The Boy Who Cried Freebird

by Mitch Myers

  For the uninitiated, Big Red is an all-the-sugar-and-twice-the-caffeine soda pop that’s found in Texas and usually consumed by kids too young to know any better. Sahm enjoyed the stuff—in the old bottles—and the elixir probably took the edge off the copious amounts of weed he was smoking.

  Hyperactive with or without Big Red, Sahm came home to San Antonio only to leave again. This time he moved to Austin, where he helped blaze the trail of so-called redneck rock.

  Newly divorced and living down the road from the Soap Creek Saloon, Sahm grooved into another essential phase of his career. Between Soap Creek and the Armadillo World Headquarters, there was a wide assortment of cosmic cowboys hanging around. That posse included Jerry Jeff Walker and the newly arrived Willie Nelson, who was eager to reinvent himself after a decade of songwriting in straight-laced Nashville.

  Texas troubadours like Michael Murphy dominated the Armadillo, but Doug established a weekly gig at Soap Creek and set about gathering his troops. Bassist Jack Barber moved up from San Antonio and George Rains followed Sahm from San Francisco. Old friends like Rocky Morales and trumpeter Charlie McBirney gave Doug the toughest horn section in Austin, reviving the West Side Sound.

  In 1972, Doug was the irrepressible ringleader of a free Thanksgiving concert at the Armadillo, jamming all night with the Grateful Dead and Leon Russell. “The Dead had a show the night before at a big auditorium and they just opened up the Armadillo for Thanksgiving,” recalled Doug’s friend, Bill Bentley. “All those guys played. It was a typical Doug Sahm ball and he led the whole thing. People coalesced around Doug—musicians loved to be around him because he was so talented. That’s what they got off on.”

  The Austin scene allowed Doug to be supportive of other musicians. By recording Freddy Fender’s classic tune “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights,” Sahm showed great empathy for a forgotten compadre who had been imprisoned for a microscopic amount of marijuana and withdrawn from the music business. Doug coaxed the singer out of retirement and secured Freddy a reassuring comeback gig at the Soap Creek Saloon.

  Doug produced the single “Red Temple Prayer (Two-Headed-Dog)”/“Starry Eyes” for Roky Erickson. The troubled star of the 13th Floor Elevators had fallen on hard times due to a combination of drug abuse and mental illness, and Roky needed Sahm’s emotional and aesthetic support just to record those two songs.

  In 1973, Atlantic Records honcho Jerry Wexler produced Doug Sahm and Band in New York City. Sahm’s star-studded Band featured Augie Meyers, Dr. John, David “Fathead” Newman, an obscure accordion player named Flaco Jimenez, and the very famous Bob Dylan, who sang and played some guitar.

  “I pulled it together,” recalled Jerry Wexler. “I invited various musicians to the session but Dylan turned up on his own. Doug’s presence in Austin was one of the factors that made it such an important center of music. There was the Armadillo, there was Willie Nelson’s presence, but Doug was like the king in Austin.”

  Wexler had signed both Doug and Willie to recording contracts, but neither artist fared well on Atlantic. Of course, Nelson went on to great fame after leaving the label. Speedy Sparks, a roadie and sometime bassist with the SDQ, recalled Doug’s influence on Willie. “Willie Nelson wanted that rock ’n’ roll crowd, and Doug had them,” Sparks said. “Willie would come out and watch Doug and figure out what Doug was doing. Willie got the hip rednecks, and then he won everybody else over. At first, Doug was the king, not Willie or Jerry Jeff or Waylon. It was Doug, mainly because he had that album with Bob Dylan.”

  Using leftover tracks from Wexler’s sessions and some San Francisco recordings, Doug pieced together the 1973 album Texas Tornado. The bold impact of Doug’s uninhibited Texas vision made a lasting impression on a number of musicians.

  “Texas Tornado is one of the records that made it hip to play country music in Texas,” said Steve Earle. “There used to be a dividing line between musicians that played pop music and the musicians that played country. It was a social line, too. That whole Armadillo World HQ, Soap Creek Saloon thing in Austin, it changed Texas, at least for a while.”

