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White Light: Progressive Rock Group

White Light was an American progressive-rock group formed in 1967. The group originated from New Orleans, Louisiana, and later from Austin, Texas. White Light recorded a self-titled album of eight, all-original tracks in 1975–76, produced by Texas music producer Bill Josey Sr. of Sonobeat Records. The album was lost for a time but was eventually discovered, cleaned up and packaged, and released by German music producer Thomas Hartlage on the Shadoks Music label on October 9, 2015.

History[edit source | edit]
The first White Light began as a five-piece cover band, formed in 1967 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The group played all cover music at mostly college venues in the city's uptown section. After a brief time together, the first White Light's members disbanded and moved on to pursue other interests. In 1973, bassist Rob Haeuser relocated to Austin, Texas, followed later, in September 1974, by group founder and guitarist Mike Hobren, and drummer Rusty Haeuser. The second White Light rented a trailer remotely located in the central Texas countryside and spent the next few months in sequestered jamming, defining its new sound. The group emerged with a set of all-original, progressive-rock music, composed in a collaborative fashion. The new group's resulting sound leaned toward the jazz-rock fusion style.

About a year later the group met indie music producer Bill Josey Sr., co-founder of Sonobeat Records, whose recording studio was not far from the group's rehearsal location. In early November 1975, Josey invited White Light to record a full-length record album on his Sonobeat Records label. From December 1975 to February 1976 the trio worked with Josey at his Blue Hole Sounds studio near Liberty Hill, Texas. Josey first provided White Light with a handwritten, 10-point proposal to produce a work tape of eight, all-original tracks, totaling between 38-42 minutes in length (a standard vinyl LP album back then), that would be sent to Josey’s music-industry contacts at United Artists, Columbia Records, and Arista Records. Josey would be the producer of the album and would have the final say-so as to what was sent to the record labels.

All primary recording, overdubbing, and mixing for the album were completed on March 1, 1976. Josey then sent the work tape (transferred to cassette tape) to his industry contacts at United Artists. However, United Artists passed on the album, citing the group’s music as being too esoteric and having “limited market potential.” The work tape then went to Arista Records that contacted Josey in mid-May; however, Arista Records also rejected the album for essentially the same reasons. No word was ever received from Columbia Records. Then in April 1976, United Artists (following an undisclosed management shakeup at the label), contacted Bill Josey Sr. to express a renewed interest in the group and wanted to hear the work tape a second time.

However, White Light never learned what happened to the work tape that producer Josey had resubmitted to United Artists for a second consideration. Having fought late-stage cancer for some time, even during the album's recording phase and follow-up marketing to the record labels, Bill Josey Sr. succumbed to his illness at a VA hospital in nearby Temple, Texas in September 1976. After that White Light disbanded, having never learned of the resubmitted album's fate from United Artists, and without even obtaining a copy of the work tape from Josey’s surviving kin.

In 2004, Bill Josey Sr.'s sons -- Bill Josey Jr. and Jack Josey -- conceived and posted a tribute website dedicated to their late father, detailing the senior Josey's lifetime and achievements, and the history of the Sonobeat label. The website profiled many of the groups that the late Bill Josey Sr. had recorded and among these was White Light, which was the last progressive group recorded by the elder Josey.

Thirty years later, in March 2005, Mike Hobren contacted Jack Josey in Austin to ask him about the work tape that the group had once recorded with his father. Jack Josey had transferred all of White Light’s music from its original, oxidizing analog tape to CD format, thus preserving the work tape and the group's recording efforts. Josey sent a copy of the CD to Mike Hobren, who was by then living in Florida. Another 10 years went by when in January 2015, as the album was approaching its 40th anniversary, music scout Enrique Rivas heard tracks from the album that Rob Haeuser had posted on the Internet and contacted him for more information. Rivas put White Light in contact with German music producer Thomas Hartlage of the Shadoks Music label. On March 1, 2015, White Light signed a contract with Hartlage to release and market the album. Following this, the album went through a period of pre-release production work that included the creation of liner notes and the artwork for the front and back album covers.

During this period, Mike Hobren and Rob Haeuser were interviewed by editor Klemen Breznikar of It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine in September 2015. The album's forthcoming release was also announced on the Light In The Attic Records website in September 2015. White Light's album was released for worldwide distribution on October 9, 2015, some 41 years after the second White Light had formed in Austin, Texas.'''