Artists

From 1974 to 1976, songwriter and musician Tom Penick assists Sonobeat producer Bill Josey Sr. during recording sessions and helps solicit business for the Blue Hole Sounds studio that Bill builds in late 1973 inside an old stone church on the outskirts of Liberty Hill, Texas, some 30 miles north of Austin.

Tom, who lives only about eight miles down the road from Liberty Hill, in nearby Leander, trades his services – setting up mikes, running cables, positioning sound baffles, and preparing the equipment for recording sessions Bill conducts – for studio time to record his own compositions. This Old Cowboy, recorded at Blue Hole Sounds in August 1975, is a demo – much like Sonosong's Herman Nelson, Bill Wilson, and Roy Headrick song demo albums – intended to interest nationally-known country artists in recording Tom's material. In the sound bite we present from the Sonobeat archives, Tom demonstrates his gentle country-folk approach.