I was digging through some boxes of 45 rpm records today and was really happy to stumble across the autograph I got from Doug Sahm just a few years ago, back in (gulp!) 1998.
The dude is one of my big musical heroes. Every step of the way he made great music—from hillbilly music in the early 1950s, to greasy rock ’n’ roll in the late 1950s, cool Tex-Mex-inspired garage rock in the mid-1960s, and incredible country and trippy Americana from the 1970s until his death. The guy was just full of great music. He was a natural.
The time I met him and got to hang with him was at the long-gone Jack’s Sugar Shack club at Hollywood and Vine. I bent his ear for probably close to forty-five minutes about his old records and experiences around his hometown of San Antonio. He had lots of great stories and was a super-cool cat. I snagged his autograph on a little piece of notebook paper and stuck it in with my copy of “She’s About a Mover” by the Sir Douglas Quintet.
Doug died a year after I met him, in 1999. I was really happy to run into his band mate and organ maestro Augie Myers at the AmeriPolitan awards a couple years ago.
I’m happy to go down memory lane with this stuff, but if you’re unfamiliar with his work, do a deep dive on YouTube for Doug Sahm, the Sir Douglas Quintet, and of course the Texas Tornados. I’m glad I got to meet the man.
See more photos at Deke’s original Facebook post!
