At the time of the British Invasion that began in late 1963, it wasn’t so hip to be American. However, with a few exceptions – such as Peter Noone, the lead vocalist of Herman’s Hermits – even singers that had heavy British accents in their speaking voices didn’t sound particularly British when they sang. Thus, many bands and recording artists in that period feigned Englishness in hopes of improving their changes of making the charts.
One of the most successful faux-English bands of that period was the Sir Douglas Quintet; although they had a proper British name, the band was actually from San Antonio, Texas, and two of the bandmembers were Hispanic. When their debut album came out in 1966 under the misleading name, The Best of the Sir Douglas Quintet, the band was photographed in silhouette so as to keep the ruse going. The album did include their first major hit (from 1965), “She’s About a Mover”. They had a later hit in 1968, “Mendocino”; though by then, their Texas roots were becoming clear.
* * *
Frontman Doug Sahm of the Sir Douglas Quintet would become one of the best known practitioners of Texas popular music of all types, including Mexican-American musical forms like Tejano. Ironically, Tejano was largely unknown to the larger American culture until the murder of “the Queen of Tejano” Selena in 1995 by the former president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldívar. In 1997, Warner Bros. released a theatrical film based on her life called Selena that launched the career of one of the most prominent Hispanic Americans of our time, Jennifer Lopez.
Doug Sahm was a founding member of Texas Tornados (named after one of his songs, “Texas Tornado”) that is a sort of Tejano “super group”. The band included Freddy Fender, who is at least as well known as Sahm due to his hit songs “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” and “Before the Next Teardrop Falls”. Rounding out the group were Augie Meyers, Sahm’s bandmate in the Sir Douglas Quintet; and Flaco Jiménez, an accordion player whose father Santiago Jiménez, Sr. helped pioneer another type of Hispanic music, conjunto. Their 1990 self-titled debut album, Texas Tornados was released in both English and Spanish language versions.
(April 2013)
