Texas Tornado

Re-released documentary explores the greatest Texas musician you've probably never heard of

Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove explores the life and times of Doug Sahm.

Courtesy of Arts and Labor

What do Guy Clark, Hank Williams, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, ABBA, and Freddy Fender all have in common? Apart from being icons in their own right, each legend's name has at one time or another been in the same sentence as one Texas musician you may have never heard of. Why? One documentary, Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove explores this and more, and it's available to stream again this week.

"Has San Antonio lost its soul? Has Austin lost its groove? Doug Sahm is the answer," reads a recent release for the documentary ahead of its re-release and a special San Antonio screening on Friday, November 11.

Born on the same day as Guy Clark in 1941, San Antonio native Doug Sahm started singing at age 5, playing steel guitar at age 6, followed by the fiddle and mandolin at age 8. At 11, he joined Hank Williams at Austin's Skyline Club for what turned out to be Williams' final show before his untimely death. As a teen, Sahm had hit country western radio records before reaching international fame (and a nod from Bob Dylan) with his rock-and-roll, Beatles-inspired band, Sir Douglas Quintet.

Sahm started playing steel guitar at age 6, followed by the fiddle and mandolin at age 8.Courtesy of Arts+Labor

A bust up over cannabis possession sent Sahm to California right before the "Summer of Love" in 1967, where the band explored the psychedelic San Francisco scene. Returning to Texas in the '70s, he joined Willie Nelson on his Shotgun Willie record and became an integral part of the new Americana genre emerging out of Austin at that time. He moved to Sweden in the '80s, knocking ABBA off the top charts with the song Meet Me in Stockholm. And in the '90s, his new group, the Texas Tornadoes, featured fellow Texas musicians Freddy Fender, Flaco Jimenez, and Augie Meyers.

Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove explores the enormous variety of genres Sahm absorbed into his own music, and the impact he left behind in each genre in return. Originally screened at South by Southwest in 2015, the film's website summarizes its portrait of Sahm as an "artist who had so much music inside himself that he had to play all the varied sounds he was schooled in in order to satisfy his soul."

Directed by noted historian and author Joe Nick Patoski, who also co-wrote the film along with Jason Wehling, the documentary won multiple awards at film festivals around the world, landing on Amazon Prime before disappearing from circulation altogether in 2020 after initial music and visual licensing rights expired.

Thanks to the Society for the Preservation of Texas Music (SPTM), the documentary was re-released on November 6, 2022, in honor of what would have been Sahm's 81st birthday. For the re-release, SPTM partnered with Austin-based production company Arts+Labor and digital distribution platform seer.la, which also produced the groundbreaking Guy Clark documentary, Without Getting Killed or Caught.

Doug Sahm A still from the documentary Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove.Courtesy of Arts+Labor

To celebrate the re-release, a San Antonio screening of Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove will take place at the new Texas Public Radio complex (321 W. Commerce St.), which is co-hosting the event with SPTM. Patoski will participate at the event, along with Augie Meyers and Jack Barber, of the original Sir Douglas Quintet.

“The revival of the film comes at a critical moment for Doug’s hometown of San Antonio, and his adopted home of Austin,” says Patoski in the release. “Both cities have grown rapidly and are growing towards each other, becoming a single metropolitan area of five million people touted as America’s next great metroplex. Nowhere else in the United States are two connected metro areas expanding so rapidly. Folks who don’t know Doug Sahm from Houdini need to see this film to better appreciate why San Antonio and Austin are such special, soulful places with a groove that fostered and championed the artistry of the greatest single musician to ever represent the state of Texas.”

Can't make it to San Antonio for the event? The documentary is available for worldwide streaming at sirdougfilm.com.

film texas music

New

Historic Austin museum will close for more than a year for restoration

Photo courtesy of the City of Austin

The Elisabet Ney Museum will close at the end of 2024 and reopen in mid-2026.

Every building needs some maintenance here or there, and the historic Elisabet Ney Museum needs some extra-special care. Formerly the art studio and residence of its namesake, it's been standing since 1892. It'll spend 2025 in relative solitude, as it undergoes renovation for a year and a half with no visitors allowed.

The museum will close to the public December 30, 2024, and open again in the summer of 2026 if all goes according to plan, a news release from the City of Austin shares. It'll be a quiet period compared to the 21,000 people visiting from around the world each year.

According to a museum overview on the city's website, Elisabet Ney, a European portrait sculptor, bought the property and called her new studio Formosa. She worked on sculptures depicting important Texans like Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, and collected works of European contemporaries.

The building at 304 East 44th St. includes 3,700 square feet of museum space, which was converted by Ney's friends after her death in 1907. It retains its unique look that juxtaposes a Neo-Classical main studio from 1892 with a later addition from 1902 including a tower for her husband, Edmund, to write in. It is also on 2.5 acres of land, which has largely been restored to its natural state with native species.

A press release lists these tasks (verbatim) within the scope of the new work, referred to as the Capital Improvement Project (CIP):

Restoration of original exterior wood doors and windows
Upgrades and replacement of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system
Replacement of the exhibit and general lighting systems
Repairs to the roof, masonry, plumbing, and interior finishes.

There will also be work to do outside of the building. Workers will replace the pedestrian bridge across Waller Creek, stabilize a 20,000-square-foot portion of the bank, and make the grounds more accessible by adding new pathways.

Funding comes from several sources, according to a release: "the 2012 Bond, Proposition 14, the Parkland Dedication Fund, the Historic Preservation Fund, Partners in Preservation through the National Trust, and contributions from the Friends of the Elisabet Ney Museum."

museums galleries history texas

Texas Tornado

Re-released documentary explores the greatest Texas musician you've probably never heard of

New

Historic Austin museum will close for more than a year for restoration

Homey Austin jam and bake shop closing and returning to farmers market

These 9 Austin restaurants will be open for Christmas Eve or Day 2024

Ring in 2025 at these 13 top Austin-area New Year's Eve events