Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 148

Nobody who Was there that night will forget it; poyg Sahrp playina; 1 1 gonzo cheerleader to his big blues band and crew of buddies from San Antonio as they knocked the roof off Antone's during SXSW of 1998. Sahm was full of fire and when he said, "We'll play all night," he meant it. The show lasted until well past 4 a.m. Antone's plans to remember the artist with a tribute show on Dec. 3 or 4.

Sir Dou and the NEXT PAGE: A guide to the discography, plus one question, one answer. Sahm- Hi, alogue Nobody crammed more life and music into 58 years than windshield-addict Doug Saldana called friend wrote letters of the same rhapsodic tone that Captain Cook might have used to describe Tahiti. In one of them, he just "happened" to mention that he ran into Doug Sahm buying a six-pack at the 7-Eleven. Sir Doug! Buyin' Pearl beer! Right there! Up in the breathtakingly drab landscape of Columbia, Mo. (where I was laboring in pursuit of a journalism degree that ultimately proved worthless), I read the letter, gnashed my teeth and vowed revenge.

And made plans to hotfoot it down to Austin at the earliest opportunity. From a reporter's point of view, Doug was the easiest interview in the Western world. You walked in, said hidy, turned on the tape recorder and got out of the way. Doug would launch forth on a Sahm-alogue which would bounce at random between the axes of his enthusiasms: baseball (I seem to recall the Angels were especially revered), Scandinavia (where he was a bigger star than he was in the States), Mexican food, the sad state of Austin (observing the yuppiefication of the city, Doug penned a tune entitled "Get A and always, music. He would sing horn charts and guitar solos to you to get a musical point across, gesticulating as he fingered imaginary chords.

He would talk about that thang, that groove, that vibe, that way-out-there golden pocket that that Muse cat kept beckoning him toward. Overbearing? You bet. At press conferences, showcase dates and other public occasions, Sahm would invariably hog the microphone. Everyone could see his Texas Tornado band- mates Augie Meyers, Flaco Jimenez and Freddy Fender shift uncomfortably back and forth while Doug held forth, no matter to whom a questionbr remark was addressed. He only had one gear, and that was full-tilt boogie.

Sometimes he outsmarted himself. I was hired by Reprise Records to write the band bio that would accompany the Tornados' first album. To that end, I traveled down to San Marcos, where the band was recording. After the single "Who Were You Thinking Of became an improbable hit, Doug told everyone who would listen that he knew the band would be a smash from the get-go. Not quite.

In the studio, before the album's release, all Sahm was saying was, "Well, it's a cool groove, but we'll be lucky to sell five thousand copies in the Valley." Yeah, right. The deal is, Doug really could do it all Western swing, Cajun music, greasy, horn-driven (recalling the glory days of the '50s and '60s and Don Robey's Duke and Peacock recordings), psychedelic rock 'n' roll, pure hardass country, Tex-Mex, blues, metallic-flavored hard rock, ballads, radio-friendly ear candy the guy had chops he didn't even know he had. Doug never essayed rap or hip-hop, but everyone pretty much figured he was going to get around to it eventually. That is the locus of the feeling of loss in the wake of his passing: all the music yet unplayed. Given his drives and enthusiasms, there is no reason Doug could not have made music for at least another 20 years.

And now no one will have the pleasure of hearing it. Because believe it they ain't making any more of him. ID ersonally, I wouldn't have thought you could kill Doug Sahm with an ax. Doug was so full of life he could have sold franchises. And if music does in fact -iJL.

have regenerative powers, than Sir Doug should have lived forever. But he didn't. Maybe somebody crammed more life into 58 years than Doug Saldana (as he was nicknamed on his beloved El West Side in hometown San Antonio), but no one comes to for his benchmark 1973 album, "Doug Sahm and Band" who recruited his two sons, Shawn and Shandon, into a '90s edition of the SDQ (like the National Guard, the Quintet always stands ready to spring into action) 30 years after the original version hit the big time with "She's About A Mover" in 1965 and who, seemingly by whim, jumped back to the top of the charts as the motonnouthed front man for the Texas Tornados. When he was on (and he was always on), Sahm made road warriors like Willie Nelson and B.B. King seem like shut-ins.

