I want to strongly recommend the recent 2-CD release of the earliest Sir
Douglas Quintet recordings, as part of the general release of a bunch of
anthologies from wonderfully motley artists on Huey P. Meaux's lil Crazy
Cajun label. (Sir Douglas Quinet: The Crazy Cajun Recordings)...This is an
important and enjoyable alt.country re-release.
I was thrilled to get a chance to speak with Doug Sahm for a few moments in
that Texicali Grill parking lot during SXSW, mostly just thanking him for
good music I've gotten to listen to from him for about the last 34
years--though I didn't arrange to go to wrassling bouts with him like Slim
Chance did!
The timing was interesting, cause I'd been playing the heck out of this
for weeks before his Austin appearances.
It's apparently not that well known that before She's About a Mover burst
out internationally as the first Tex-Mex false British Invasion greasy
organ monster and yoiu can dance to it hit in 1965--this guy'd already had
one of the great all-time American music educations. "Little Doug Sahm"
from San Antonio was photographed with Hank Williams at 3, was on the road
singing with Webb Pierce and Faron Young at 5 (and recording!)--and by ages
12-14, get this--was playing with T-Bone Walker and making good R&B records
on tiny labels out of Harlem. He also had time, sometimes, to use that
amusing "Doug Saldana" alt.name, when he chose to appear to be a young
Tex-Mex border guy. (His own family background was Lebanese, BTW and I
assume with that name and his unLebanese blondeness, also Texas German or
something much like it...)
These recordings show a great rock and roll/contry/blues border band with a
pretty developed notion of the alt.country idea already in the late
sixties. But nobody called it country rock! The abysmal notes on this CD
won't help you much, since this set was rushed out before the marketers
even had bothered to find out who wrote some of the more famous songs on
here--and they SAY SO on the disc!
But those songs include the full Doug and Augie & Co. treatment on the
likes of...Image of Me, In the Pines, In The Jailhouse Now, Wolverton
Mountain, and Time Changes Everything--and then begin the mciing and
sorting--Woody's Philadelphia Lawyer's here, Dylan's One To Many Mornings,
T-Bone Shuffle, It's a Man Down There (pre-Allmans cover), and Quarter to
Three! The pressscient choice of these numbers says plenty in itself,
considreing how many would be standards soon after--if in other and not
necessarily more atlented hands. And still, many of the most striking
numbers are Sahm originals, in a country vein, hard, simple, dumb rock and
roll vein, blues vein, all of the above vein--and some good ballads to
boot. (And yeha, that includes the return of She's About a Mover--bizarrely
left off the most available "best of Sir Douglas" collecuion.
I think this band doesn't always get its full due when looking at the
histiry of this music we talk about, maybe cause Doug Sahm never died
tragically but chooses to live--apparently quite happily--but with so many
of these amazing cuts unavailable so long, I'd cerytainly suggest adding
this one to any P2er collection.
Barry M.
