Josefus

Josefus ranked among the earliest U.S. ensembles to connect the hard-rock sounds of the late 1960s with the heavier metal style that emerged in the following decade. The group issued a pair of LPs in 1970, both shaped heavily by the initial Led Zeppelin recordings and, to a smaller extent, by other potent British and American rock acts active near the close of the 1960s. Much of the foundation rested on blues-rock, with Pete Bailey delivering high, anguished vocals clearly modeled on Robert Plant, while the material revolved around aggressive guitar riffs. Those riffs and the songs themselves, frequently cast in a somber and ominous mood, lacked real distinction. As an innovator, Josefus mainly served as an early template for the raw, direct approach that came to define Texas hard rock and heavy metal, an approach ZZ Top would later develop far more successfully.

Lead guitarist Dave Mitchell and bassist Ray Turner had already performed together in the high-school group Rip West; several Rip West recordings later surfaced on the three-CD anthology Dead Box. Mitchell, Turner, and drummer Doug Tull subsequently worked in a band that predated Josefus, and a demo titled “I Love You” from those sessions also appears on Dead Box. The three musicians adopted the name Josefus once singer Pete Bailey entered the lineup. Phillip White joined the initial Josefus configuration as a second lead guitarist and can be heard on three early live selections included in Dead Box, yet he departed before the end of 1969.

In December 1969 the band tracked enough material for an album in Phoenix. Producer Jim Musil pressed the musicians to adopt the name Come for the release, a request the group resisted even though it performed under that name for several weeks. A single drawn from the sessions, “Crazy Man” backed with “Country Boy,” appeared on the Dandelion label. The full album stayed unreleased at the time, surfacing years afterward as Get Off My Case. Disappointed by the delay, the members returned to the same studio and cut Dead Man, which mixed fresh songs with new versions of tracks from the December 1969 dates. Recorded in a single day during March 1970, Dead Man was pressed in an edition of 3,000 copies on the band’s own Hookah imprint and distributed only in Texas.

Throughout 1970 Josefus remained a strong live attraction across the state and traveled to Miami to record a second, self-titled album for Mainstream that reached stores later the same year. That follow-up displayed slightly less reliance on Led Zeppelin and explored a broader stylistic range than the debut. The musicians nevertheless felt let down by the results and played their last show in December 1970 at a Houston auto exhibition. The band regrouped in the late 1970s for additional concerts and studio work, releasing two singles on Hookah; both sides later appeared on the three-CD collection Dead Man, which pairs the Dead Man and Josefus albums with a disc of live and studio rarities.