Artists

It's August 1969, and Sonobeat is recording its first soul/rhythm & blues group, James Polk and The Brothers, headed, of course, by Yoakum, Texas, native and Austin transplant James Polk. The sessions are among the first to be recorded entirely at Sonobeat's Western Hills Drive studio in northwest Austin; until the Polk sessions, the home-based studio is used primarily for vocal overdub and mixing sessions. Although there are no photos from the sessions in the Sonobeat archives, Sonobeat co-founder and recording engineer Rim Kelley (Bill Josey Jr.) recalls that the tiny studio – which also houses the mixing console and tape decks – is so crowded that the musicians are practically falling over each other, requiring extremely close miking and several overdubs to get acceptable stereo separation.

The sessions yield two solid original songs that are released as Sonobeat stereo 45 RPM single R-s115. With a positive message, the gospel-influenced "A" side, Stick-To-It-Tive-Ness, is San Antonio native Yvonne Joseph's original composition on which she sings lead. Imogene Polk and Teresa Maxwell provide backing vocals. The single's "B" side, The Robot, is a slow, jazz-influenced instrumental written by Polk that might have started a dance craze had it been the "A" side. The James Polk and The Brothers single really deserves a picture sleeve, like Sonobeat's earlier singles releases, but by 1969, Sonobeat has given up on the extra effort and expense to make them. Based on the relationship Sonobeat has established with Liberty Records, that in 1968 purchases Sonobeat's Johnny Winter album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, Sonobeat co-founder and producer Bill Josey Sr. offers the Polk single to Liberty for its Minit label; although Liberty considers a deal, ultimately it never happens. And for that reason, Sonobeat finally releases the single on its own label the second week of November 1969. The single becomes one of Sonobeat's classics, athough at the time of its release its sales are sluggish. Earlier in '69, Polk forms his own Austin-based label, Twink Records, named for a close friend, that in September '69 releases a James Polk and The Brothers single, Just Plain Funk backed with Black Door Jeannie, so it's unclear why Polk records the Sonobeat single so close in proximity to the Twink single or even records with Sonobeat at all.

Polk returns to cut an album for Bill Sr. in March 1971, but the Sonobeat archives are unclear where the sessions are recorded or who the session players are. It's a good bet, however, that these sessions also are recorded at Sonobeat's Western Hills Drive studio. The resulting 45 minute untitled album features seven tracks, one weighing in at a hefty 13 minutes. The half-inch 4-track master tape box indicates that Bill Sr., who both produces and engineers the sessions, covers the drum kit with three mikes, "taps" the guitar amp speaker – which bypasses the need for a microphone, injecting the speaker output directly into the mixer – and places one mike on each of the organ and sax. The album contains a mix of cover versions of pop tunes, such as the Burton Lane-Alan Jay Lerner Broadway classic On a Clear Day, and Polk originals, including the fun and funky Polk Chops. Poor Butterfly is a cover of a pop classic dating from 1916 and popularized in the 1940s by Benny Goodman's big band. It's clear Bill Sr. is looking to create an album that he can sell to a national label, but there appear no takers.

Bor on September 10, 1040, in Yoakum, Texas, Polk is a formally trained music theorist, classical and jazz pianist, and prolific composer who, beginning in 1970, spends two years touring as Lionel Hampton's bassist and, in the late '70s, eight years touring with the Ray Charles orchestra. For a moment in 1973, he quits music and takes a job at IBM in Austin. But Polk can't stay away from music, returning two years later and never looking back.

Polk earns an undergraduate degree from Huston-Tillotson College in Austin and a Master of Music Degree from Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, and is awarded an honorary doctorate from Huston-Tillotson in 1995. He's inducted into the Austin Music Awards Hall of Fame in 1999 and receives a special honor at the Austin Music Awards during the 2014 SXSWSouth By Southwest, also known as "SXSW" or "South By" and whose name is inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock thriller North By Northwest, begins in 1987 as an Austin-based music festival and since has expanded to cover feature films and interactive media. SXSW pretty much takes over Austin during The University of Texas spring break every March. conference. Although Polk now has retired from his post as Associate Professor and Associate Director of Jazz Studies at Texas State University, he remains an influential member of the Central Texas music community, active with the Dr. James Polk Academy of Arts and Technology and the Austin Jazz Workshop. Now 81, Polk still performs regularly with his jazz sextet Centerpiece, most often at Elephant Room on Congress Avenue in downtown Austin.

Kahron Spearman writes an excellent piece on Dr. Polk that appears in the January 17, 2019, edition of The Austin Chronicle, stimulating us to add some new Stick-To-It-Tive-Ness excerpts to the Listen! section below. The first is Yvonne's lead vocal without the backup singers and the second includes the backup singers in the version that's used for Sonobeat's 45 RPM stereo single release in 1969.