Artists

It's February 1976, and Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Sr. records country artist Larry Boyd and Group (who at the time is performing in Central Texas under the name Coldspring). The sessions are held at Bill's Blue Hole Sounds studio – a converted A.M.E. stone church – just outside Liberty Hill, in the Central Texas hill country 35 miles north of Austin. The only Boyd tapes in the Sonobeat archives are various takes of Sally G and one completed version of Back Home Again, a cover of the John Denver ballad. The archives indicate Sally G is cut specifically as a demo "to render an opinion" about Larry and his group. Sally G is a nice tune written by The Beatles' Paul McCartney and is given a good country-fried performance by Boyd & Group. If Bill follows his standard pattern, we guess that he sends an audiocassette dub of the demo to his A&RArtist & Repertoire exeutives at record labels build and manage a roster of artists, connecting them to new songs and overseeing their recording activities. friends at several national record labels, including Liberty/UA and Columbia, but he must get no interest from any of his contacts, since the Sonobeat archives show no further sessions with Larry.

Bill habitually keeps handwritten session notes, identifying the participating musicians, song composers, and, occasionally, diagramming the stereo position of each instrument in the basic recordings. He often includes notes to himself to aid in overdubs and mix-downs. Almost all of Bill's session notes have been lost or destroyed, but we fortuitously find his notes for Larry's sessions along with a candid snapshot of Larry overdubbing a standard guitar track in the Blue Hole Sounds studio. These tidbits are tucked away in the box holding the Sally G master tape.

After Bill's death in September 1976, Larry rents the church that has housed Blue Hole Sounds from the A.M.E. congregation that owns it, using it for rehearsals and equipment storage between gigs.

Born in Houston, Texas, and a graduate of Burnet High School in Burnet, Texas, about 20 miles west of Liberty Hill, Larry performs with several bands throughout Central Texas during the '70s and '80s and now lives in Nashoba, Oklahoma, where he continues to perform and record. And following the Sonobeat sessions, Larry's written a passel of country songs, including Scottie Jim Beam Me Up and She Left Texas. Larry's bandmate Eddie Farris, also a graduate of Burnet High School, receives his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Southwest Texas State University in San Marco, Texas, eventually making a career in the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, working to end homelessness, but as a hobby continues to play drums in rock, country, and swing bands throughout Central Texas until his death at age 62 in June 2012.