If you’re not a Texas music aficionado, you might be forgiven for being unfamiliar with the music of Doug Sahm. Sahm, who was born in 1941 and died of heart attack in 1999, was a musical chameleon. First came the British Invasion, where he took on the name Sir Douglas and put out his biggest hit, “She’s About a Mover.” Then came decades of honky-tonk blues and Mexican norteño, during which he became a beloved local figure in what Texas Monthly called the “carefree hippie mecca” of the ’70s, Austin.
Bigger musicians came out of Austin’s hippie-country scene, like Willie Nelson, but Sahm became the lifer who stayed local. That dedication is part of what made him a cult figure, resulting in Son Volt’s latest album, a collection of covers called Day of the Doug. Cult figures themselves, Son Volt have used Sahm’s music to make one of their strongest albums in years.
