Jan Reid (2) (–2020)

Texas Tornado was among the most highly anticipated books that I have ever read, because Doug Sahm is my favorite musical recording artist (whose irrepressible musical joy was only matched by his vast talents on a number of instruments, in a plethora of styles).

Sahm, both a Texan and American through and through (traits which need to be distinguished and aren't redundant at all), began performing as a young boy, most famously in his "Little Doug" persona, where as legend has it, he played pedal steel guitar riding atop Hank Williams's lap, just a few days before that country music legend passed away.

Sahm accumulated a rich musical experience which only could have been managed by living in the region of the country where he resided, where country music, bayou swamp pop, dusky blues and R&B, and piquant Conjunto all held equal sway, in musical forms that were both unique and indiscrete, allowing the forms to mongrelize and bleed into one another. The perfect distillation of this process was Sahm.

Sahm's first success came as leader of the Sir Douglas Quintet, whose faux British personas were both cultivated and exploited by legendary cajun hitmaker, Huey Meaux (who famously bunkered down with some cases of wine and a stack of Beatles records in a hotel room, in an attempt to determine what elementally made the British Invasion legends so successful in America).

After this early success, with the hit song "She's About a Mover", Sahm spent the duration of his life chasing the elusive goal of chartmaking success.

Sahm was among the exodus of young Texans who had to decamp to California to enjoy a more permissive and open lifestyle, which was stifled by the draconian Texas 60's milieu. This move to California, along with his neverending pursuit of follow-up chart success, combined with the already restless, high energy Sahm's nature, began a more itinerant era of Sahm's life.

Along with this journeymen musical lifestyle came several consequences, a failed marriage and strained family relationship, which Sahm's infectious and free-spirited nature attempted to mollify.

Reading this book it became clear to me that Sahm's life was a quintessentially American story of the rise and fall, search for redemption, and ultimately, attaining it, even if his untimely demise rings as premature and unfortunate, given the scope of his music and the magnificence of his personality.… (mehr)