  Doug’s next record, Groover’s Paradise, was an obvious homage to Austin, and his band included Doug Clifford and Stu Cook, the former rhythm section of John Fogerty’s Creedence Clearwater Revival. Again, Sahm was making rousing, creative roots music, but his commercial success was dwindling.

  The “New Wave” craze of the late ’70s revitalized some interest in the SDQ. Elvis Costello and the Attractions keyboardist Steve Nieve used an insistent, roller-rink organ sound that traced directly back to Augie Meyers and his Vox. On the 1981 album Border Wave, Doug gave a playful nod to his pseudo-British roots, and included a cover version of the Kinks tune, “Who’ll Be the Next in Line.”

  Between solo efforts and periodic Quintet reunions, Doug always seemed be able to pull together one more recording session and a tour to go with it. Living the life of a journeyman—like the country, jazz, and blues veterans he emulated as a youth—Sahm pushed on.

  He was a perennial showbiz sparkplug and a gifted organizer, but Doug wasn’t the best businessman. Denny Bruce managed Doug’s career for a while and released three of his records on the Takoma label. Recalling Sahm’s erratic nature, Denny said, “Doug pulled a lot of stunts in his life, financially. I’m not saying Doug screwed Augie, but there were so many times that he would take advantage of him. But just when you would count Doug out, he would come up and it would be like, ‘Let’s go! Get on the bus, Augie!’”

  Part of Sahm’s survival was linked to his enduring popularity overseas. After signing with a Swedish record label, Sahm went platinum with the crowd-pleasing tune, “Meet Me in Stockholm.” Besides touring Europe, Doug personally moved up to Canada, and then back down to Texas again—peppering his travels with a requisite number of baseball games, hard living, and eclectic musical encounters.

  Doug remained a sports fanatic throughout his life. There were times when he would refuse to come out of his hotel room—even to rehearse for an important gig—when watching baseball on television. Doug declined to tour one fall season, just so he could stay home and watch the World Series.

  “He liked so many different teams,” said Doug’s son Shawn Sahm. “To be a baseball scout would have been his dream. He had a Joe DiMaggio baseball and an autographed menu from DiMaggio’s restaurant. He would call me from all these training camps, ‘Yeah Shawn, I’m hanging out with the Cubs!’ He was very into baseball and to a lesser extent he was very into wrestling.”

  Denny Bruce made a trip to Yankee Stadium with Doug and guitarist Alvin Crow. “Bobby Murcer was on the Yankees, and he was from the same little town in Oklahoma as Alvin Crow,” recalled Bruce. “Doug worked his way down to the bullpen and was leaning over and talking to [relief pitcher] Goose Gossage. He came back and said, ‘Man, I knew that Goose got high!’ They were talking about pot.”

  Whether gigging with the West Side Horns or the Texas Mavericks, Doug was never far from his San Antonio roots. But it wasn’t until 1989 that his love affair with Tex-Mex and conjunto music came to full flower. Along with Augie Meyers, Doug reunited with Freddy Fender and Flaco Jimenez to form the Texas Tornados.

  Several Texas Tornados albums and tours were to follow, highlighted by a GRAMMY award in 1991. “Doug was a real versatile guy and soulful, of course,” said Flaco Jimenez. “He was a groover—a super groover—and he played a pretty good bajo sexto, too. There aren’t too many Anglos doing that.”

  Besides marketing the Tornados to America’s Hispanic population, Doug stayed busy recording down-home blues and jazzy R&B. Forever returning to those intricate blues shuffles and triplets he practiced as a youth in San Antonio, he continued to work with old friends like Jack Barber, George Rains, and Rocky Morales.

  Doug’s rapport with his sons Shandon and Shawn was musical as well. In 1990, Doug Sahm & Sons appeared on Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye (a tribute to Roky Erickson), and in 1994 the boys played on the SDQ disc Day Dreaming at Mid
night.

  Doug later recorded S.D.Q. ’98, which included collaborations with the Austin rockers the Gourds. Amid the typical manic Sahm discourse, Gourds member Kevin Russell noticed a hint of melancholy. “He had a taste of fame back in the day, and I think he was always trying to recapture that,” said Russell. “There was always a little bit of sadness about his best days being behind him. He wouldn’t say that, but I got the feeling that was how he felt.”

