Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • G6

Austin American-Statesman LIFE ARTS Sunday, February 28, 2010 Page on his records. And yet, for all that, Sahm was never the breakout star he aspired to be. His records were huge in Scandinavia and he was the frontman for the Texas Tornados when they were in their hitmaking- prime in the 1990s, but I once had to explain to a magazine editor in his native San Antonio just who the heck Sahm was. Even today, the families who climb Doug Sahm Hill on the shores of Lady Bird Lake (the point in the park, friends like to joke, noting his lifelong fondness for pot) might have little idea of the man who inspired the name. Thus, book does a valuable service, if for no other reason than to reintroduce Sahm and his music to the public.

And what a wellspring of music it was. Sahm seemingly could play any instrument he got his hands on, and his albums and live shows were shot through with a joyous train wreck of sounds blues, Cajun, Tex-Mex, country, big band, jazz, rock roll, German polka, Western Swing and more. The guy was a one- stop shop for all the traditions and sounds that found a convivial home in the Lone Star State. Paradoxically, it made him hard to market. Jerry Wexler, who co-produced and Sahm and two of best albums, is quoted in the book as saying, problem with Doug is, you had this river.

What are you gonna bottle and The man himself was mercurial, sometimes contradictory and not so often a pain in the neck. An old-school Texas chauvinist, he kept a constant stream of girlfriends on the line to the dismay of his longsuffering wife. He sabotaged a live recording of the reunion of the Sir Douglas Quintet that his lifelong friend and bandmate Augie Meyers was bankrolling by replacing the hits with a series of unrelated oldies covers. He lived without a phone or a mailing address for years, and when he nally did get a phone number, his voice-mail recording essentially invited folks to leave him alone. It was all in the service of the groove.

phi losophy as an artist was contained in a single Reid writes, and protecting his groove. How could he be expected to make music that put the audience in a groove, he reasoned, if he grooving Hilariously, Shawn Sahm recounts an incident in which his mom call him up at a house and let him have it. At home hear her yelling, we have any be out in the woods yelling back, you just Shawn concluded, was so sick of But in a book filled with splendid anecdotes and personal touches, unforgive able that Reid devotes only ve pages to the Texas Tornados, the super group that paired Doug and Meyers with Freddy Fender and Flaco for almost the whole of the 1990s. It was during this period, when the band was winning a Grammy and charting hits like Little Bit Is Better Than and Were You that Sahm enjoyed what was arguably his highest visibility as an artist. All of the men went back decades Sahm was on the bill with Fender in the 1950s and he brought to New York City for his all-star Sahm and sessions in 1972.

There must have been many great backstage stories boiling out of that intersection of talent and egos, but Reid touches on almost none of them. Nevertheless, accomplishes its primary goal, that of introducing Sahm to a wider audience. It also makes you want to dip into far-flung repertoire. But where to begin? The San Antonio West Side-meets-Liverpool pop of the Sir Douglas Quintet? The San Francisco- inspired mix of jazz and psy chedelia of The Austin-centric The classic supersession of Sahm and The Texas combination of rock, conjunto and country? The classic albums Sahm did late in life for the label? Or the album of country music, Return of Wayne that he was wrapping up when he passed away at an untimely 58? The joy of life and career is that there is so much to choose from. The only reasonable response to and Shawn affectionate biography is to grab a fistful of music.

Reid and Shawn Sahm can explain a life in words. But only music can make you groove. Continued from MUSICIAN: His life like Texas tornado The in nities also refer to the thankless art: to conceive of a reality sufficiently detailed, sufficiently incoherent, to accommodate all the things that are in this By definition, only the infinite various ness of the world can adequately represent itself. The in nities also represent our desire for immortality: But if the gods lack death, they also lack love. As Hermes notes, are supposed to be the celebrants of all that is vital and gay and light, and so we are but, oh, we are cold, The in nities conjure, too, the classical divine order: of a sea of eternal potential and of us as the shapes the waters make, surging and With the worldwide conversion to monotheism, our sense of tragic fate has been lost; the eviscerated sense of enchantment means that we inhabit a diminished reality.

