Doug Sahm's final studio album, The Return of Wayne Douglas, was released not long after his death from a heart attack in Taos, New Mexico hotel room in 1999. The name of the disc was a reference to an alias he'd used to release a cool 1970 Mercury honky-tonk 45, and as you'd expect with a title like that the album itself was pure deep-fried country music from beginning to end. Not surprisingly, Sahm, like a lot of people, was completely disenchanted with the pop and rock sounds that were becoming the hallmark of hit country records and used this track to blow off a little steam.
When I posted about the mysterious Sir Douglas Quintet single "Michoachan" earlier in Doug Sahm month, I didn't realize there was going to be so much back story. I decided I would go to the source and discuss it with its co-writer, legendary songwriter/singer/producer/A&R man/svengali/pied piper/raconteur/garbage man Kim Fowley. The original blog post can be found here.
Kim Fowley (in the Western shirt) with among others Del Shannon, Bruce Johnston and Gene Vincent. From his website.
Interviewing Kim Fowley means staying out of Kim Fowley's way, so I just tried not to interrupt him, since every time I did he went skidding on some new fascinating tangent.
KIM FOWLEY: Michoacan was written by Atwood Allen and [myself]. Atwood Allen was the Electric Ice Man from
San Antonio, and his grass that he cultivated and blended and rolled into
joints was apparently legendary. I don’t
smoke dope so I have no idea if it’s true, but according to gravevine legend
Bob Dylan smoked some of Atwood’s blend and thought it was Doug Sahm’s blend
and then liked Doug Sahm’s music more than he normally would, because he thought
his abilities as a tobacconist cum blender of psychedelics gave him a different
status. And then when he found it it was
Atwood Allen’s, possibly he didn’t like Doug Sahm as much. Now, this is just a story that floats around
ballrooms in Austin. It is possibly
untrue. It’s possibly true. I’m not in an Austin ballroom and I wasn’t there
when the rumors started. Have you ever
heard that rumour before?
from left: Ernie Durawa, Doug Sahm, Atwood Allen (click here for photo source)
DR. FILTH: I read somewhere that
“michoacan” is a codeword for really good marijuana.
FOWLEY: Well, I know that it grows there. In Michoacan itself.
Apparently that’s the Carolinas of marijuanadom. I’ve never been
there. I remember, I walked into Tom Ayres’ home and this Atwood Allen said,
“Hey, buddy – you want a joint?” And I told him I didn’t smoke. So he said, “Hey Tom, I thought you said this
guy wrote lyrics. I want to write a song about Michoacan, and I’ve got the
music but this motherfucker doesn’t know shit about dope.”
So I said, “Hey motherfucker, I had a lesbian mother and an
opium addict father to contend with so I understand your shit. I was there when Robert Mitchum got busted
for marijuana. My father was trying to score opium in the same house. Don’t
fuck with me, motherfucker, I can write the shit! I wrote shit for the Byrds and I grew up in a criminal household!”
Something to that effect.
DrF: So he decided that you
guys could work together.
KF: Yeah, just to shut me up, probably. So he started smoking
dope and I said, “Play your shit” and about ten minutes later it was done. And
he said, “My god, this guy’s like a redneck!” And I said, “Look, I produced
Gene Vincent. And he was on morphine! And I understood that guy, so I can
understand your tiny little drug habit.” So about 10 minutes later the thing
was done and Doug Sahm showed up later in the evening when I wasn’t there and
Atwood sang it, and he called him “hoss” and “bro” and “dude” and he learned
the fucking thing, and there was a movie called Cisco Pike being made - the original title was The Dealer, which would have been a better title than
Cisco Pike. Did you ever see the movie?
DrF: Yes.
KF: It’s a really good movie isn’t it? Kris Kristofferson’s
first starring role. It was supposed to be the second coming of Easy Rider. And
this song was going to be the new “Born to Be Wild”. But it didn’t at all become “Born
to Be Wild”. I saw the movie and it sounded like mariachi horns.