  Journalist and friend Chet Flippo reflected on those past glory days, and Doug’s crucial bond with Bob Dylan, “In many ways, Doug and Bob were flip sides of each other’s personalities, which is why they were so musically compatible. Each perhaps secretly envied the other a little bit and hoped that some of that particular magic would rub off.”

  Doug’s impact on Dylan is tangible; Sahm’s counterpart, Augie Meyers, was the only musician to play with Dylan on both Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft, and Dylan’s former guitarist Larry Campbell was a member of the SDQ during the ’80s. Charlie Sexton also played guitar in Dylan’s group, and Charlie grew up in Austin under the care of Speedy Sparks—where he’d often sit (on the bar) and watch Doug’s band rehearse.

  Doug died alone in a hotel room in Taos, New Mexico, where he’d gone in hopes of regaining his health. He was complaining about pains in his fingers, arm, and chest. Although he contemplated visiting a doctor the night he died of a heart attack, Sahm chose to tough things out on his own. His final recording was a beautiful country album called The Return of Wayne Douglas, released posthumously thanks to Bill Bentley.

  Joe “King” Carrasco is a Texas musician who emulated Doug and enjoyed some success during the “New Wave” years. Joe is absolutely clear on Sahm’s vital contribution to Texas music. “Nobody that had ever come from Texas covered the whole cross section of what Texas was about except Doug,” said Carrasco. “The biggest funeral they ever had in San Antonio was Doug’s and the next one will be when Augie goes. That’s a whole chapter of what’s the best of Texas. Once these guys are gone, that’s it.”

  Doug’s lyrics have been quoted often over the years, but none as much as the refrain from his song, “At the Crossroads.” I didn’t think that I’d have to include these words when writing this story, but I changed my mind.

  Doug Sahm sang…

  You can teach me lots of lessons.

  You can bring me lots of gold.

  But you just can’t live in Texas if you don’t have a lot of soul.

  That’s it.

  TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN

  Dark clouds loomed ominously over the renovated Frankenstein chateau high on top of Tiger Mountain. A crowd had gathered in front of the gate at the castle’s entrance. It was an unruly mob. Some carried hand-painted signs, which they shook angrily. Others shouted foul epithets at the lone figure staring down at them from across the moat.

  Baron Von Frankenstein sighed deeply and turned his back to the window. “Bastards,” he muttered. “What’s wrong, Master?” his faithful assistant asked. “Why do the townspeople come and torture us so? We have done them no wrong.”

  The baron sighed again and answered in a weary voice, “It’s all about the Music for Airports project, Igor. These boorish villagers seem to think that Eno’s original creation is not something to be meddled with. Purists take issue with our rejuvenation of an entity that has remained frozen for so long. They say it is a crime against nature or some such nonsense.”

  Igor gaped quizzically at his patron, “You mean to say that they seriously object to a humanized interpretation of this complex sound sculpture? But, Master, it’s a meta-classic! Eno created the piece decades ago and it was even installed at the Marine Terminal of New York’s LaGuardia Airport in 1980!”

  “All true,” the Baron answered. “But that was only until the airport employees complained the ambient-minimalist soundscape was driving them crazy and demanded that it be stopped. There still appears to be confusion about whether Music for Airports is background Muzak, a profoundly artificial musical milieu, or something even more vital. Remember, Eno didn’t even compose the original score as much as he designed it from a few simple notes and the serial organization of variable tape loops that didn’t quite match up. It was a groundbreaking elaboration on the spatial dimension, one that utilized silence, piano, synthesizer, a female voice, and most importantly, the technology of the studio.”

  Outside, the crowd had doubled in size and was struggling to break through the front gate. A number of townsfolk had lit huge torches that they held high above their heads as they flailed at the entranceway. Far above the growing din, Baron Frankenstein and Igor faced each other, alone in the castle’s main tower.

  The baron showed Igor an index of metals and some arcane, computer-generated diagrams on the back of an old, battered album jacket. “Years ago, the Manhattan group Bang on a Can transcribed Eno’s ambient epic and developed a score to be played on conventional instruments,” the baron intoned. “Instead of Eno’s original treatment of an electroacoustic atmosphere using nondevelopmental forms that manifest themselves mathematically in low-frequency drones and a vibrant set of upper harmonics, we can now hear a contemporary chamber ensemble playing these long, calming notes like everyday music.”

