Doug Sahm Passing

Stu Schulman · From: Ulster Park New Yawk (deceased)

I've just been informed that Doug Sahm has passed away,I dont know any of the details

Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

Here is the story from the Associated Press.

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TAOS, N.M. (AP) Doug Sahm, a main mover in the Tex-Mex supergroup Texas Tornados and the lead in the Sir Douglas Quintet, was found dead Thursday in a Taos hotel room Thursday. He was 58.

The cause of the death was not immediately known, but a field examiner with the state Office of the Medical Investigator determined there was no foul play.

Sahm, who first became famous in the 1960s with the Sir Douglas Quintet, found a new career 25 years later with Freddy Fender and the Texas Tornados.

The master of many different musical styles from rock, country and blues to Tex-Mex he began his career as a child, playing in a local band and singing on the radio at age 5. By age 8 he was a regular on the "Louisiana Hayride" radio show. By 11, he sang at a Hank Williams concert in Austin only weeks before Williams died.

As a teen-ager he started his recording career in 1955 with a single called "A Real American Joe" under the name "Little" Doug Sahm.

He achieved national fame in 1965, when the Sir Douglas Quintet had a hit with "She's About a Mover." Other Sir Douglas hits included "Rains Came" and "Mendocino."

In the late 1980s Sahm teamed up with Fender in the Texas Tornados, which had hits with songs such as "A Little Bit Is Better Than Nada," "Who Were You Thinking Of," "She Never Spoke Spanish To Me" and "Hey Baby, Que Paso?"

hhguitar · From: Blue Bell, PA USA

Hard to beleive. An autopsy will be done. He supposedly had either a stroke or heart attack. He didn't tell anybody he was sick. But apparantly he had been throwing up and wasn't feeling well. He had gone to Taos to some kind of holistic medicine place.

Any suggestions on airplane fairs ?

The funeral will be Mon or Tue.

Harry Hess

Boo Bernstein · From: Los Angeles, CA

I just heard the news about Doug. I had played steel in Freddy Fender's band in 1979 and 1980 and Doug used to come hang out backstage from time to time.

I just called Freddy's wife Vangie and she said she heard it was a heart attack. For those of you who knew him, I think you'll agree that Doug was, shall we say, a "unique" character. His passing marks the end of a musician who had a lot of influence in melding country, blues, and Tex-Mex genres. Condolences go out to his family.

Boo

B Bailey Brown · From: San Antonio, TX (USA)

What sad news. Being from San Antonio, I grew up listening to Doug Sahm. In later years I went into the radio business, played Doug’s records (he always liked that part!) and it afforded me many occasions to spend time with him in a “one on one” type of environment. For those of you that don’t know, his original instrument was a steel guitar. He was described as a “child prodigy” on a steel guitar, and while he went on to be known as one of the best “Blues” guitar players, rock singer, song writer, arranger and all around musical genius (And if there was a better musician, I have not met him!), he never lost his love for a steel or country music.

Once again, the music business has lost one of the “greats”.

B. Bailey Brown

Janice Brooks · From: Pleasant Gap Pa

found these funeral details in the no depresson folder
Funeral services will be at Sunset memorial in San Antonio Tuesday 11/23. There will be a viewing(maby at 2 P.M. and a service by sister tarry at 4pm.
Sunset Memorial Park Phone is 210 828 2811

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"BUS" ICQ 44729047
www.geocities.com/nashville/3886

hhguitar · From: Blue Bell, PA USA

The years I spent playing in Doug's bands (1975, 76 & 77, The Sir Douglas Quintet and Sir Doug & The Texas Tornados) were some of the most fun years of my life. Doug was a great musician and I learned A LOT about music while playing with him. The bands were always top notch players and Doug always made it fun. I was the youngest in the band by ten years. I learned how to "do it on the fly" while with Doug. Rehearsals were extremely rare. You had to know how to just play what you know and let it all hang out.

All of us who were part of the "Doug Sahm story" have lost our captain. Exasasperating as he could sometimes be, he still always had our love and our respect of his awesome musicianship. None of us expected this to happen, he was the last guy you would expect to go like this. True to form, the Texas Tornado has blazed his own path.

Goodbye, Captain.

Love,
Harry Hess

Pete Finney · From: Nashville Tn.

I too had the honor of playing with Doug for a while, in '79 and '80. He was my entry into the Austin scene, and one of the most unforgettable characters I've ever known (I can't imagine anyone that knew him that wouldn't say the same). As far as steel guitar goes, I have a typical story: One day without warning he sat down at my double-10 and proceeded to wildly retune the C-6th neck, and then played the fire out of it for a while (without pedals). When I asked him the tuning he couldn't tell me! I checked it out, but don't remember, I suspect it was a 13th of some kind.

He will not be replaced!

Pete Finney

Herb Steiner · From: Spicewood TX 78669

Pete
That was the Jimmy Grabowski tuning!

(Forumites: Jimmy Grabowski is a steel player, no longer playing, that was very influential in the western swing circuit in Central TX in the 1950's and 1960's.)

Doug came up to me one night at the Broken Spoke and talking like he had 9-too-many cups of coffee, said that he'd "discovered the secret to steel guitar, man! It's the total groove! The Jimmy Grabowski tuning, man... Jimmy Grabowski. It's that Scorpio thing, man. That Scorpio groove. Jimmy, man. F****in' awesome groove. It's that tuning, man."

I picked up that he was jazzed about the tuning.