This reality can be dramatically quickened, as Banville, in the voice of Hermes, sets out to do. Awareness of impending mortality accelerates the recognition of both otherness and commonality among the survivors family. To an irredeemable extent, they are part of his orbit. second wife, Ursula, driven to drink, has the most to lose from his death. Godley was never comfortable with his son, also named Adam now 30 who is afraid of losing his beautiful wife, Helen, an actress grieving over her recent miscarriage.

19-year-old daughter, Petra, is the most emotionally distraught, given to cutting herself. Housekeeper Ivy ancestors owned Arden House, but now her best hope is the cowman Adrian Duffy Hermes accelerates the potential alliance by visiting Ivy in guise. One of the visitors is Roddy Wagstaff, allegedly boyfriend, but actually more interested in being authorized as biographer. The more crucial visitor is Benny Grace, a fellow mathematician and perceived demonic doppelganger. novels are exercises in writing the aesthetically autonomous creations, lyrical, Jamesian, demanding total attention, feeding on previous novels.

In In the subjects of early and middle periods, placed in the worlds of science and art, fuse with the retrospective self-re ection characteristic of his late period. The musical rhythms of progression toward death only emphasize the irreplaceability of mortality. Banville is addressing the deficit of imagination in both the sciences and the arts, with a humanity too conscious of its limits. The gods envy us because ours a world where nothing is lost, where all is accounted for while yet the mystery of things is Hermes tolerates the antics of Zeus, but there are limits to what the gods can do. The classical worldview allows us to see ourselves as sharing the temperament of gods, and Banville pulls back the curtain on parallel worlds to give us some breathing room.

The conclusion resounds with freedom of will, integral to consciousness of mortality a freedom denied gods. Continued from INFINITIES: Gods have it good as we think John Banville also worked for Barnes Noble during the period the bookseller was transitioning to its model. and I) have talked about books for years. I became his book Winkelman said. he bought Tecolote, he called me and said, bought this bookstore; what do I do This is a bit of a pattern for him and Winkelman is the CEO but it sounds as if his approach toward Kirkus will be pretty hands-off.

want to see them move from a division of a very large company to an independent dynamic little media company that plays an important role to good Winkelman says. have a terrific staff in New York that is very good at putting out a journal every two weeks and will continue to work on that In other words, no changes to the Kirkus editorial shot-callers: Editor Elaine Szewczyk and managing editor Eric Liebetrau will remain. While Winkelman has no plans to discontinue the Kirkus print product (in fact, the magazine will now be for sale at the Calendar Club stores nationwide), he expressed the most interest in developing the new media side of Kirkus. Web site that Kirkus has now is sort of Web 1.0,” he said. networking has become a crucial part of our everyday lives and that goes for business as As for his own reading, Winkelman is, at the moment, tending toward history, mystery and thrillers.

now, reading a galley of Nathaniel Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little I just finished a mystery called the I loved the Stieg Larsson books (the smash-hit international thrillers Girl With the Dragon and Girl Who Played With Lee Childs is really fun. He has one due in April called Sounds like Kirkus is in enthusiastic hands. 912- 926 Continued from GROSS: new owner, CEO plan to be hands-off with journal The Texas Tornados Augie Meyers and Flaco have reunited as the Texas Tornados, and with Doug son Shawn have recorded an album that includes some new songs written by the late Freddy Fender. The album, comes out Tuesday; its digital release features Going a track from the 1990s written and sung by Doug Sahm. The group will play SXSW on March 19.

Their showcase is scheduled to start at 10 p.m. at Kenny Backyard, 1106 E. 11th St. Shawn Sahm shawn sahm Doug Sahm attracted fellow music makers to join his bands, but he always the best collaborator. Jan Reid John Banville What: Reading and signing When: 7 p.m.

Tuesday Where: Ransom Center, University of Texas, 21st and Guadalupe streets Information: 471-8944, www.hrc.utexas.edu.