JOSEFUS
LINEUP
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Pete Bailey [Kraazy Pete] (lead vocals, harp)
Dave Mitchell (guitar)
Ray Turner (bass, 1969-70,
Doug Tull (drums, 1969-70)
Phillip White (guitar, 1969)
Zeppelin inspired, beer drinking, hard driving, riff crunching, Texas Rock & Roll. That's Josefus in a nutshell, who were mentioned in an article in Classic Rock titled "The Lost Pioneers of Heavy Metal". In December of 1969, Josefus recorded their first album in Phoenix. Their producer, Jim Musil, made the band change their name to 'Come' before the album came out, however, the album would remain unreleased for several years. Frustrated by the album's non-release, the band, now renamed Josefus, went back to the same studio to record Dead Man, which combined re-recordings of songs they'd done in the previous sessions with some new material. Dead Man was recorded in one day in March 1970, and issued in a pressing of 3,000 on the band's own Hookah label for distribution in Texas. The band's last show was, at all places, a Houston Auto Show
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Hookah Records was formed in 1970 as an independent record label for the band Josefus. Howard Turner came up with the concept and design.
The Dead Man album was released across Texas that spring and sold quickly to a large fan base due to the band's live shows. The next Josefus album was on the Mainstream label, and when the band broke up at the end of the year, Hookah also disappeared.
Hookah was brought back in 1979 when Josefus released a pair of 45 singles, but a simpler black on yellow label was used. The multi-color label reappeared when Josefus released the Dead Man aLive CD in 2002.
