Lonestar Music Mag's Mr Record Man column on Doug Sahm
Douglas Wayne Sahm, the Godfather of San Antonio rock'n'roll, hit the mainstream concsience only a couple times in his forty year musical journey, once early and once late. For the casual listeners, the oldies radio fan who would know "She's About a Mover" from it's place alongside other iconic singles by bands like the Dave Clark Five and The Beau Brummells, or the C&W jukebox patron who'd toss on "Who Were You Thinking Of" between George Strait and Clint Black hits, there are a lot of dots to connect. For the Rolling Stone mag readers and Texas music trippers the path to conquering the Sir Doug catalog may be a bit more simple.
Although a steel guitar prodigy howling in a pre-pubescent twang cut a single for the Sarge label as "Little Doug", we'll start a few years later. San Antonio was home in the late '50's to a few nightclubs on the predominantly African-American east side of town, The Eastwood Country Club, The Blue Note, The Tiffany Lounge, who played host to the 'chitlin' circuit' acts of the time like Bobby Blue Bland, Ike Turner, and Junior Parker, who inspired the local SA players to raise their game. Sax man Spot Barnett was one local who could hang with the best of them. Spot extended his generosity to the young hispanic and white players who showed the courage to break racial and musical boundries and employed them in his band. Legendary life timers in the Texas scene like Ernie Durawa, Randy Garibay, Rocky Morales, Frank Rodarte and Doug Sahm fed off this action. To hear what it all sounded like check out the Norton Records disc San Antonio Rock.
After seeing some success with local singles in the r'n'b style he picked up on the east side, Doug's next move was to partner up with another strong personality on the SA scene, organist Augie Meyers. With some encouragement from Gulf Coast record producer Huey Meaux, alongside bassist Jack Barber, drummer Johnny Perez and horn player Frank Morin, the fellas Texas boogied up the British Invasion sound and cut the timeless single "She's About a Mover". Much has been made about Meaux trying to sell the group now known as the Sir Douglas Quintet as an English band. I'm not buying that but I did buy the records. Check out the Sundazed Records release of the albums The Best of the Sir Douglas Quintet and The Sir Douglas Quintet is Back for that first flash of immortality.
The Summer of Love era found the SDQ getting chased out of Texas for herbal indiscretion. The west coast SDQ took the early garage rock sound in to new territories diving in to an innovative mix of psychedelia, soul, country, Tex-Mex and funk. They made five terrific albums for Mercury records Sir Douglas + 2 = Honky Blues, Together After Five, The Return of Doug Saldana, 1+1+1+1=4, and their west coast masterpiece Mendocino (collected on the compilation The Complete Mercury Recordings). Doug's underground rock success afforded him the oppurtunity to produce another masterpiece of sunny west coast sixties rock by a group of teenagers from rural Prunedale, California called Louie and The Lovers. Rise, along with a ton of out takes has recently been reissued by Bear Family. Lover's front man Louie Ortega's soulful songwriting, soaring harmonies and gritty guitar work would remain a part of Doug's music for the rest of his life.
Atlantic Records visionary Jerry Wexler saw Doug as the walking, non stop talking embodiment of American musical history and offered him an oppurtunity to make a big budget album in 1973. Doug Sahm and Friends, recorded in New York City with friends like Dr. John, Flaco Jiminez, David 'Fathead' Newman, Bob Dylan and more is a big mess of a jam session covering all the styles Doug absorbed in the Texas barrooms. Atlantic followed it up with Texas Tornado, half of which was culled from the New York jams and the other half more song based material cut in California with members of Louie and the Lovers. The Atlantic material is some of the most often covered Doug tunes and both albums and more are available on a Rhino Records box set.
Doug moved back to Texas and found inspiration in the hip music coming out of Austin, a town he dubbed Groover's Paradise on the musically brilliant, lyrically less brilliant album (available on CD from Collector's Choice) made with the Creedence Clearwater rhythm section, gumbo rocker Link Davis and SA sax man Frank Rodarte. He quickly followed that up with Texas Rock For Country Rollers, featuring "Give Back the Key to My Heart" covered by midwest alt country rockers Uncle Tupelo and a couple hundred bands on any Texas Friday night. New West Records released a DVD of the Texas Rock era Doug Sahm band in their Austin City Limits series that is essential to understanding the stoned groove of the times.
Next up Doug found a home at underground rock mover and shaker Denny Bruce's Takoma Records label alongside the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Canned Heat. First came the blues based Hell of a Spell mixing it up with Austin guitar legend Johnny X Reed on covers of Guitar Slim and Bobby Blue Bland numbers, followed by Border Wave credited to The Sir Douglas Quintet. Border Wave mixed the country, blues and British sounds of the original incarnation with the Stiff Records New Wave style of Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe, who openly admired Doug. The new SDQ with Austin musicians Speedy Sparks and Alvin Crow joining original members Doug, Augie and Johnny Perez took their sound all over the world. Louie Ortega would step in to replace Alvin and old San Antonio pal Ernie Durawa would take over the drum stool for albums Midnight Sun, Rio Medina and Love Ya Europa recently collected on CD called The Skandinavian Years from Universal Music Europe. The group found immense popularity in Europe throughout the 80's.
