Stable Hall is hosting a tribute to the late San Antonio musician and songwriter Augie Meyers this Sunday, with a lineup of Texas musical luminaries who knew him personally and were influenced by his unmistakable sound.
The event “Remembering Augie Meyers” will feature Jimmie Vaughan, Joey Nichols, Joe King Carrasco, the Krayolas and other artists who knew Augie personally. Tickets are still on sale through the Stable Hall website.
Meyers died at age 85 from pneumonia at his San Antonio home on March 7. He left behind a legacy that — much like the man — is larger than life.
“Augie was one of a kind,” blues musician Joey Nichols said in an Instagram post announcing his participation in the tribute concert. “His sound, his spirit, and that unmistakable way he played changed Texas music forever. He had a gift you could recognize in a single note, and he carried it with a soul and humor that made him unforgettable.”
To put it simply, San Antonio has a distinct sound, and Augie Meyers helped define it.
“He’s one of the greatest musicians Texas ever produced,” Hector Saldaña, frontman of the Krayolas, told the Current in a phone interview. “Augie’s sound is what makes that San Antonio thing so relevant to the outside world.”
At the tribute, the Krayolas will play Augie’s tune “Little Fox,” a track the band recorded with Meyers in 2008 that got heavy rotation on SiriusXM. The song was originally intended for Sir Douglas Quintet, Meyers’ first project with Doug Sahm, but ended up on the cutting room floor due to Sahm’s control over the songwriting process.
The syncopated party anthem is a throwback to the Sir Douglas Quintet’s “Mendocino” era, with a melody in the verses that harkens to Sam Cooke’s “Cupid.” It was one of three songs the Krayolas recorded at the Blue Cat with Meyers.
Sir Douglas Quintet started as an undercover operation of Texans doing British Invasion music. The San Antonio boys sported Beatles mop tops and suits and tried not to speak on music variety shows and let their drawl slip, per the advice of producer Huey Meaux.
Augie even went by “Lord August.”
The boys kept up the charade as long as they could, until that Texas accent peeked through and the jig was up. But really, the Tex-Mex flavor was already there, thanks to Meyers’ bouncy rhythms on the Vox Continental.
In a way, Meyers was imitating accordion-driven ranchera music, which itself was influenced by the German polka that flooded into the Texas Hill Country with an influx of German immigrants. But Meyers took that bounce and gave it a swing with his organ playing, pioneering something akin to the San Antonio version of Zydeco or Cajun music.
After gaining regional fame, the band broke through internationally in 1965 with “She’s About a Mover,” followed by “Dynamite Woman,” “Mendocino” and other tracks.
Sir Douglas Quintet also caught the attention of Bob Dylan, who name-dropped them as his favorite band.
“There’s a reason Bob Dylan asked Augie to be a part of stuff, right?” Saldaña said. “He wants that thing that Augie can bring. Well, what is he bringing? He’s bringing San Antonio.”
Once established, the band relocated to the West Coast and fell into the psychedelic San Francisco scene. But the act always stayed in touch with its Texas roots, a sentiment captured in its love letter to the Lone Star State, “Texas Me.”
In the 1990s, Meyers and Sahm joined forces again to form the Tex-Mex supergroup known as the Texas Tornados, also adding Freddy Fender and Flaco Jiménez.
This is when Augie gave us what Sahm famously introduced as the “San Antonio national anthem” — the perennial jukebox favorite “(Hey Baby) Que Paso.”
The supergroup of South Texas heavyweights also brought Fender out of obscurity as a Corpus Christi car mechanic with his self-penned blues ballad “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.”
The group spanned Tejano, conjunto, country, blues and more — but it was all in the wheelhouse of Augie Meyers.
“You know, there’s that Chicano Tex-Mex thing to him. There’s that German polka thing to him. There’s the blues side,” Saldaña said.
Meyers was the last living survivor of the Texas Tornados before his death. But for those who knew him, his memory lingers on.
“Looking over and seeing Augie on that Vox, I’ll never forget that,” Saldaña said. “It’s unbelievable.”
$28 and up, 6 p.m. Sunday, May 31, Stable Hall, 307 Pearl Parkway, StableHall.com.
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