Click On Title To Link To YouTube’s Film Clip Of Doug Sahm On "Live From Austin City Limits"
DVD Review
Doug Sahm: Live From Austin, Tx, Doug Sahm (1975), New West Productions, 2007
Most of the following is from a review of a CD, "Doug Sahm and Friends". Except for a list of the song selections the points made there apply here to this DVD as well.
"One of the things that keeps occurring when one is, as I am, tracing in my own eclectic way, some of the roots music of the `American Songbook' is that once familiar names from the distant past keep cropping up in odd ways. Take the artist under review, Doug Sahm, as an example. I knew of his name from 1960's British invasion rock group Sir Douglas Quintet (Go figure, for a Texas boy, but that is the way things went in those helter-skelter days) and, later, from the edges of the Texas-driven "country outlaws" movement of the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, Guy Clark and the like.
However the impetus for this review of Sahm' music is due to a recent interview of Professor Douglas Brinkley (now at Rice University, I believe). Brinkley was talking about the nuts and bolts of his interview of the legendary Bob Dylan for "Rolling Stone" magazine on a National Public Radio talk show. In the course of that interview Professor Brinkley mentioned that the reclusive Dylan missed the companionship of his old time friend, the late Doug Sahm. That set off one alarm. Additionally, Professor Brinkley is well known to this reviewer as a long time friend of the late "Gonzo journalist", Hunter S. Thompson. That combination was enough to get me to this CD.
Like many others, when one is looking for the work of an older artist the best place to start is with some "greatest hits" compilation and that, in effect, is what is being reviewed here. Over the long haul Sahm was associated, broadly, with the Tex-Mex and Texas blues music that came roaring out of his state over the past few decades, particularly out of Austin. That sound, and the seemingly obligatory nod to the free-wheeling 1960's hard rock styles, dominates this well-produced album originally issued by well-regarded Atlantic Records in 1973. There is a virtual who's who of Tex-Mex and Texas blues musicians backing Sahm up (and the great New Orleans bluesman, Dr. John). Plus, as a bonus, Dylan doing his "Wallflower" with Sahm. Additionally, there is a nice booklet of liner notes showing the cast of characters on this CD in sunnier times. After listening to this CD one can now understand why Dylan missed his old friend".
And off of this DVD you can understand why Dylan would have been attracted to Sahm's gravelly-voiced, rough-hewed song style as seen in the "Mendocino" and "She's A Mover" set. Also a nice version of "Stormy Monday", a song that fits his style very well. Here is the kicker though. A lot of times when I am 'watching' music DVDs I am on the computer, or something. I was doing the same here when all of a sudden Doug started doing a version of Elvis Presley's "One Night With You". I jumped up to watch that. Wow. Yes, indeed, I can very definitely understand Dylan's sense of loss.
*******
Doug Sahm Is Anybody Going To San Antone by Dave Kirby
Glen Martin
Doug Sahm vocals/guitar/fiddle
Bob Dylan background vocals
Charlie Owens steel guitar
Flaco Jimenez accordion
George Raines drums
Jack Barber bass
Augie Meyers keyboards
Ken Kosek fiddle
A D E7 A A D E7 A
A D E7 A
Rain dripping off the brim of my hat it sure looks cold today
D E7 A
Here I am walkin down Sixty Six wish she hadn't done me this way
D E7 A
Sleeping under a table in a roadside park a man could wake up dead
A D E7 A
But it sure seems warmer than it did sleeping in our king size bed
A D E7 A
Is anybody going to San Antone or Phoenix Arizona
D E7 A
Any place is all right as long as I can forget I've ever known her
A D E7 A A D E7 A
A D E A
Wind whippin down the neck of my shirt like I aint got nothin on
A D E7 A
But I'd rather fight the wind and rain than what I was fightin at home
A D E7 A
Is anybody going to San Antone or Phoenix Arizona
D E7 A
Any place is all right as long as I can forget I've ever known her.
SOLO
A D E7 A
Yonder comes a truck with the U.S. mail people writin letters back
home
A D E7 A
Well Tommorrow she'll want me back again and I'll be just as gone
A D E7 A
Is anybody going to San Antone or Phoenix Arizona
D E7 A
Any place is all right as long as I can forget I've ever known her
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