When he wasn't touring, he would just hop in a car and drive, a windshield junkie whose favorite fix was the open road. Chet Flippo, the country music editor of "Billboard," recalled hearing from Sahm during just such a trip out to the Left Coast: "Hey, man, how are taylor johnsonaa-s Back in 1973-'74, around the time Doug was re-inventing himself for the third or fourth time by recording the "Doug Sahm and Band" project for Atlantic Records, I got a series of letters from a buddy of mine named Earl, who was in Austin as a Plan major at the University of Texas. As far as he was concerned, Austin was every bit the "Groover's Paradise" of Doug's 1974 album by the same name. The so- byjohnt. davis special to the american-statesman mind right off.

This was a guy who cut his first single at age 12, who liked to recall when not otherwise designated was a "thang," pronounced as such. (Anyone wishing a distillation of Doug can feel free to rent the movie "Cisco Pike," which starred a young Kris Kristoffer-son and Sahm in a memorable bit part as a hyperactive pot dealer). Doug never sounded dated because he was never self-conscious. More than any other artist I've known, he lived in the moment. How else could ya? I'm in Salinas, visitin' a far-out cat friend a'mine, and headin' on into Frisco." Well, OK, so Doug would never be mistaken for William F.

Buckley (a fact for which both parties were no doubt eternally grateful). His speech was forever infused with a hybrid hipster-West Side vato-hippie patois. Shows were gigs. People were cats. Music was a groove.

Everything else he make the 1968-era flower-power treacle of "Mendocino" sound so completely right and powerful 30 years later? "Teeny-bopper, my teenage loverI caught your waves last nightIt set my mind to wanderin'," he would sing. "I love you soPlease don't goPlease stay here with me in Mendocino It worked, but only Doug could pull it off. the Rolling Stones opened for the Sir Douglas Quintet on the Stones' first American tour who recruited Bob Dylan, fer Chrissakes, as a sideman Doug Sahm: A life in music I the Sir Douglas Quintet with son Shawn on guitar for the "Day Dreaming at Midnight" album. 1995: Earns a Grammy nomination for "Doug Sahm and the Last Real Texas Blues Band," featuring a long lineup of Antone's stalwarts. 1990: Reprise Records releases "Texas Tornados" to great acclaim and strong sales across Texas and the Southwest with songs such as Meyers' "(Hey Baby) Que Paso" and Sahm's "Adios Mexico." 1991-'92: The "Texas Tornados" track "Soy De San Luis" earns a Grammy for best Mexican-American performance.

The bandmembers, all around 50, begin a steady U.S. and European tour schedule including one gig with Willie at President Clinton's inauguration. Two more albums, "Zone of Our Own" and "Han-gin' on by a Thread," also came out. Quintet well as Austin upstarts the Gourds for the Watermelon Records '98," featuring "Get a Life," Sahm's ode to the fast-paced Austin of the '90s. Summer 1999: The Texas Tornados release "Live From the Limo, Vol.

1 and do an "Austin City Limits" taping. Near Los Angeles, a new lineup of the Tornados plays its only gig with Little Joe Hernandez replacing Fender. Early November, 1999: Sahm's kids. Dawn, Shawn and Shandon, throw a 58th birthday party for their dad in Austin. A week later, the restless singer seeks escape and hits the road in his Cadillac.

Nov. 18, 1999: Sahm's body is found at the Kachina Lodge in Taos, N.M. That afternoon, copies of the "KGSR-FM Broadcasts, Vol. 7" CDs hit Austin with the music legend smiling from the cover. His tie-dyed T-shirt reads, "It's a hippie thing, you wouldn't understand." timeline by chris riemenschneider Willie Nelson.The sessions for the first Atlantic album, "Doug Sahm and Band," include Flaco Jimenez, Dr.

