Doug Sahm was born in San Antonio on November 6, 1941, and we are saluting him today on Acid Flashback Friday. So here is the song that put him on the map.
It is a Texas band with a very British name. Producer Huey P. Meaux dressed the group up as the Sir Douglas Quintet because the British Invasion was running the charts in early 1965. The sound was not British at all. It was San Antonio, with Tex-Mex and rhythm and blues in the mix, Sahm on guitar and lead vocal, and Augie Meyers playing a hypnotic riff on a Vox Continental organ.
Sahm wrote it and first called it “She’s a Body Mover.” Meaux bought the song from him for $25 and felt that title would hurt airplay, so it became “She’s About a Mover.” The song is a 12-bar blues, built in a similar shape to the Beatles’ “She’s a Woman,” and it runs barely two minutes.
It was cut in Houston and released in February 1965 on Tribe Records, with distribution by London Records. By spring it was on the Billboard chart, and it went on to become a top 20 hit in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Texas Monthly later named it the number one Texas song of all time.
Sahm kept moving after that. He helped usher in progressive country in Austin and later teamed up with Augie Meyers in the Texas Tornados. But for a lot of us it all starts here, with two minutes of organ, guitar and a girl who is about a mover.
Hear it on Acid Flashback Radio, where DJ Uncle Steve salutes Doug Sahm on Acid Flashback Friday at noon Eastern.
Here they are performing it on TV, in a stereo version.
