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was survived by his wife, 2 sons, a daughter, and 2 grandchildren, and is buried in
Sunset Memorial Park in San Antonio.
Doug Sahm was well thought of by so many musicians across all the genres. Explaining
his wide musical interests, he said
“I’m a part of Willie Nelson’s world,
and at the same time I’m a part of the
Grateful Dead’s. I don’t ever stay in
one bag. I used to play steel guitar
with Alvin Crow, and they called me
Wayne Douglas. I have all these
aliases - Wayne Douglas, Doug
Saldana - Saldana is a name the
Mexicans gave to me. They said that
I had so much Mexican in me that I
needed a Mexican name”!
A posthumous album, entitled “The
Return of Wayne Douglas” was
released in 2000, and was definitely
no mere sweep-up of previously
discarded material, but a fine album
in its own right.
In the years after his death his music
has not been forgotten by those he
worked with, and those who enjoyed
what he produced. In October 2012
a group of musicians, including Steve
Earle, Delbert McClinton, Boz Scaggs
and Jimmie Vaughan, played a tribute
concert at the Hardly Strictly
Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate
Park. The group performed under the name of ‘Doug Sahm’s Phantom Playboys’, and
featured a number of his songs. Three years later a documentary film (‘Sir Doug & the
Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove’) premiered on the ‘South by Southwest’ tv programme.
There is still much of the Doug Sahm catalogue available on cd, but if, like me, you are
more of a blues fan than some of the other genres he was involved in, I can thoroughly
recommend “The Last Real Texas Blues Band” - in my opinion a truly great live blues
album, and “Hell of A Spell” - a very fine blues based studio album.