Hey, Roomie!

It was at what I remember to be the first gathering of the new Americana Music Association and we were at some little lodge in Lake Tahoe. Beautiful setting and a lot of really nice folks but the dirty politics of the music biz was being assembled for the benefit of the New Nashville. I'm slow. I thought I had finally found my niche.

I was there with my pal, Walt, and what we did find was our roommate for the weekend, Doug Sahm. I had worked with Doug when the Sir Douglas Quintet had played the Star Spectacular in 1965 or '66 in Clearwater. He had been a small time rock'n'roll star then. Now he was a legend.

We had so much in common and everything was fun. He never shut up. He never slowed down. We talked about wrestling, Hank Penny, Amos 'n' Andy, baseball and coffee. At one point I was chatting in the hallway with Al Moss as Doug sauntered up to us. Wanting to help me out and enhance my standing in the alt-country community, Al asked Doug, "Do you know Ronny Elliott?"

Doug wrapped his arm around me and exclaimed, "He's my roomie."

One afternoon in our little lodge room Doug was trying to describe the little towns in New Mexico to me. "You know, they ride into town two or three times a year, kill a cowboy or two and they go home."

"We need to write a song, man."

He just looked at me. We did play some and we did mess around with some ideas but we never got back to that. I saw him one more time after Tahoe. He was given a special award at South By Southwest later that year. "Hey, my Florida boys," he shouted when Walt and I ran into him at the Broken Spoke. That was my first SXSW. I got home and wrote South By So What for the new record. The chorus ends with the line, Somebody tell Sir Doug I said hello. Pretty clever line, I thought. We decided that South By So What should be the radio single. 

Doug passed away the week that it was released to radio. Turns out to be the saddest thing I ever wrote. They don't make 'em like Sir Doug any more. Never did except for that one time. I never throw anything out, though.

South By So What

I first worked with Doug Sahm at the Clearwater Auditorium for a Star Spectacular in 1966. I don't really remember much about the show but I always loved the Sir Douglas Quintet. I saw him again onstage at the fairgrounds with the Texas Tornados in the early '90's.

At an Americana Music Association gathering a few years later my pal Walt and I were delighted to discover that Doug was our roommate. Of course we hid when he came looking for us so that"us groovers" could go into town that first night where, he explained, the casinos and clubs never closed.

He burned, though. Lit up the room. We had plenty to talk about. Amos'n'Andy, Hank Penny, and, of course, Huey Meaux. He shared his coffee that he made from his special stash that he took in a little kit with him wherever he traveled.

I saw Doug one more time, at South By Southwest where they were presenting him some kind of lifetime achievement award at the Broken Spoke. "Hey, I know you! The Florida boys," he yelled when we walked up.

That had been my first trip to SXSW and my first visit to Austin. I had a fine time. I was a little put off by some of the posturing and some of the posing but I thought that it was a fine little party. I didn't make up the term, South By So What. I took it right out of the newspaper.

I finished up the song when I got home and finished up the record. We decided that it should be the radio single. I thought of the line,"Somebody tell Sir Doug I said hello," as a joke, a throwaway line. We released the record to radio and Doug died the next day. Turned out to be the saddest line I had ever come up with.

Robbie Fulks told me later that the line,"Those jerks from No Depression are an arrogant bunch," was the most singularly suicidal line that he had ever heard. Said that he laughed until iced tea came out his nose when he heard it. I thought that it was just a friendly little poke, too.

My "career" is fueled on indiscretion. I wouldn't have it any other way.