Sir Douglas Quintet, 1+1+1=4/The Return of Doug Salda–a (Raven, 2002 reissue)

The Sir Douglas Quintet was but the first of many vehicles through which Texan Doug Sahm brought his sprawling musical vision to the world. The band had two charting singles, the Texas-garage-rock-meets-British-Invasion pastiche "She's About a Mover" and the psychedelic-folk "Mendocino." But the Quintet's and Sahm's influence on American roots rock goes far beyond the limited reach of those two songs.

These two albums from 1970 and 1971, re-released as a single CD by the Australian Raven label, show Sahm and his group in transition. In the late '60s, long hair, pot and acid were frowned on by the mainstream culture in Sahm's home state of Texas. His music was taking a decided psychedelic bent (and he may have had the law on his trail as well), so he and the band moved to what at the time was a more natural environment: the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Quintet wasn't Sahm's only musical outlet even this early in the game. In 1968 he had added some West Side San Antonio blues musicians to the lineup for his "Honkey Blues" album. The tracks on 1+1+1 are about evenly divided between the straight Quintet and the Honkey Blues lineups, producing a sometimes uneasy sequence of sounds.

The classic Sir Douglas sound is ably represented by the cosmic-cowboy blues-rock of "Yesterday Got in the Way" and "What About Tomorrow?" both of which feature Augie Myers' stabbing 16th-notes on the Farfisa organ and Sahm's Leslie-amped guitar; "Tortilla Flats" is a shambling mix of folk rock and Texas blues, with the arresting combination of a bowed bass guitar and baritone sax on the chorus; "Nice Song" is passionate rock 'n' roll in the classic Louisiana-Texas swamp pop mold. And "Catch a Man on the Rise" is a perfect amalgam of Texas garage rock and San Francisco flower-power psychedelia, the kind of acid-drenched Americana that was being churned out by a host of other Bay Area bands, including Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver and of course the Grateful Dead.

Alternating between these songs are big-band blues like Junior Parker's "In the Dark" and the jazzy "Don't Bug Me"; a chooglin' arrangement of Lead Belly's "Pretty Flower" that should have been covered by Hendrix; and the soul groove of Isaac Hayes' "Sixty Minutes of Your Love."

The Nashville-recorded honky-tonk of Sahm's composition "Be Real" really sticks out like a sore thumb here, and accentuates the uneasy fit between the two halves of the record.

The second half of the CD, 1971's the Return of Doug Salda–a, documents Sahm's return to San Antonio and the classic border-rock sound. He didn't give up bluesy, horn-driven soul for good -- in fact a couple of years later, Atlantic Records' whiz Jerry Wexler waxed a whole album of west-side soul by Doug Sahm and Friends. But Return captured Sahm at his rootsy best.

It kicks off in high gear with the gospel-rock of "Preach what You Live, Live What You Preach," a rocking bit of borderland psychedelia with slashing guitars and Myers' trademark organ. "She's Huggin' You, But She's Lookin' at Me" and Freddy Fender's "Wasted Days, Wasted Nights" are the swampiest of swamp-pop, complete with piano triplets and wailing tenor sax. Sahm introduces "Wasted Days" by dedicating it to Fender, "wherever he is..." (As it happens, Fender was temporarily out of the music biz, working as a mechanic after a stint in prison, although the two later formed the nucleus of the '90s supergroup the Texas Tornadoes. But that's a whole 'nother story.)

On Return, Sahm mixes in a raft of blues, including T. Bone Walker's "Papa Ain't Salty," and Billy Reed's "The Gypsy," as well as some Guthrie-esque folk ("The Railpak Dun Gone in the Del Monte"), some honky-tonk ("Keep Your Soul"), some Chicano stoner blues-rock ("Stoned Faces Don't Lie"), and an acoustic ballad ("Oh Lord, Please Let it Rain in Texas").

The package includes four bonus tracks from circa 1969, the best of which are "Colinda," a Cajun stomp that was named for an Afro-Caribbean dance, and "Linda Lou," a jazzy electric blues that was obviously a huge influence on Stevie Ray Vaughan's vocal and guitar styles.

Sahm, who died unexpectedly in 1999, was a musical omnivore, and he succeeded in uniting cowboys and hippies, and the many strains of music on the Texas scene: country, rock, norte–a, blues, jazz and r&b. It was sometimes messy, but it was nearly always glorious and guaranteed to raise a smile. This two-fer package captures its essence.