Yes, Sonobeat artists had a life...
Before and After
Leo and the Prophets
In spring 1967, as Austin’s nascent Sonobeat Records was cobbling together its recording equipment, it also was looking for its first act to record. Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Sr. knew many band managers around Central Texas and through his connections arranged for Leo and the Prophets, de facto house band at Austin’s Ozone Forest nightclub, to be Sonobeat’s first guinea pig. A month before Sonobeat’s first session with the Prophets, the band released a single on Austin’s short-lived Totem label. That single, Tilt-A-Whirl, got airplay on KAZZ-FM., where Bill Sr. was general manager and Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Jr. (using the “air name” Rim Kelley) worked as a deejay, but the single was banned from Austin’s #1 top 40 AM station, KNOW, because of its obscure “banana peel” lyrics, presumably oblique drug references. Tilt-A-Whirl, written by bandmates Leo Ellis and Ron Haywood and produced by J. O. Glass and J. C. “Scat” Hamilton, garnered positive reviews in local and regional press and enjoyed impressive sales in Texas through 1967. Sonobeat’s first Prophets session was held on July 1, 1967, but the tapes were unusable because of recording equipment distortion. A little over a week later, Sonobeat tried again with the Prophets, hoping the band could provide Sonobeat with its first 45 RPM single release, but the band didn’t have a second original song for a flip side, so Sonobeat shelved the Prophets tapes once again. Tilt-A-Whirl was the band’s only commercial release.
Sweettarts
One of Austin’s top ’60s rock bands, the Sweetarts, whose 1967 stereo 45 RPM single A Picture of Me was Sonobeat’s inaugural commercial release, issued a well-produced single on Dallas-based Vandan Records a year before the band’s Sonobeat sessions. That single, So Many Times, tracked on the KAZZ-FM. Fun Fifty hit list in Austin for several weeks in 1966. Its popularity, songsmanship, and strong instrumental and vocal performances were major reasons Sonobeat wanted to record the group. Not only was So Many Times a local Austin radio hit, but the flip side, You Don’t Have to Hurt Me, also attracted airplay on Texas radio stations, including KAZZ and KNOW in Austin, KONO in San Antonio, KILT in Houston, and KLIF in Dallas-Ft. Worth. The band was credited as “The Sweettarts” on the Vandan single, but changed its name to feature only one “t” in the middle by the time the Sonobeat single was released. Tom Brown (owner of Vandan Records) and Don Brooks produced the Sweetarts’ Vandan single, which was directed by Gene Garretson and recorded at Vandan’s Dallas studios. Band co-founder and prolific tunesmith Ernie Gammage composed both sides of the Vandan single as well as both sides of the Sonobeat single. Today Ernie performs regularly throughout Texas, and especially at Austin’s legendary Saxon Pub, in The Lost Austin Band.
Lavender Hill Express
1967’s Visions launched a three-single relationship between Sonobeat and Lavender Hill Express, Austin’s first “supergroup”. Lavender Hill Express rose like a phoenix from the ashes of two hot Austin rock acts, The Wig and the Baby Cakes, both of which disbanded in 1967. The Wig, managed by radio deejay Paul Harrison, featured Rusty Wier (drums and vocals), Benny Rowe (lead guitar), Johnny Richardson (guitar), Jess Yaryan (bass), and Billy Wilmont (keyboards). The Wig put out two regional singles that got plenty of airplay and sales: Crackin’ Up and Drive It Home, both produced by Paul Harrison and released on his labels BlacKnight and Goyle, respectively. The hard-driving Crackin’ Up was Rusty’s composition, and, a couple of years later, as a founding member of Lavender Hill Express, he penned the Sonobeat singles Watch Out! and Silly Rhymes. Although it was good for Sonobeat that The Wig and Baby Cakes broke up to give Austin Lavender Hill Express, both The Wig and the Baby Cakes were exceptionally talented bands, each with a strong and loyal fan base throughout Central Texas, where they performed pretty much non-stop through the mid-’60s. Lavender Hill Express producer Rim Kelley recalls visiting The Wig during a practice session at Paul Harrison’s home in Austin; there’s an imaginative and, for the mid-’60s, quite unusual vibrato-like effect performed by Billy Wilmont on keyboard at the end of Crackin’ Up. Paul shared the band’s secret for creating the effect with Rim, who added that to the list of moments that collectively led to the decision to start Sonobeat. More about The Wig is over at GarageHangover.
