San Antonio music legend Augie Meyers, known for fusing Tex-Mex and rock as keyboardist for trailblazing ’60s act the Sir Douglas Quintet and Grammy-winning supergroup the Texas Tornados, has died at age 85.
The bearded, ponytailed musician beloved for the distinctive reverb-drenched trill of his Vox Continental Organ died in his sleep next to his wife Sara, according to a statement shared on his Facebook page Monday morning.
Meyers, who lived in the Texas Hill Country town of Bulverde, was the last survivor among the four original members of The Texas Tornados. His solo hit “(Hey Baby) Que Paso” still draws singalongs on bar jukeboxes across the Alamo City and beyond.
Late Sir Douglas frontman Doug Sahm and Meyers were childhood friends who kicked around in various San Antonio musical groups until record producer Huey P. Meaux brought them together in 1964 to replicate the runaway success of a little band across the pond called the Beatles.
Meyers’ propulsive organ riffs featured prominently in the band’s hits “She’s About a Mover,” “Mendocino” and “Nuevo Laredo,” making him as vital to the band’s sound as Sahm’s voice.
“Our record was doing real good in England, and we did a show called Ready, Set, Go! and George and John and Paul [of The Beatles] came in and said, ‘How do you get your sound on your Vox? We can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Super Reverb,'” Meyers told the Current in 2015. “Next week all the stores in England had it.”
Meyers and Sahm rejoined forces in the 1990s with the Texas Tornados, who had surprise hits with “Who Were You Thinkin’ Of” and “Adios Mexico,” which widened the audience for San Antonio’s homegrown Tejano and conjunto sounds. Flaco Jiménez and Freddy Fender, both South Texas music icons in their own right, featured in the original lineup.
In addition to his work with the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornados, Meyers released a total of 23 solo albums, often on his own labels, including Texas Re-Cord Co., Superbeet Records and White Boy Records.
Thanks to his singular approach to the Vox, Meyers also became a sought-after sideman, recording with musicians as diverse as Bob Dylan, Tom Jones, Tom Waits, Willie Nelson and rockabilly legend Gene Vincent. Indeed, Dylan praised the Sir Douglas Quintet in multiple interviews.
Fittingly, eerie, stabbing notes from Meyers’ Vox are loud in the mix on “Love Sick,” the opening track to Dylan’s acclaimed album Time Out of Mind.
Throughout it all, Meyers remained grounded and approachable, maintaining his San Antonio roots and performing solo gigs at decidedly unfussy venues. While he rubbed shoulders with legendary musicians — and even influenced a few — he understood that was no reason to put on airs.
“You meet people as you go along down the line and they’re just musicians … they’re just friends,” he told the Current. “My daddy was from rodeo people, and one day at the rodeo I said, ‘Daddy, that’s Roy Rogers,’ and he said, ‘Calm down, boy.’ And I said, ‘But that’s Roy Rogers, Daddy!’ And he said, ‘When you go to the bathroom, who wipes you?’ And I said, ‘I do.’ And he said, ‘They do the same thing, they wipe themselves, so they ain’t no different from you.’”
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