Artists

June 25, 1971 – just a few days into summer, it's already a hot Central Texas day. Sonobeat Records co-founder and producer Bill Josey Sr. is in session with gospel group The Royal Light Singers (which Bill miscredits as The Royal Lights Singers, with an "s" at the end of "Light") at Sonobeat's then-new studios in the KVET Building at 705 North Lamar in Austin. The session results in two singles, Will You Be Ready backed with My Rock, that Sonobeat commercially releases as stereo 45 RPM single G-s119, and Creation backed with I Know My Jesus Is Watching, as Sonobeat release G-s120 but that, for reasons undocumented in the Sonobeat archives, appears never to be commercially released but instead appears to be a custom pressing for The Royal Light Singers' direct distribution.

Although James Polk and the Brothers' 1969 Sonobeat single, Stick-To-It-Ive-Ness, has a gospel groove, The Royal Light Singers is the only true gospel artist Sonobeat ever records, adding another distinctive musical genre to the label's eclectic output.

The Royal Light Singers perform at the inaugural 1972 Kerrville Folk Festival, held annually in Kerrville, Texas, about 105 miles west of Austin, where they make repeat performances in 1973, '74, and '77. The unit goes on to release a single on its own Royal label, I Was There When the Spirit Came backed with Come Out in the Wilderness, but there's no indication in the Sonobeat archives whether these tracks are recorded at the Sonobeat studios. Two earlier singles released in the late '50s or early '60s on New York's Derby Records label, I, John, Saw the Holy Number backed with Lord Will Provide and Downward Road backed with My God Called Me This Morning are credited to the Royal Light Singers, but it seems unlikely these recordings are by the Austin-based group. Similarly, in the mid 1950s, there is a Royal Light Singers based in Cleveland, Ohio. Now a quintet, the Austin-based Royal Light Singers is known as the Sensational Royal Lights (not to be confused with a similarly-named gospel group currently performing in the northeast U.S.). In 2022 the Sensational Royal Lights begins its 76th year of performing traditional gospel songs throughout Cental Texas.

Unfortunately, there's nothing more about The Royal Light Singers in the Sonobeat archives, but our research in the Austin American-Statesman newspaper archives provides the names of the members of the group at the time of the Sonobeat recordings (see below).