Doug Sahm
Doug Sahm sang on San Antonio radio at five, fronted the Sir Douglas Quintet, won a Grammy with the Texas Tornados and died in Taos, New Mexico, in 1999.
Photo: Warner Brothers Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized and converted to WebP.
KMAC and the Skyline Club
Douglas Wayne Sahm was born on November 6, 1941, in San Antonio, Texas, to Viva Lee and Victor A. Sahm Sr. In 1947, at five, he sang on "Stars Over San Antonio" on KMAC. The Austin Chronicle's timeline says he could already play triple-neck steel guitar, mandolin, and fiddle. A Sarg Records promotional sheet on "Little Doug," reproduced by Rolling Stone in 1971, says he started singing in a contest over KMAC and played with Webb Pierce, Faron Young, Goldy Hill, and Hank Thompson.
Steve Terrell, writing in the Santa Fe New Mexican after Sahm's death, reported that he was a regular on the Louisiana Hayride at eight. At 11 he performed with Hank Williams at the Skyline Club in Austin, in 1952, weeks before Williams died. The Dallas Observer says Williams called him to the stage. Variety dates his first recording to 1955: "A Real American Joe," made as "Little" Doug Sahm.
Sam Houston High and Augie Meyers
Sahm attended Sam Houston High School in San Antonio; the Austin Chronicle printed his 1957-58 yearbook photo. The Handbook of Texas says he formed the Dell-Kings, the Pharaohs, and the Markays in the 1950s, and the Observer says he had regional hits while still in high school.
The Chronicle describes a boy from the Eastside who crossed over to Westside musicians and played with Spot Barnett at the Eastwood Country Club. The Handbook names T-Bone Walker, Bobby Bland, Howlin' Wolf, and Fats Domino as influences. In 1960 he met Augie Meyers at the store Meyers' parents ran.
A Faux British Band for Huey Meaux
Sahm met the producer Huey Meaux in 1964, and he and Meyers became the Sir Douglas Quintet. The Observer's account of the name is the only one this article relies on: Sahm and Huey P. Meaux "concocted a faux British band called the Sir Douglas Quintet." The Observer says the ruse was discovered when the band was interviewed on Hullabaloo and Sahm's Texas drawl came out.
"She's About a Mover," with Meyers' Vox organ, broke nationally in 1965, and "The Rains Came" followed. The sources disagree on how high the first single went: the Handbook of Texas calls it a Top 20 record, the Chronicle timeline a Top 10.
San Francisco and the Avalon Ballroom
The Handbook and the Chronicle timeline put Sahm's move to San Francisco in 1966, with Meyers staying in Texas. The Observer dates it to 1967 and says he disbanded the Quintet and spent time with the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan. Meyers rejoined in 1968, and the Quintet played the Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore West.
Rolling Stone put Sahm on its cover in 1968, in a Baron Wolman photograph of him in a cowboy hat with his young son Shawn on his knee. The Chronicle says the picture "created the image of the cosmic cowboy." The Chronicle lists "Mendocino" as a 1968 single and the album of that name as 1969; the Handbook places it in the Top 40 in 1969.
A Motel Apartment Seven Miles From the Alamo
By 1971 he was back in San Antonio. He made The Return of Doug Saldana that year, under the name Doug Saldana. Rolling Stone's profile of July 8 found him in a "modest motel apartment seven miles from the Alamo," living with "his wife and six kids" and playing the Cantina, his aunt's honky-tonk cafe. The profile is where he talks about food:
"Man, you can't get no aigs like these out in California. New York, neither - I 'member at the Warwick once I was shellin' out five bucks a shot for two little ol' pullet aigs, and then I couldn't even eat 'em, the sorry way they was cooked."
The same profile has two shorter verdicts: "Texas, man - the food's unbelievable" and "San Antone, man - it's funky."
The Chronicle timeline dates his marriage to Violet to 1963, and the Handbook of Texas says the marriage ended in divorce. The two sources that count his children do not match. The Handbook lists two sons and a daughter; Rolling Stone's "six kids" describes the 1971 household. His sons Shawn and Shandon Sahm became musicians and played in the revived Sir Douglas Quintet on Day Dreaming at Midnight in 1994.
Jerry Wexler and Groover's Paradise
Sahm moved to Austin in 1973. That year Atlantic released Doug Sahm and Band, produced by Jerry Wexler and including "(Is Anybody Goin' to) San Antone," and Texas Tornado. Warner Bros. issued Groover's Paradise in 1974.
Antone's released Juke Box Music in 1988, which the Handbook says won an Indie award from NAIRD in 1989, and The Last Great Texas Blues Band in 1994. The Chronicle timeline also credits him with a Juno Award in Canada in 1988 for Return of the Formerly Brothers. The Observer quotes a line he sang in "At the Crossroads": "You just can't live in Texas if you don't have a lot of soul."
Soy de San Luis and the Texas Tornados
Sahm formed the Texas Tornados with Meyers, Freddy Fender, and Flaco Jimenez in 1989, according to the Handbook and the Chronicle; Variety's obituary says 1990, the year their debut, The Texas Tornados, came out on Reprise. The Recording Academy lists the group's "Soy De San Luis" as the winner of Best Mexican-American Performance at the 33rd Grammy Awards in 1991. Zone of Our Own followed in 1991, Hangin' on by a Thread in 1992, 4 Aces in 1996, and Live from the Limo in 1999. SDQ '98 came out in 1998.
The Kachina Lodge in Taos
Terrell reported that Sahm had complained of numb hands and arms in recent weeks and had driven to New Mexico "to be healed," in the words of his friend Sharon Steiber. "He loved New Mexico and Nova Scotia better than anywhere else in the world," Steiber said, and she recalled him saying "Texas didn't have any spirituality." Two weeks before his death, the Observer reports, he was still on baseball: "If [Ken] Griffey goes to Atlanta, then I'm through with baseball."
On November 18, 1999, shortly before 1 p.m., he was found unresponsive in a room at the Kachina Lodge in Taos. He was 58. The state Office of the Medical Investigator ruled out foul play, and his family requested an autopsy. The Handbook says he was "found dead of heart disease," and the Observer says he "succumbed to heart disease."
The funeral in San Antonio on November 23 drew an estimated 1,000 mourners, according to the Observer. He wore his trademark hat in the open coffin, and mourners slipped in guitar picks, joints, and poems. Freddy Fender said, "He loved to be called a hippie." Bill Bentley of Reprise said, "There was no such thing as failure in his life," and recalled Sahm's line about Poughkeepsie: "If you can win over Poughkeepsie, you can take on the world!" The burial was for family only, next to his father and mother, at what the Handbook identifies as Sunset Memorial Park.
The Sahm Estate and the Scattered Catalog
An Austin Chronicle music column, whose year does not appear in the copy read for this article, quotes Shawn Sahm saying the business side of the estate was unfinished after his father's death. He described "making sure everything is kosher from the Sahm estate's point of view." Tornado Records, which the column ties to Bentley, a Reprise vice president, was to give the family a contract for The Return of Wayne Douglas, listed as a 2000 album, and Shawn hoped to sort out the scattered catalog so the original albums could be reissued in their intended order.
That column is the only reporting on the subject found for this article. It does not say who holds the masters or the publishing, and no later report found here does either.
After his death came the Americana Music Association's President's Award in 2002, then induction into the Austin Music Memorial and the naming of Doug Sahm Hill in 2008.
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