Sonobeat Artists
Don “Skipper” Young
(Collections)
A man in command
Returning from Los Angeles to Austin in summer 1965 to start a masters program in chemical engineering at The University of Texas, to help finance his studies, Skipper played vibraphone for Geneva and Her Gentlemen at Geneva’s regular Thursday night gigs at Austin’s Jade Room. By the end of spring semester ’68, Skipper had picked up his Master of Science degree and immediately began working toward his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. In a May 1969 concert on the UT campus, Skipper was featured on many of the 17 instruments he had mastered in a spotlight called “Skipper Young ’69”. By 1971, Skipper had earned his Ph.D. and had joined the UT Chemical Engineering Department faculty, yet he still found time to headline his jazz acts at popular Austin nightclubs. Skipper was truly a wunderkind, and his abilities on so many different instruments and leadership of many bands beginning during his Fluor days on the West Coast may be how he earned the nickname “Skipper”.
The first few months of 1971 were busy for Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Sr. Skipper’s combo was the third act Bill Sr. recorded in February ’71. By the time Sonobeat recorded Skipper in February 1971, the band has been through several incarnations and was then composed of Skipper, former Sweetarts’ bassist Pat Whitefield, Austin guitar legend Jim Mings, Jim’s sister Martha Mings on keyboards, and drummer Jay Meade, all top-tier Austin musicians. This was the third group in which Sonobeat recorded Pat Whitefield, first as a founding member of the Sweetarts, then with the Sweetarts’ successor band, Fast Cotton, and finally with Skipper. Sonobeat also previously recorded Jim Mings and Jay Meade in Austin progressive rock band New Atlantis.
Skipper’s session was held on Valentine’s Day at Sonobeat’s Western Hills Drive studio in northwest Austin. The Sonobeat archives hold a single half-inch 4-track reel from the session containing three cuts of the same unidentified song. The reel is packed in a 10-1/2" tape box marked with only a piece of masking tape on which Bill Sr. wrote the name “Skipper Young” and “2-14-71”. Bill Sr. stored a cardboard insert in the tape box on which he wrote abbreviated session notes indicating instrument and vocal channel assignments on the 4-track session master. But there is one odd detail on the cardboard insert: at the top Bill Sr. wrote “Collections”. Curious, we researched the Austin American-Statesman and University of Texas Daily Texan newspaper archives and confirmed via ads for The Jade Room nightclub that Collections was the name of Skipper’s band as of January 1971.
Working backwards from the recordings sequenced on the Collections master tape, there are three progressively layered takes or cuts of the same song; cut #3 is the basic instrumental backing track with bass, drums, standard guitar, and flute; cut #2 layered on electric guitar and piano; cut #1 completed the song by adding Jim Mings’ and Martha Mings’ vocals, each on a separate track. There are no stereo mix-downs of the song in the Sonobeat archives, so the sound bites we present below are quick remixes we made from the half-inch 4-track session masters.
Collections was...
- Jay Meade (drums)
- Jim Mings (guitar and lead vocals)
- Martha Mings (keyboard and harmony vocals)
- Pat Whitefield (bass)
- Skipper Young (flute)
Recording details
Unreleased recording
- Unidentified song
Produced and engineered by Bill Josey Sr.
Recorded at Sonobeat’s Western Hills Drive studio, Austin, Texas, on February 14, 1971
Recorded using...
- AKG D707E dynamic, ElectroVoice Slimair 636 dynamic, and Sony ECM-22 electret condenser microphones
- Scully 280 half-inch 4-track, Stemco 500-4 half-inch 4-track, and Ampex AG-350 quarter-inch 2-track tape decks
- Custom 16-channel 4-bus mixing console
- Fairchild Lumiten 663ST stereo optical compressor
- Blonder-Tongue Audio Baton 9-band graphic equalizer
- Custom steel plate stereo reverb
- Ampex 611 tape stock
Listen!
Our thanks to Jim Mings for fleshing out our sketchy information about Don “Skipper” Young and Collections.