Though Doug took three distinct detours, a Canadian album with fellow travelers pianist Gene Taylor and guitar ace Amos Garrett known as Return of the Formerly Brothers, a record with his bar band The Texas Mavericks called Who Are These Masked Men, and an Antone's Records tribute to the old SA sound called Jukebox Music, Doug would stick with the new Sir Douglas Quintet lineup evolving them in to his greatest invention: a conjunto rock'n'roll super group to rival the Traveling Wilbury's. Bringing in south Texas soul singer turned C&W super star Freddy Fender and conjunto accordionist turned sideman to the rock elite Flaco Jimenez the nucleus of the 80's SDQ became the The Texas Tornados and hit pay dirt with several albums released on Warner Brothers/Reprise The Texas Tornados, Zone of Our Own, Hangin' on By a Thread and 4 Aces. The singles "Who Were You Thinking Of" and "Hey Baby Que Paso" became jukebox standards and the band assumed the role of Southwestern cultural ambassadors around the world.
Super charged by the success of the Tornados, Doug claimed the role of the ultimate elder statesman of Texas roots music in the 90's. He updated the garage rock of the early Quintet with a new version featuring his sons Shandon and Shawn on Daydreaming at Midnight and SDQ 98, he returned to the Antone's label for his grandest tribute to the Texas blues with The Last Real Texas Blues Band, and in his final statement he took his groove back to the honky tonks on the posthumous release The Return of Wayne Douglas.
Doug Sahm passed away on Nov 18, 1999 in a Taos, NM hotel room, taking a break from the music scene and probably plotting his next move. Though he only hit the national charts a few times his career outlasted most all of his contemporaries. He's recently been memorialized in a loving although factually shaky, book by Jan Reid and on a fantastic tribute album Keep Your Soul released by Vanguard records featuring Los Lobos, Dave Alvin, Alejandro Escovedo and many more. Possibly the greatest legacy that Doug leaves behind is that our music of Texas and the Southwest is much bigger than the charts and commercial radio and will live on in the barrooms and back porches forever.
Top 5 Doug Discs
That's a lot of records, anyway you could narrow that down a bit.....
1. Mendocino, Mercury 1969 - the west coast SDQ creates a wholly unique sounding album with Doug's strongest melodies and most memorable hooks. "I Don't Want", "Didn't Even Bring Me Down", "I Want To Be Your Mama", and more great songs.
2. The Texas Tornados 1990 Warner/Reprise- the cumilation of years of experience, Doug, Augie and the gang pick up Flaco Jimenez and Freddy Fender for a wild ride through all the great styles of Texas roots music. Gulf coast blues, conjunto, rock'n'roll, country and folky songwriter material blend seamlessy to create Doug's most polished album. Outlaw songwriter Rich Minus' "Laredo Rose" and Freddy Fender's "A Man Can Cry" (with Doug lending some tasty piano triplets) are perennial jukebox favorites.
3. Doug Sahm and Band Atlantic 1973- the yellow jacket with the great painting of Doug and his funky crew. Joined by a diverse cast this is the ultimate jam session album where street level San Antonio pals like Atwood Allen's "Gonna Be Easy" sit right next to 'voice of the generation' Bob Dylan's "Wallflower" and show that good time grooves are the universal language.
4. Border Wave Tacoma 1981- the next big thing circa 1981, a mixture of Doug's Texas roots rock with the brainy skinny tie sound coming from London. Joe King Carrasco jumped on board but otherwise 'border wave' as a musical movement didn't really take. Too bad. Despite a bit of a thin sound, this record from the reformulated Sir Douglas Quintet boasts some of Doug's finest tunes as well as cool covers of the Kinks, Butch Hancock and Roky Erickson, who's "You're Gonna Miss Me" gets the SDQ touch.
5. Texas Rock for Country Rollers ABC Dot 1976- influenced by what was going down in Austin's Cosmic Cowboy scene, Sir Doug brings his own perspective on country music to the mix. What sets this apart? Most cosmic cowboys were middle class college guys unleashing a bit of their inner John Wayne in to their hippie musings, Doug grew up in the honky tonks, a steel guitar prodigy before puberty, even photographed at one of Texas gangster Jack Ruby's nightclubs sitting on the lap of a skeletal Hank Williams. Doug's natural twang shines on "Give Back the Key to My Heart", "Texas Ranger Man" and a medley of early sixties tunes from songwriter Gene Thomas that were number one on the SA radio for "ever and ever and ever..."