Shiva’s Headband
Shiva’s Headband recorded an unreleased single for Sonobeat in early 1968. The single, Kaleidoscoptic backed with There’s No Tears, was recorded at Austin’s iconic Vulcan Gas Company music hall and mastered for release as Sonobeat single Rs-103. The Sonobeat archives even contain copies of the test pressing of the stereo single. Although Sonobeat scheduled Kaleidoscoptic for release, ongoing debates with the band about the sonic qualities of the recording delayed its release, and the band and Sonobeat producers discussed the possibility of re-recording the vocals. Eventually all release plans were scrapped and the master tapes shelved. Shiva’s Headband was a major influence in hippie music circles across the U.S., and it was inevitable that the band’s music eventually would make it to commercial release. Founder and electric violinist Spenser Perskin released his composition and the band’s anthem, Take Me to the Mountains, on the band’s own Austin-based Armadillo label (named as homage to The Vulcan Gas Company’s successor, Armadillo World Headquarters, which Perskin co-founded in 1971). The Armadillo single in turn begot a nationally-released album on Capitol Records.
Bach-Yen
In the mid-’60s, Vietnamese songbird Bach-Yen began touring the U.S. by invitation from the U.S. government as a musical emissary. She first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on CBS in January 1965, later in ’65 on the musical variety show Shindig, and in November ’66 on NBC’s Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre. Bach-Yen even had a minor role in the 1968 John Wayne Vietnam war epic, The Green Berets, in which she performwd as a Saigon singer (and the only woman in the film), harkening to her own roots. In 1968, Bach-Yen recorded two soulful ballads produced by Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Sr. that were released on the Sonobeat label as a stereo single. This Is My Song and Magali (which Bach-Yen performed in her native language, French), were among Sonobeat’s more sophisticated early productions, featuring string and horn sections overdubbed months after the basic instrumental and vocal tracks were recorded. Bach-Yen’s Sonobeat single was hardly her first recording: while living in Paris in the mid-’60s, she had a successful European recording career, releasing several French-language albums on the Polydor label. In 1965, three years before the Sonobeat single, Bach-Yen recorded Johnny Hold My Hand and You and I Have Found Love for producer L. Lamont Phemister on the Accent Records label. And, within a year after recording with Sonobeat, Bach-Yen released a single on the one-shot Poupée label. That single, featuring the Spanish ballad Malaguena and French ballad What Now My Love (Et Maintenant), was produced by Dick Kravit. After an almost ten year tour of the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and South America, Bach-Yen returned to her native Vietnam, where she continued to release singles and albums in both French and Vietnamese.
Ray Campi
There was none more rockabilly than rockin’ Ray Campi, who in 1968 recorded Sonobeat’s only novelty release, Civil Disobedience backed with He’s a Devil (in His Own Home Town) under the band name Ray Campi Establishment. Most Sonobeat artists were one-shots, recording a single for Sonobeat but with no other commercial releases, either before or after their Sonobeat release. Ray, however, was the most prolific of those who recorded for Sonobeat. His recorded output is yards long, dating from 1949 when he began performing in Austin, Texas, as Ray Campi & His Camping-Out Cowboys. Coming forward into the ’60s, Ray recorded for national labels Dot, Domino, and Colpix and for at least half a dozen regional labels. Much of Ray’s early output – whether as a solo act or in bands with names like The Slades, Ray and His Ramblers, and the McCoy Boys – was recorded at Roy Poole’s Austin Recording Company, but an equally large catalog was recorded in Houston, Dallas, Hollywood, and New York. Though his roots were in Austin (he moved there in 1944), Ray traveled the country and left behind, quite literally, a golden trail of rockabilly and country singles and albums. And, of course, his Sonobeat single didn’t even represent the middle, much less the end, of his career. Ray passed away, at age 86, on March 11, 2021.
Cody Hubach
Manchaca, Texas, troubadour Cody Hubach recorded a single and an album for Sonobeat – though neither was ever released – over a span of three years beginning in 1969. Cody, a metal sculptor by day and musician by night, helped build Sonobeat’s massive steel plate reverb in 1968 and was a constant friend to Sonobeat co-founder and producer Bill Josey Sr. Although Cody’s Sonobeat material was never released, Cody recorded both before and after his Sonobeat sessions, going on to record and release several singles and albums for other local and regional labels. He also appeared as himself in Willie Nelson’s 1980 feature film Honeysuckle Rose. Notably, Cody’s signature composition, Hooley, which he recorded twice for Sonobeat – first as the “A” side of the unreleased Sonobeat single and a second time for the unreleased album – was also recorded and released in 1968 on Austin’s Dixietone label. That version was produced by Paul Bearden.
But wait... there’s more...
This is just a smattering of the dozens of Sonobeat artists, including individual members of bands that Sonobeat recorded, that have had pre- or post-Sonobeat recording careers. Others include Johnny Winter, Eric Johnson, Rusty Wier, Layton DePenning (whose current bands Denim and Lost Austin Band perform regularly in Austin), Leonard Arnold, Jim Chesnut, James Polk, and Bill Wilson.