Sir Douglas Quintet
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Sir Douglas Quintet was a rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Despite their British sounding name, they came out of San Antonio, Texas and are perhaps best known for their 1965 hit single written by Doug Sahm, the 12-bar blues "She's About A Mover," named the number one "Texas" song by Texas Monthly. With a pulsating Vox Continental organ riff provided by Augie Meyers and soulful vocals from lead singer and guitarist Doug Sahm, the track features a Tex-Mex sound. Other influences came in from blues, jazz, and contemporary rock. The band soon joined the late-'60s explorations of expanded rock-music potentials.
In addition to "She's About a Mover," the band is known for its songs "Mendocino," "Dynamite Woman" and "Can You Dig My Vibrations?"
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[edit] Style
The Sir Douglas Quintet is considered a pioneering influence in the history of rock and roll for incorporating Tex-Mex and Cajun styles into rock music. However, early influences on the band's emerging Texas style included ethnic and pop music from the 1950s and 1960s, such as doo-wop, electric blues, soul music, and British Invasion. Perhaps even more off-beat for a late-1960s rock band than some inclusion of doo-wop-type songs (more the feel, the beat, and the chord progressions, rather than the nonsense syllables) was that the band also played in styles like Western swing and polka (a Country & Western form and rhythmic style, from the Texas Hill Country, rather than a straight European style). They approached these styles with an instrumental line-up that was typical of blues bands: one guitarist, organist, bassist, and drummer, and a member who could play either trumpet or saxophone.
In the middle sixties, the band relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and absorbed features of the San Francisco Sound, including the loud and lush electric-bass tone and freer percussion and guitar stylings. Band members also explored musical elements specific to modern jazz at that time. For studio recordings, they sometimes added an extra musician or two, often to flesh out the brass dimension of a track's sound. Good examples of the ecstatic synthesis they achieved when they absorbed the new jazz and psychedelic elements into their music can be found on the disk Sir Douglas Quintet + 2.
In live performances, blues, often with swing or shuffle beats, was usually a substantial component of the set. Besides doing their own original material, the Quintet revived several classics such as Jimmie Rodgers' In the Jailhouse Now and Freddy Fender's Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.
In 2005 they were among the new class of musicians chosen for the nominating ballot to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
[edit] Members
The Sir Douglas Quintet included several different members after its founding in 1965. One of these was guitarist Tom Nay of Sarasota, Florida, who played with the group for about a year. The group was always anchored by Sahm and Meyers who were also members of the Texas Tornados in the early 1990s. Other original members included Jack Barber on bass, Frank Morin on saxophone, and Johnny Perez, Ernie Durawa and T.J. Ritterbach on drums. In 1969 Harvey Kagan joined the Quintet on bass forming their most familiar lineup - Kagan, Morin, Perez, Sahm, and Meyers. Bassist Jim Stallings also contributed to several albums during this period
In 1972 the group split up when Sahm contracted to produce a solo album. Meyers, Perez, Morin, and Stallings briefly regrouped as "The Quintet" with Sonny Farlow taking Sahm's place. In 1973 several Sir Douglas Quintet outtakes were released in their final album from the group's classic era, Rough Edges.
Sahm and Meyers continued to work together throughout the late 1970s and rejoined with Perez in 1980 for a reunion tour and album.
[edit] Selected discography
[edit] Albums
- 1966 - The Best of the Sir Douglas Quintet (Tribe) [not a compilation, despite its title]
- 1968 - Sir Douglas Quintet + 2 = Honkey Blues (Smash)
- 1969 - Mendocino (Smash)
- 1970 - 1+1+1=4 (Philips)
- 1970 - Together After Five (Smash)
- 1971 - The Return of Doug Saldaña (Philips)
- 1972 - Future Tense (as simply "The Quintet")
- 1973 - Rough Edges (Mercury)
- 1977 - Live Love (Texas)
- 1980 - Motive
- 1983 - Border Wave (Chrysalis)
- 1983 - Live Texas Tornado (Takoma)
- 1983 - Midnight Sun
- 1985 - Luv Ya' Europa
- 1994 - Day Dreaming at Midnight (Elektra/Nonesuch)
- 2006 - Live from Austin, Texas (New West)
[edit] Compilations
- 1980 - The Best of the Sir Douglas Quintet (Takoma)
- 1988 - Sir Doug's Recording Trip: The Mercury Years (Edsel)
- 1988 - Spotlight (Sonet)
- 1990 - The Best of Doug Sahm & the Sir Douglas Quintet 1968-1975 (PolyGram)
- 2000 - The Best of the Sir Douglas Quintet (Sundazed/Beat Rocket)
- 2004 - Prime of Sir Douglas Quintet: The Best of the Tribe Recordings (Westside)
- 2005 - The Complete Mercury Masters (Hip-O Select)