He hauled out his National doubleneck and sat in with the band... I think it was with Gary P. Nunn. He was totally wild. Doug was a very enthusiastic steel player.

I think Doug really loved his persona as a steel player, and he really respected steel players. I believe Tommy Detamore was Doug's last steel player, or was on one of Doug's last projects, for sure.

I'd also like to add my $.02 about Doug and his musical talent. He could nail any type of roots American music perfectly. He had the innate ability to get to the absolute essence of a distinct style, and make it part of his own music. Regardless of whether the music was rock, blues, or country. He could sing like Lefty Frizzell. Play guitar like T.Bone Walker. He was a total universalist, and a traditionalist at the same time.

I once saw him sit in with Alvin Crow's western swing band and do a 20 minute medley of British rock from 1963 to 1970, calling off band names ("Kinks... Animals..."), songs, and then playing lick for lick and inflection for inflection of the originals. You had to have been there to appreciate a totally awesome performance. Then he did 15 minutes of Lefty Frizzell, perfectly. Then a medley of "And the Rains Came,""Mendocino,"" and the ultimate "She's About a Mover." This was at the old Skyline Club on North Lamar in Austin, a sweaty old non-air-conditioned Texas honky-tonk jam-packed in the heat of summer. Real cold beer. It was a perfect musical night.

He was fun to play steel for, incidentally. Though sometimes going on the road with him could be emotionally challenging.

I'm leaving to go to the funeral now, and I expect to see a whole lot of old pickers. Should be a packed house, which is what Doug always wanted.

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members.aol.com/herbs10178/index.html

B Bailey Brown · From: San Antonio, TX (USA)

Like Herb and some of the other posters, I saw Doug do many “interesting” things over the years. One of my favorites was in 1970 at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. Doug opened for some “name” act that has long since been forgotten, but who cares...I went to see Doug! I figured I was going to see the “Quintet”...wrong! Out came Doug, this big burley guitar player, and a bass player and drummer that I was not familiar with. Most of the set was either “original” stuff by Doug (Not his “hits”...just new stuff he was into), and some really interesting things by this guitar player/singer.

About half way through the set Doug says...”Oh yea, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine from Nashville, TN (turns to the guitar player)...Charlie Daniels!”. Believe it or not in 1970 I had never heard of Charlie Daniels, but I was sure impressed. Then Doug reaches back behind his amp, drags out an old beat up fiddle and kicks off “Is Anybody goin’ to San Antone”...yea, best I remember it was Doug that played fiddle, not Charlie (although my mind is a little foggy on that one). They then proceeded to do about a 10 minute medley of a lot of old country standards.

To this day I am convinced that 90% of the LA crowd that night never really understood what they were seeing. But Doug and Charlie walked off stage that night to a standing ovation! Doug Sahm was the master of the “unexpected”!

B. Bailey Brown

Pete Finney · From: Nashville Tn.

Hi Herb,

Now THAT story captured the Doug we knew as well as can be done. Could you let me know about upcoming musical events relating to Doug? I know there's a tribute at Antones coming up, I would like to try to come down. I see you on the forum all the time, I don't actually participate as much as I should.
Pete

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

When I was 13 year old hippie kid I went to a Grateful Dead show and Doug Sahm was opening. He played a bunch of straight up honkytonk. I was wondering who that weird cowboy was.
It was my first semi concious exposure to that music. By the time I was 15 I was bored with the Dead but Doug's music stuck with me. One of the first tunes I played on steel on my first steady bar gig was "Mendocino". Alot of real joy comes through his tunes.

I wish he was still here.

Bob

B Bailey Brown · From: San Antonio, TX (USA)

As a follow up....

Doug Sahm made page 1 of the San Antonio Express & News (with a large pic of the memorial service). I think he probably did that once or twice, but I don’t remember when he was the “lead” story. Several quotes from the article titled “Farewell to a Troubadour” by Jim Beal our local music writer...

“About a thousand people swarmed Sunset Memorial Park & Funeral Home to send Sahm off in style”.
Doug, as Herb Steiner mentioned, always wanted a packed house. Well, he got one!!

“While cowboy singers stood with blues pickers and poets and said ‘Way too soon’.”...
There were many “names” mentioned in the article. Most of them were local players that you would not know, but there were also people like Lee Roy Parnell, Augie Myers, Ray Wiley Hubbard, Doug Clifford (Creedence Clearwater’s drummer).

A quote from Lee Roy Parnell...
“A friend was saying this was a tragedy. No, the tragedy would have been if Doug Sahm would have never been born.”

A quote from Jim Beal...
“Wreaths and photos ringed the chapel. A fiddle and a triple-neck Fender Steel guitar, Sahm’s first instrument, flanked the coffin.”

Even as Doug went out the door...he was a steel player. Now, if that is not a tribute to a great musician and our instrument, I don’t think I have ever seen one. God rest him in peace...he was one of “ours”.

B. Bailey Brown

Dag Wolf · From: Bergen, Norway

Doug Sahm had a very big hit here in Scandinavia in the first half of the 80`s. The song was "Meet me in Stockholm" featuring Bobby Black on steel with a very good solo.

1 1 2m 2m
5 5 1 1
progression

Every Country, Dance band did this song. It was the most played song in bands for years here.

I`ve heard Doug a couple of times with Larry Campell(sp?) on steel. Doug and Larry did "Orange blossom special" and "Faded Love" with twin fiddles and brought the house down here in Bergen back in the 80`s.

One of the great is gone and will be missed.

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Dag Wolf.

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