KF: The song was covered four times. I covered it as a producer
with Scorpion, on MNW records in Sweden, later purchased by Universal.
Swedish psych/prog band does a German polka version of Tex-Mex
song with lyrics by a California freak. The mind reels.
KF: And then
Atwood Allen had a thing called Atwood Allen the Electric Iceman, Bossier City
was the b-side. [I have so far been unable to uncover a copy of this 45 - anybody got one?]And then there was Rocky and the Border Kings, doing "Michoacan". The b-side was "Gulf of Mexico", which I thought was an amazing song. Rocky was
Jimmy Stallings, who was also J.J. Light, who also was a member of the Quintet
for a minute. Did you know that?
DrF: No. I mean, I knew that J.J. Light was in the Quintet, but I had no idea that he was Rocky. I love that J.J. Light LP.
KF: He was from Farmington New Mexico. He had a Mexican mom and
an Anglican dad and he worked in a laundry there. The Hollywood Argyles found him
and brought him back to LA in 1960 or 1961. He became Gene Thomas – he was a
funny Gene Thomas. Gene Thomas had “Sometime”, which was another Chicano-kind-of-San-Antonio record, but no one knew what Gene Thomas looked like here, so we passed
him off as Gene Thomas.
KF: So the fifth version of the song was Kris Kristofferson – he
did a live album in Cuba or some weird place. It’s a blue album cover, and it’s
the only live Kristofferson album. And so he did it, but he changed the lyrics
– naughty naughty shame on you – and so I thought, “well, he’s a great
songwriter”. But his words were worse than mine. He didn’t take credit but he
still changed them.Is that five versions?
Read them back.
I was unable to verify the Cuban live album, but here's the studio version from Shake Hands with the Devil
Dr.F: Kristofferson, Rocky
and the Border Kings, Atwood Allen, Scorpion, Sir Douglas Quintet.
KF: And not one of them charted. I think the Kristofferson album
charted. Nothing else charted. It’s probably a hit song, and someday someone
will do a new version of it, some new Tijuana brass thing . .
Dr.F: Tijuana dubstep.
KF: Yeah! Why not? They’ll hear it, and people will smoke dope and say, “Shit! Where did this come from?” I mean, there’s
something great about it. It’s like my
song “The Trip”. God, that thing has been covered and used and banned just
about everywhere.
Joe "King" Carraso and the Crowns
KF: At one point Sahm was going to produce Joe "King" Carrasco and
the Crowns, and I met him in the bathroom of the baseball game they always have
on Sundays at South by Southwest. They end the conference and
everybody goes and plays baseball. Doug
Sahm was the coach. And so I said,
“Here’s Michoacan and some other shit for Joe "King" Carrasco.” And he
reluctantly took it, but he probably threw it in the trash, because Doug never
understood how I was able, as this West Coast moron, to write authentic shit that
he could sing. Because he was a great songwriter and he didn’t cover too many
people.
DrF: He did not cover too
many contemporaries, no.
KF: No, he wanted to find some
toothless black guy from 400 years ago and give him a shot.
This interview expanded to include several other topics, and we will see more of it in the very near future. Kim Fowley would like to let you know that he has just recorded a new release with Snow Mercy called Live in Overdrive. "We did it in an hour. It's one of the dumbest records you've ever heard. It's STUPID. Which is the key word in rock and roll. It's really stupid, and if you guys are smoking dope, jacking off, or robbing cars, this is the record to do it to. Everything good about Paul and Paula and Dale and Grace, you will find on this piece of trash, on steroids. Be sure and check it out. It's on iTunes."
The shiner Doug's sporting in the photo above was the result of a fractious 1973 run-in with police in Balcones Heights, just outside of San Antonio. Doug was enjoying an evening out with some friends at La Rosa Mexican Restaurant, when some clearly over-aggressive policing led an officer to ask who owned the gold and black Oldsmobile Cutlass with the California license plates. When Doug volunteered that he owned the car in question, the cop asked him to step outside while his fellow officers stayed inside to hassle Sahm's companions in the hopes of getting a low level drug bust. A moment later, drummer George Rains looked outside and witnessed a cop take Sahm, handcuffed at the time, and slam his head into the hood of his car. The police never did find any drugs on Sahm or in his car, so they settled for a charge of public intoxication, but that was quickly thrown out of court. The whole incident was a catalyst for Sahm's decision to relocate to the friendlier town of Austin.
