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’s first session (November 1967)

South Canadian Overflow’s second session (December 1967)

A SCO tape reel

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.