Doug Sahm; Musician Blended Rock, Country and Blues in Colorful Career

Doug Sahm, a colorful Texas musician who hit the charts in the mid-1960s disguised as the British Invasion band the Sir Douglas Quintet, was found dead Thursday in Taos, N.M. He was 58.

Sahm’s body was discovered Thursday afternoon in a room at the Kachina Lodge, said a Taos police spokesman, who said he apparently died of natural causes. An autopsy was ordered. The San Antonio native had complained of stomach pains Wednesday night and of a loss of feeling in his fingers in recent weeks.

“Musically speaking, this is the end of an era,” Sahm’s oldest son, Shawn, 34, told the San Antonio Express-News. “He went from sitting on Hank Williams’ knee to being an English rock star to doing the Texas Tornados. From T-Bone Walker to Roky Erickson, he played it all.”

Sahm, whose music blended country, rock, blues, R&B;, Texas swing and Mexican strains, first performed at the age of 5, singing on a radio station in San Antonio. He also performed with such country stars as Williams at their San Antonio shows, playing pedal steel guitar, fiddle and mandolin. Billed as Little Doug Sahm, he released his first record, “A Real American Joe,” on the local Sarg label in 1955.

In addition to country music, Sahm, a Lebanese American who grew up in a black neighborhood, immersed himself in the blues, seeing such musicians as Walker and Bobby Blue Bland at a nightclub near his home.

His break came in the mid-1960s when Louisiana record producer Huey P. Meaux, seeking to jump on the British Invasion bandwagon, urged Sahm to form a longhaired band and write a song with a Cajun two-step beat, which he considered the signature rhythm of the day’s English hits.

Teaming up with keyboardist Augie Meyers and three other musicians, Sahm came up with “She’s About a Mover.” Meaux named the band the Sir Douglas Quintet, and they had an international hit in 1965.

That was the start of an odyssey for Sahm, who never matched the success of the first hit, but whose gregarious personality and flavorful music made him a favorite of fellow musicians and a small but loyal audience.

“Doug was too independent and raw to ever achieve the steady commercial success that was often predicted for him,” Robert Hilburn, pop music critic for The Times, said Friday. “But those same elements enabled him to lift your spirits as surely as anyone who ever stepped on a honky-tonk or rock ‘n’ roll stage. At his best, he was an American musical treasure.”

Sahm moved to San Francisco in the mid-1960s and embraced the hippie lifestyle, as documented in his second-best-known song, “Mendocino.” Record producer Jerry Wexler brought him to Atlantic Records and recorded a 1973 album with guests including Bob Dylan and Dr. John, but it didn’t revive him commercially. He also recorded for Warner Bros., but worked mainly for small, independent labels.

“It’s the old thing with Texas cats and record companies,” Sahm told The Times in 1980. “It’s not that we’re hard to work with. I think we’re hard to mold.”

Sahm, who was always able to live comfortably on his songwriting royalties, was revitalized by some European success in the early 1980s. He returned to the major label league with the group the Texas Tornados, which he formed in 1989 with longtime cohorts Meyers, Freddy Fender and Flaco Jimenez. The group recorded three albums for Reprise Nashville and one for Reprise, winning a 1990 Grammy for best Mexican American performance.

Sahm was a fast-talking, high-energy character, said Bill Bentley, senior vice president of media relations at Warner Bros. Records and a longtime friend of Sahm’s. “The joke was, you’d ask someone if they talked to Doug today and they’d say, ‘No, I listened.’ ”

Sahm, a longtime resident of Austin, referred to the front seat of his beloved Cadillacs as his “office,” Bentley said, and enjoyed driving from Texas to Los Angeles for a haircut, or to San Francisco to see a dentist. And contrary to the image of the hard-living rocker, Sahm was a health-conscious man who loved playing and coaching in local softball leagues.

Sahm was also known for his generosity to other artists. In the late 1960s he discovered a group in Salinas called Louie & the Lovers, whose members were children of migrant workers. He got them a deal with Epic Records and produced their album.

In Texas, he coaxed singer Fender out of retirement and set the stage for his mid-1970s hits, and he established a label and produced the cult single “Two Headed Dog” for the eccentric rock singer Roky Erickson.

Sahm completed a new album of country music two weeks ago. The independent label Tornado Records, where Sahm was the head of the artists and repertoire department, plans to release the record in early 2000.

Sahm, who was divorced, is survived by three children and two stepchildren.