Source: Texas Tornado: The Times & Music Of Doug Sahm by Jan Reid.
So much ado about the new Batman flick. I’ve only seen snippets of the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s Batman movies on TV, and it’s there that my preferred caped crusader resides, in the Fox series that pow’ed and wowed its way from ’66 to ’68—and has been roundly scorned by most everyone ever since.
Count me among the minority that finds the cartoonish crime-fighting of Adam West’s light knight way more fun than the ominous doings of his big-screen successors. (It comes down to degrees of cultural saturation; the Bee Gees have always made good music, but when the Sat Night Fever OST shoved it down my throat, I gagged. Same with “dark,” “edgy” characters. Right now, enough is too much.) How could anyone not dig the show? The theme music. Producer William Dozier’s earnest-citizen narration. And the villains! Most of them were (great) actors who’d been in the game since vaudeville and could really juice their roles—Burgess Meredith’s quacking Penguin (“Peng-gy” to his gal pals), Vincent Price’s chrome-domed Egghead, Gorshin’s super-sillyess Riddler, Newmar’s Catwoman, Victor Buono’s King Tut. Only Milton Berle’s Louie the Lilac disappointed, Miltie giving the role a humorless, menacing tone more like contemporary baddies. Still, the Louie the Lilac arc amazes: he planned to steal all the flowers from Gotham’s Central Park to ruin the hippies’ summer lovefest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHv4ek3f3bI).
But here’s the thing. It’s not just the discreet charm of camp, cheesy costumes and a welcome lack of buffness that makes the show cool. The TV Batman was the avatar of much of the culture that’s followed it. One of its cornerstones was the abiding impotence of Police Chief O’Hara (Stafford Repp) and Commissioner Gordon (Neil Hamilton), whose first impulse—whether the crime was Ethel Merman’s Lola Lasagna cornering the elbow-macaroni market or pigeon droppings from a skyscraper gargoyle striking an old lady in the street—was to reach for the Bat-phone. This same riff of ineffectual bureaucrats preceded by five years Dirty Harry’s taking the law into his own hands, and has shaped the popular image of rogue cops from Fred Dryer’s bludgeon-first-read-Mirandas-later Sgt. Rick Hunter to cue-ball Chiklis’ Detective Vic Mackey and beyond.
From incompetent civic managers to a general distrust of all things gub’ment is a short hop. Hence, TV Batman led straight to Rick Perry, the Tea Party and some folks’ unshakeable faith in the Great Man theory of job creation and budget balancing. Reagan never appeared on the show. He didn’t need to. Ka-pow!!!
In the late 90s, Doug Sahm spent some time occasionally sitting in on steel guitar on gigs with his old pal Alvin Crow & The Pleasant Valley Boys. In fact, one of my fondest musical memories is seeing Sahm play steel for Crow all evening at a show at a honky-tonk called the Broken Spoke in south Austin back in about 1996 or so. As I recall, the entire evening Crow referred to Sahm as Wayne Douglas, which is the pseudonym Sahm used on a Mercury country 45 released in 1970, which is audible here. In fact, at the end of this performance Crow can be heard acknowledging Sahm's performance by enthusiastically calling out "Sir Wayne!"
I'm not 100% sure but I think he may have been playing lead guitar, as opposed to steel, at this particular gig, which was recorded in Dallas in January 1997.
A 2nd line to honor Uncle Lionel Batiste will be held in NYC on Thursday, July 26th at 6:30 PM. The parade will be led by The Stooges Brass Band! Gather at Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center and bring white handkerchiefs, 2nd line umbrellas and large pictures of Uncle Lionel, if you have them.
Followed by a free show on the plaza by The Stooges Brass Band.
