Sir Doug’s Taos groove
Renowned musician looked to the high desert for spiritual healing
TWENTY YEARS AGO,
legendary Texas musician Doug Sahm suffered a fatal heart attack at the Kachina Lodge in Taos. Though he died young at 58, Sahm’s career had already spanned five decades. A peerless bandleader, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Sahm’s music fused the juke joint R&B, Western swing and conjunto (a conjunto band is composed of four main instruments: the button accordion, the bajo sexto, an electric bass and a drum kit) of his native San Antonio with a stew of influences ranging from British beat, West Coast psychedelic rock and Cajun swamp pop — all unified by his soulful rasp and trademark cosmic groover style.
Sahm scored regional hits while in high school and, as leader of the Sir Douglas Quintet, saw national success in 1965 with the single “She’s About a Mover” (the original title, “She’s a Body Mover” seemed too risqué for airplay, hence the odd syntax). The quintet wore pointy boots and grew their hair long like the Byrds and Beau Brummels. As Sahm told Rolling Stone magazine, “We wanted to be like the Rolling Stones and carry tons of [dope] in our suitcases and be heavy … and turn everybody on.” The group was promptly busted at the Corpus Christi, Texas, airport. Though all involved were acquitted, the legal hassle cost the quintet important gigs and momentum. Undeterred, Sahm split for Prunedale, California, reassembled a band and cut a series of classic LPs including “Honky Blues,” “Mendocino” and “Together After Five.” Sahm and band performed on the TV show “Playboy After Dark,” appeared in the film “Cisco Pike” (1972) and shared bills with the Grateful Dead and other Bay Area heavies.
After five years of California, Sahm “OD’d on Hollywood bullshit” and went back to Texas a prodigal son. In tow were his then-wife Violet, six children and a worthy new record called “The Return of Doug Saldaña,” which took its title from an affectionate nickname given to Sahm by West Side San Antonio Chicano musicians. Always the working professional, Sahm gravitated to Austin, Texas, where he took a residency at a remote dive called the Soap Creek Saloon. He became the unofficial godfather of the outlaw movement. Producer Jerry Wexler, who worked with Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, came to Austin to sign Sahm as a solo artist. The resulting LP, “Sir Doug and Band” (1972), features a rare guest appearance by Bob Dylan. Dylan and Sahm remained lifelong friends. Through the album did not make Sahm a household name, he was a well-loved and prolific fixture on the scene throughout the 1970s.
Sahm’s later work is characterized by the tenacity of an industry survivor. His discography is scattered among a host of record labels including Mercury, Atlantic and, surprisingly, Takoma. In 1985, the Swedish label Sonet released “Love Ya Europe” to capitalize on Sahm’s popularity in Scandinavia. Gems like “Meet Me in Stockholm” and “Train to Trondheim,” which in lesser hands could have sounded pandering, were bona fide European hits. In 1990, Sahm formed the Texas Tornados, a Tex-Mex supergroup comprising his longtime musical brother, organist Augie Meyers, Freddy Fender and accordionist Leonardo “Flaco” Jiménez.
By the late 1990s, Sahm was performing with his sons, Shawn and Shandon, in a version of the quintet, and still working steadily with the Tornados. But the troubadour life was catching up with him. He confided to friends that he was “feeling old.” His gait and notorious motor mouth had slowed, and he complained of numbness in his hands. He harbored regrets about how he treated exes and bandmates, and how much time he wasted watching the “boob tube.”
LIKE MANY OTHERS,
Sahm looked to the high desert for spiritual healing. He loved Northern New Mexico, especially Taos. He visited whenever the whim or brutal Texas summer heat struck him. Lately, that urge was coming more often.
The funky Austin immortalized in songs like “Beautiful Texas Sunshine,” from his sleeper 1974 catalogue highlight “Groover’s Paradise,” was yielding to something high-tech, hypercapitalist, unrecognizable. Sahm’s girlfriend at the time lived in Wimberley, Texas, but he would not quit his love-hate relationship with Austin for hill country.
“I need my Thai,” he told writer Joe Nick Petoski, to which Petoski teased Sahm that he was just like the yuppies he claimed to hate.
Sahm’s New Mexico itinerary began in Santa Fe. He looked up his friend Sharon Jewel, whom he met at Antone’s Records in Austin in 1989. Jewel was buying Sahm’s latest LP, the nostalgic “Jukebox Music” and Sahm, who just was hanging around, ran after her offering to sign her new album. A friendship was born. The two remained in touch for the better part of a decade. Jewel was happy to reconnect with her old friend in Santa Fe. Sahm, who was now very health conscious, suggested they eat dinner at home and forsake the typically greasy fare the two used to enjoy at Austin spots like Trudy’s. While getting groceries at Wild Outs, they ran into musician Jimmy Stadler, who is a friend of Jewel’s. She introduced them and Stadler, who recalled meeting Sahm once or twice over the years, told him to get in touch when he got to Taos. Jewel recalls thinking the two would make a simpatico musical pair.
AFTER A NIGHT
at the El Rey Court and another at Ojo Caliente, Sahm drove his Cadillac to the Kachina Lodge. Feeling far worse, but chalking it up to altitude sickness, Sahm called Stadler to ask for the number of a doctor willing to make a house call — Sahm hated hospitals, but apparently did not realize the acute danger he was in. No one was available. Stadler called back the next day, but got no answer. Concerned, he rang the front desk and requested someone check on his friend. Sahm, 58, was found unresponsive in room 131 by a hotel employee and pronounced dead of cardiac arrest on Nov. 18, 1999.
Though the two musicians never got to jam, Stadler was one of the last people Sahm spoke to. Heartbreakingly, Sahm had also phoned his girlfriend, Debora, to invite her and her son to join him in Taos for Thanksgiving one week later. Sahm had an incomparable ability to distill the terroir of a place into song. California odes such as “Mendocino” and “Sunny Sunday Mill Valley Groove Day” and the aforementioned European singles are but a few examples. Sadly, Sir Doug’s New Mexico years never fully materialized. We can only imagine the musical trip he might have embarked on aqui en Taos. In the early 1960s, Bob Dylan was asked at a press conference if he could recommend any up-andcoming folk singers or rock groups. ‘I’m glad you asked that,’ Dylan replied. ‘The Sir Douglas Quintet I think are probably the best that are going to have a chance of reaching commercial airwaves. They already have with a couple of songs.’