Sir Douglas Quintet
The Best of the Sir Douglas Quintet
(Sundazed Records)
Sir Douglas Quintet
The Sir Douglas Quintet is Back
(Sundazed Records)
It’s another brilliantly idiotic tale of Texas record hustler Huey P. Meaux. And no doubt every word is true. The year was 1964:
“I crammed my car with Thunderbird wine and every Beatles record I could find, and took a trip to San Antonio. I locked myself in a motel room, vowing not to leave until I had discovered the secret formula.” Meaux’s answer was the Sir Douglas Quintet, but how they had anyone fooled is truly puzzling. Yet while they were about as far from the British Invasion as could be, they blended the music of their native Texas (western swing, conjuto, blues, R&B, Gulf Coast rock ‘n’ roll and all permutations thereof) into their own sound, cracking the top of the charts in ’65 with “She’s About A Mover.”
Bandleader Doug Sahm, part maniacal fan and part amazing performer, along with his ever-present sidekick, organist Augie Meyers, defined Texas rock ‘n’ roll from the Quintet’s inception clear through the ’80s and its metamorphosis into the like-minded Texas Tornadoes. The cyclonic sound was only recently silenced by the unexpected passing of Doug last November.
The difficulty in finding their early material has always been inexcusable for a band of their stature and these CDs deliver a long awaited, much needed double whammy of the band that knew no musical boundaries.
The Best of is their rare debut album, compiled in 1966 by Meaux in a last ditch effort to cash in on the dormant Quintet, who’d been exiled to California following a drug bust. It contains the awesomely heartbreaking “Please Just Say So” and the chanting, trashy “In The Jailhouse Now,” as well as great versions of “Quarter To Three,” an absolutely morbid “In The Pines” and two bonus tracks, including their waxing of Andre Williams’ “Bacon Fat.”
Who knew that they’d triumphantly rise from the grave two years later and conquer the charts once again with “Mendocino”? Certainly not Meaux when he whipped this record together, grabbing whatever tapes were sitting around the studio. But lest we forget, this is a band that seemingly couldn’t record anything that wasn’t great and this album is truly a classic.
The Sir Douglas Quintet Is Back is a great companion volume, containing rare singles and unreleased material, that should have been compiled long ago. Opening with their debut single, a furious take of Cleveland Crochet’s “Sugar Bee,” it reveals that Augie’s accordion-like Vox Continental organ sound was firmly intact from the very beginning. From there on out it’s a Sir Doug tour-de-force that serves the same purpose that seeing them live always did. Texas soul and blues make way for garage punk and Tex-Mex hillbilly, delivered all in one place, as it should be, but so often never is.
