>From this week's Nashville Scene: Bigger Than Texas Doug Sahm embodied rock 'n' roll music at its best By Michael McCall Doug Sahm personified rock 'n' roll as a way of life rather than as a marketing niche. Uninhibited and unself-conscious, the San Antonio-born Sahm was a wide-open, motor-mouthed, hyperactive soul who valued freedom, frankness, and freewheeling fun. He was the kind of guy who had trouble keeping bands together because he always took off a month or two each summer to attend major-league baseball games. But he was also one hell of a musician. In the wake of his death on Nov. 18 at age 58, Sahm has been celebrated for his musical versatility, with obituaries noting his fluency in country, blues, rock, Mexican, and Cajun styles--"the mixed bag," as Sahm described it. At his best, the Texas Tornado fused those divergent influences into a wholly American sound that bubbled with casual soul and jaunty energy. He also was the kind of guy who, after accumulating an incredible legacy of recordings and collaborations, didn't keep a bio on hand to hype his accomplishments. In a Scene interview last year, he spoke of a Mexican radio station in Austin, Texas, that had called and asked him to fax over a bio. Since he didn't have one, the woman at the station asked if he could tell her a little about himself. "Sure," Sahm answered. "Want to do it now?" The employee asked, "How long will it take?" "About 40 years," Sahm responded. Sahm first made his mark as leader of the Texas-based Sir Douglas Quintet, a great '60s band that mixed Lone Star rhythms and British Invasion rock. The band's most famous song, 1965's "She's About a Mover," featured Augie Meyers using a Vox organ to imitate a Tex-Mex accordion. Predating both Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs' "Wooly Bully" and ? and the Mysterians' "96 Tears," "She's About a Mover" helped integrate the organ into guitar-based garage rock. Only in his mid-20s, Sahm was already a veteran--he'd been performing rock 'n' roll and honky-tonk since childhood. After the early-'70s breakup of the Sir Douglas Quintet--a name chosen to bluff American teens into thinking the group was English--Sahm's musical sweep expanded even further. In 1973, he released Doug Sahm and Band, which, like many of his albums, featured an unusually broad cast of players, bringing together folk-rocker Bob Dylan, Mexican accordionist Flaco Jimenez, New Orleans pianist Dr. John, and jazz saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman. It also included the song "Wallflower," which Dylan wrote for Sahm--and which later provided Dylan's son Jakob with a name for his own guitar-and-organ group. The rest of the '70s found Sahm creating a powerful musical legacy that served as a precursor to today's Americana and alt-country scene. The highlights include 1973's Texas Tornado; 1974's Groover's Paradise, on which he fronted the rhythm section of Creedence Clearwater Revival; and 1976's Texas Rock for Country Rollers. Throughout, the unifying elements are looseness and spontaneity; the emphasis is on rollicking grooves and good-time fun. In 1990, Sahm encountered his greatest success since the '60s as a member of the Texas Tornados, a Tex-Mex/country band he formed with Freddy Fender, Flaco Jimenez, and longtime pal Meyers. Both with and without the Tornados, he continued to record throughout the decade, rarely worrying about what would happen to the albums after he was done. He cut stinging hard rock with his son Shawn on a newly revived Sir Douglas Quintet album, Day Dreaming at Midnight; he made an outstanding big-band blues LP, The Last Real Texas Blues Album; and he recorded the recent S.D.Q. '98, which featured backing by a popular Austin band, The Gourds, with Meyers on Vox and accordion. Sahm's death comes prematurely; he always seemed younger than his years, and his energy tired people half his age. But the suddenness of his passing fits his character: After all, Sahm was always impatient and ahead of his time, and he tended to do things quickly and with a minimum of fuss. In our interview last year, Sahm said he couldn't be happier. "Good songs, good times, man. I've been lucky 'cause I've always been able to hook up with people who love music as much as I do. I've been real fortunate that way." His music made us feel fortunate too.