John and one Bob Dylan, who gives his song "Wallflower" to the record. Late '73: Second Atlantic album, "Texas Torna- do," has similar personnel and styles as the first one. Both fail to sell well. Sahm also plays on sessions for Willie Nelson's "Shotgun Willie" and both the Grateful Dead's "Wake of the Flood" and "From the Mars Hotel." 1974: After moving into a house near Soap Creek Saloon, Sahm devours Austin's redneck hippie scene, the vibes of which can be heard on that year's Warner Bros, release, "Groover's Paradise," featuring the CCR rhythm section of Stu Cook and Doug Clifford. 1975-79: Bouncing between Austin, San Antonio, California and now Vancouver, Sahm juggles a variety of lineups and small record deals.

continued from page 30 No. 13 hit with "She's About a Mover," fashioned after the Beatles' "She's a Woman." Meaux releases "Best of the Sir Douglas Quintet" on his Tribe label and disguises the boys, including Mexican American members Frank Morin and Johnny Perez, as British superstars. The scam lasts a few months, until Doug's drawl comes out on the TV show "Hullabaloo." 1 966: Not put off by the Brit hoax, radio DJs boost a second single, "The Rains Came," into the Top 40. The Quintet opens for Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Late '66: Sahm is busted at the Corpus Christi airport with marijuana.

Like many newfound Texas hippies, he flees to San Francisco. 1 968: Forms the Honky Blues Band and releases the "Honky Blues" album under Mercury Records, echoing the music heard on the west side of San Antonio. Neither the Frisco hippies nor pop radio get it. 1980: Revisits the blues again to great effect with the Takoma label release "Hell of a Spell." 1 981 New Wave stars such as Elvis Costello and the Attractions bring newfound attention to the -organ-fueled sounds of the Sir Douglas Quintet. Sahm and Meyers regroup (and bring along fiddler Alvin Crow) for the quirky, flavor-of-thfrday Chrysalis re-" lease "Border Wave," again not much of a hit.

1 982-88: Doug being Doug. A lot of traveling, a lot of talk of new deals and new projects, but not a lot of output other than a handful of retrospectives and a classic album on Antone's Records, "Juke Box Music." His following in Canada grows to the point where he wins a Juno, their version of the Grammy. 1989: With nary a record contract between them, Sahm, Meyers, Fender and Jimenez perform together for the first time at Slim's 303 Club in San Francisco. Buzz on the quartet, dubbed the Texas Tornados, soon reaches Los Angeles and Nashville. 1 969: Reforms the Quintet and records the "Men- docino" albunva country-rock forerunner and a hit with the Top 30 title track.

The record also lands Sahm a large European audience. 1970: Two more albums, "1114" and "Together After Five," earn little attention. 11971: Yearning for "the real Texas me, Sahm re-turns to Texas, disbands the Quintet and records the Tex-Mex jewel "The Return of Doug Saldana" with Meaux co-producing. The album's version of Freddy Fender's "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" helps revive Fender's career. 1972: Appears as a drug dealer in the Kris Kristoffer-son movie, "Cisco Pike." Radio stations refuse to play his song from the soundtrack, "Michoacan," because it's about marijuana.

1 973: Atlantic Records mogul Jerry Wexler, hot for Texas' progressive country, signs Sahm not long after The Texas Tornados: Freddy Fender, Sahm, Flaco Jimenez and Augie Meyers 1997: Sahm's song A Little Bit Is Better Than Nada," from the Tornados' 1996 "4 Aces" album leads off the Kevin Costner movie "Tin Cup" and is given a dance remix. In Europe, the club mix spurs a dance craze the size of "La Macarena" called "The Enchilada." 1998: Teams once again with the latter-day Sir Doug 1993: In Austin recording their "Anodyne" album, alt-country heroes Uncle Tupelo snag Sahm for a duet version of his '76 classic "Give Back the Key To My Heart." 1 994: With the Tornados going on hiatus, Sahm revives 32 33 November 25, 1999 Austin American-Statesman Austin American-Statesman November 25. 1999.