippie community and high school teens that it often earned a remarkable $1,500 a performance, a truly substantial amount in 1967 (equal to over $13,700 in 2024 dollars). SCO featured a stellar line-up of Austin rock musicians: Debby Hendershott, Bobby Lynn Shehorn, John Inmon, Donnie Dolan, and Chuck Bakondi. The band’s manager was Austin radio deejay Art Kettlehut. John Inmon’s brother, Jim, was the band’s sound man. In 1969, Donnie and John joined Plymouth Rock, recording a Sonobeat 45 RPM stereo single released the same year.


South Canadian Overflow
  • Chuck Bakondi (lead vocals; did not sing on Sonobeat sessions)
  • Donnie Dolan (drums)
  • Debby Hendershott (rhythm guitar and vocals; did not sing on Sonobeat sessions)
  • Tommy Langford (bass; leaves the band before the Sonobeat sessions)
  • John Inmon (lead guitar)
  • Bobby Lynn Shehorn (bass)

Recording details
Unreleased recordings

All songs written by South Canadian Overflow

  • Psychodelic
  • Silent Night Blues
  • Why Even Try
  • Unidentified song #1
  • Unidentified song #2
  • Unidentified song #3


Produced by Bill Josey Sr.

Engineered by Rim Kelley

Recorded at Swingers Club, Austin, Texas, on October 10, 1967, and at The Vulcan Gas Company, Austin, Texas, on December 12, 1967

Recorded using...

  • ElectroVoice 665 dynamic microphones
  • Ampex 350 and 354 quarter-inch 2-track tape decks
  • Custom 6-channel portable stereo mixer
  • 3M (Scotch) 202 tape stock

Listen!
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South Canadian Overflow
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