Sir Douglas Quintet – She’s About A Mover

Thanks to Will Cornell for posting this.

Will Cornell…….Great as the early original version of this was (and stick around until Trini’s outgoing remarks at the end, –this isn’t a lost band from your neck of the woods!) I kind of favor the RE-make that was done on the SDQ’s “Mendocino” album a few years later, with the “freaky” guitar playing, John & Frank’s Latino call and response harmonies and false fade-out. Can’t find that anywhere online but the whole Mendocino album is a flawed masterpiece like most of Doug Sahm’s stuff. Greatest Texas song ever according to Texas Monthly a few yrs ago. No argument here.

Alan Esdaile…..Good song, I would never have guessed they come from Texas and sound very British.

Will Cornell…..Ah but everything else they did sounded VERY Texan. If you think of Elvis and Ray Charles as walking encyclopedias of American music, Doug Sahm was that to Texas music. Still though, Augie Meyers may have been the first American to own a Vox organ. He paid dearly for it, but it helped them get away with a bit of an ersatz “Brit Invasion” sound. Wounded Bird records has just reissued all of Sahm’s short lived Atlantic period albums (2 CDs) along with outtakes, produced by Jerry Wexler who wanted to produce Sahm more than just about anyone else in his fabled career. These sessions included backup by Bob Dylan, David Bromberg, David Fathead Newman, Dr John and many more noteworthies. Sahm was a genius right up to the end with the Texas Tornadoes.

Andy Qunta……A guy at boarding school had this record, otherwise I may never have heard it! Still like it. Unusual sound! Now I think about it, it reminds me a bit of The Beatles “She’s A Woman” for some reason!

Will Cornell……She’s About A Woman!

 

Will Cornell talking about the Brits invasion of America.

Hey Alan: here’s our own version of the song that “the Four Pennies” did in “Pop Gear” ST. It’s a very old song…unfortunately the vidcam here did not pick up the banjo and mandolin very well…it was about 20 degrees outside and we had 0 visitors to the museum that day…had to build a fire in the potbelly stove. It’s one of the few songs I can remember lyrics to!

Around the same time your 4 Pennies did this the Sir Douglas Quintet over here had a regional hit with it. Interesting both versions borrow from Leadbelly’s version, not so much Bill Monroe’s. Mine kinda takes from all of them, even Mickey Newbury’s.

Was Sir Douglas (Doug Sahm) known over there at all? It’s a hilarious history he has….child prodigy fiddle and steel guitar player in the early 50s, by the 60s he had R&B bands around the state, then when the Beatles hit the US, Cajun nut-case and record “producer” Huey Meaux locked himself into a hotel in Houston for a weekend with a stack of “Brit invasion” group 45s and a portable record player. He tried to figure out what they were doing that was making them so huge. After a few bottles of liquor he called Doug Sahm in San Antonio and said “Grow your hair long and let’s do this shit!”. Renamed The Sir Douglas Quintet, Huey thought he’d trick the public into thinking this Texas band was from England. The Album jacket featured only backlit silhouettes because two of the members were Chicanos and while their hair could make them pass for being Brits, the brown skin and facial features were a giveaway. Another thing that (temporarily at least) succeeded in fooling the public was that Augie Meyer had just about the only Vox organ in the US. He paid an arm and leg to import it. So they HAD that aspect of their sound down enough to sound like they may have been another Brit Invasion band. “She’s About a Mover” was a huge regional hit and deservedly so…like most of Doug Sahm’s output, it combines every kind of Texan music you can think of but the German accordion sounding part being done by the Vox organ might have fooled only a few into thinking “Hey another Brit band!”.