Doug Sahm & His Band – Inlaws And Outlaws: 1973 Radio Brodcast (2013)

Artist: Doug Sahm
Title Of Album: Inlaws And Outlaws: 1973 Radio Brodcast
Year Of Release: 2013
Label: All Access
Genre: Texas Blues, Blues Rock, Tex-Mex
Format: MP3
Quality: 320 kbps, 44.1 Khz
Total Time: 57:10
Total Size: 134 Mb
Covers: Front

Superb unreleased 1973 broadcast from Sir Douglas Quintet mainman feat Augie Meyers, & ‘Fathead’ Newman on sax.

Born in San Antonio in 1941, Doug Sahm is a legendary figure in the annals of Texan music. He certainly had an early start, making his debut on radio at age five (a child prodigy, he could already play triple-neck steel guitar, mandolin, fiddle and guitar) and releasing his first single – A Real American Joe, by Little Doug and the Bandits – in 1955. After early local forays with bands like The Knights and Spot Barnett’s band, by 1965 Doug had formed his own group, The Sir Douglas Quintet, with his pal Augie Meyers on keyboards. Despite the fact that two of the members were obviously Hispanic, and there were Tex-Mex and Cajun influences at work in the music, the name was deliberately chosen to infer that the group might be British! Almost immediately, they had a US Top 20 hit (which also broke out internationally – it reached number 15 on the UK singles chart) with Sahm’s She’s About A Mover. The song has subsequently become something of a Tex-Mex anthem and has also been used on a host of movie soundtracks over the decades. The band soon relocated to San Francisco, a city where there was significant media-attention as it was then hosting its own burgeoning psychedelic music scene. They had further hit singles including The Rains Came (1966) and Mendocino (1968). Bob Dylan had become a friend of Doug Sahm’s and a champion of the band; he said: “For me right now there are three groups: Butterfield, The Byrds and the Sir Douglas Quintet.” At the beginning of the new decade, concurrent with the Quintet, Doug had began to work on separate solo recordings, beginning with the album The Return of Doug Saldaña (1971). His 1973 ‘Doug Sahm And Band’ was a milestone and a stellar cast of backing musicians included Dylan, Dr. John, David Bromberg and Flaco Jiménez. This superb broadcast recording captures Doug and his band during a national tour in support of that record. The gig was on the East Coast of the USA, at Philadelphia’s intimate Bijou Cafe. In addition to Doug and Augie, the band included ‘Fathead’ Newman on sax and drummer George Rains. The true identity of guest vocalist ‘J.R.’, who sings Right Or Wrong has been lost in the mists of time… Doug’s set is an eclectic one – there are two numbers from the current …and Band album, the anthemic (Is Anybody Going To) San Antone (also released as a single) and Papa Ain’t Salty, alongside a quartet of Quintet numbers – She’s About A Mover, The Rains Came, Are Inlaws Really Outlaws and set closer Mendocino. Other excellent choices are Hank Williams Jambalaya (a fitting inclusion as Doug had actually played onstage with the Country music legend, aged 11, during Hank’s last ever concert, in Austin in 1952) and the standard Wolverton Mountain (which was later recorded for Doug’s 1976 album ‘Texas Rock For Country Rollers’). Aside from the more Country-influenced songs, the Blues is represented by fine covers of T-Bone Walker’s classic Stormy Monday and Joe Seneca’s Talk To Me (a 1958 hit for Little Willie John). After this inspired performance Doug Sahm went on to perform and champion Country, R’n’B, Blues and Tex-Mex music for another quarter century before his untimely death – from a heart-attack – in 1999. He left a superb legacy of dozens of excellent albums, recorded under his own name, with the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Tex-Mex ‘supergroup’ The Texas Tornados with Freddy Fender, Augie Meyers, and Flaco Jiménez.

---