The Sir Douglas Quintet
"You just can't make me give up my revolutionary ways," sings SDQ founder Doug Sahm on Border Wave, his Tex-Mex band's reunion album. In fact, Sir Doug's style has never strayed far from the San Antonio honky-tonks where he got his start. Sahm digested T-Bone Walker's blues, Bob Wills' Texas swing, Ricky Aguirre's Chicano rock'n'roll and even South Texas German polkas. From that chuckwagon emerged a swinging rock sound, spiced with the endearingly cornball flavor of Augie Meyer's organ, Johnny Perez' tap-pity-tap drumming and Sahm's hearty vocals. As The Best of confirms (it includes the group's late-'60s hits Mendocino and She's About a Mover), the music had a good-time savor. On Border Wave, recorded last year, Sahm, Meyer and Perez (plus two new sidemen) sound as if they just left a time capsule. Several of Sahm's new tunes merely rework Mendocino, but they are no less infectious. Something is missing, though—the seamy suggestiveness, perhaps. Maybe you just can't go home again, even to San Antonio.
Your Reaction