  The baron continued his lecture to his faithful assistant, “What those common fools outside don’t understand is that it is music, heavenly music. Eno was barely acknowledged as one of the more influential musical thinkers of his time, but in the 1970s he used the concepts of Satie, Cage, and Stockhausen, and made them accessible to a rock audience. Eno’s shift of emphasis helped to pioneer the whole ambient strategy as we understand it today!”

  Down below, the horde of outraged villagers had broken through the front gate and swarmed inside the castle. Fire was spreading throughout the lower quarters of the massive structure, devouring everything in sight. Chaos and destruction reigned as huge flames shot up the staircase and surrounded the penthouse laboratory.

  Inside, Igor shifted uneasily as shouts of anger echoed through the fortress. “Yes, Master,” he said nervously. “As long as our rendition is faithful to Eno’s original masterpiece, it’s an honorable effort, even if Eno didn’t create ambient music with real instruments in mind—it deserves to have life and be performed like any other composition.”

  The laboratory door burst open and raging townspeople flooded into the room. Someone produced a rope with a noose tied at one end. Baron Von Frankenstein shouted to Igor as the maddened crowd carried them off, “Someday they will see that we were ahead of our time! Can’t these people just accept a meditative piece of music divided into four discrete movements? Is nothing sacred before and after science?”

  A week later there was still faint black smoke rising from the rubble that had once been Castle Frankenstein. The noonday sun was shining as two young boys approached the ruins and began picking through the debris.

  “Man, that baron guy sure did go out kicking and screaming, didn’t he?” said one. “That’s how lynchings are, dude,” said the other. “Hey, look—I think I found something!”

  Together, the lads examined a charred document dated 1921—signed by a man named Varèse. One phrase remained legible.

  It read:

  The present-day composer refuses to die!

  THE SWELTERING GUY

  Adam Coil was feeling panicky. It seemed like he’d been walking for an eternity and the scorching sun still loomed high above him. Coil had smoked the last of his kif to dampen the pain in his legs and now he was parched like the desert that lay before him. Choking back his anxiety, he lurched forward desperately until a sudden sandstorm mercilessly beat him to his knees and then…only blackness.

  When Adam awoke, he found himself in an earthly paradise. The smell of incense wafted thick in the air and fresh fruit sat alongside a tall pitcher of cool water. His filthy clothes were gone and his body had been washed, oiled, and scented. Wrapped in warm linen and supine beside a lotus garden, even his feet smelled of fl
owers.

  But it was the haunting music that captured Coil’s attention—he’d never heard the likes of it. His head swelled with droning reverberations once chronicled by our distant forebears from the East. Centuries melted away in a few lush seconds as wordless chants, tablas, tamboura, Tibetan singing bowl, oud, and hammered dulcimers all coalesced into an intoxicating drift of tantric exultation. Immersed in a swirling delirium, Coil was traveling the medium of sound itself when he suddenly heard the laughter of several young women.

  “It looks like you’re really into the music,” said a petite beauty with dark, fluttering eyelashes. “It’s these earthen soundscapes that use ancient drums and exotic stringed instruments—I play the CD when I teach my yoga class. Hey, you really did spend too much time in that tanning booth, didn’t you? Drink some more of that Evian and I’ll tell your trainer that you’re back among the living.”

  “Damn,” thought Adam. “If I don’t get out of this health club by six o’clock I’m going to miss Seinfeld.”

  THE BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY AND THE WHEELS OF STEEL

  The John Henry Trio played every weekend at the Spotlight Lounge in Portland, Oregon. Not many folks remembered John Henry, but he’d worked with some jazz stars in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Back then he was a wunderkind, a teenaged rhythm whiz from Philadelphia who unleashed the history of the drums every time he picked up the sticks.

  But drugs took John Henry away from the music business. A couple of busts in Southern California had led to prison time, which kept him out of circulation for nearly ten years. When John began his comeback, many bandleaders wouldn’t hire him because of his troubled reputation.

  John never blamed anyone for his difficulties, except himself. He took the long hard road toward recovery and remained humble—hanging out in jazz clubs and playing whenever he could.