Throwback Thursday – Terry Allen/John Hiatt – “I’m Not That Kat Anymore”

1. Doug Sahm had his own way with the blues. Filtering it through his own blend of British Invasion pop and the Tex-Mex he grew up with in San Antonio (a combination mythologized by Bruce Robison’s It Came From San Antonio), the blues became something else entirely. I covered Sahm’s Doug Sahm and Band on an earlier Throwback Thursday, but today, I would like to check out two versions of “I’m Not That Kat Anymore” filtered through a few near-legends, John Hiatt and Terry Allen. The song describes to a man with an identity crisis, who loudly claims not to be his flaky older self, but whose actions show that not a whole lot has changed.

2. Hiatt’s version, from the fantastic Heard it on the X, is closer to Doug’s original style, with the hard charging, Vox organ-fueled rock that Sahm built his name on. His growling voice delivers an earnestness for the listener to believe him, yet the song’s tempo and swirling sound show that life is going by too fast for the narrator to change his wild ways. A fuzzed out baritone guitar pays tribute to the border blaster Mexican radio stations of the early 60’s that broadcast rock and roll into the United States, presumably where Sahm first heard his British heroes.

3. Terry Allen’s version from this year’s Keep Your Soul has his typical (as of late) lurching, David Byrne via west Texas style. More of a recitation than a vocal performance, Allen’s rendition gives the narrator a little more swagger, only revealing a little bit of vulnerability when he admits that after getting his pleasure from “making the pretty girls hot”, he felt “lowdown”. Of course, immediately after, he offers to be on call for a presumed pretty girl, finishing up with the now-ironic declaration that he ain’t who he used to be. Allen’s delivery highlights the more unrepentant side of the narrator

4. Sahm’s original track showed a two-faced man, conflicted about who he wanted to be versus who others thought he should be. While Sahm was noted for his groove, his wry songs were too often overlooked. John Hiatt and Terry Allen show two sides of the same song, showing how much power of interpretation to paint two pictures of the same scene.

John Hiatt – I’m Not That Kat Anymore

Terry Allen – I’m Not That Kat Anymore

James Hand – “Don’t Want Me Too”

1. Let me tell you what I appreciate about James Hand: there is not a single phony thing about him. Not that you needed me to tell you that, with Kristofferson saying that “he believes” James Hand and Willie calling him “the real deal”. Despite such accolades, Hand has flown under the radar for most of his career. Shadow on the Ground is his second record for Rounder, and “Don’t Want Me Too” is a prime example of his no-nonsense way with a song. Hand shows no need to dress up a song with lavish production and extended wordplay, coaxing a whip-smart performance out of his band that crackles with an energy seldom heard today.

2. With his rhythm section accompanied by only a snaky guitar line and breezy steel, Hand lets his stark voice bottle up his feeling of unrequited love, swooping and fluttering with an impressive agility. His almost comically long run-on of an opening line laughs in the face of metaphors, but resonates with the honesty of someone whose pain keeps them from waxing poetic.

“You didn’t want me when you had me or you never would have left/

And I still don’t know why you did”

He recalls Hank Sr. with his drawling “why, why why” before lamenting that he wants someone who “don’t want me too”. Then, as quickly as it began, the track careens to a stop in just over two and a half minutes. His crisp, immediate approach has the freshness of Buddy Holly or Doug Sahm, and carries an energy that absolutely cannot be faked.

3. There is a lot of complicated music being made today that says half of what James Hand and his band get across in “Don’t Want Me Too“. To me, honky tonk or western swing has always been best enjoyed live at a place like the Broken Spoke, but Hand’s performance on this track surpasses that preference, coming off more reminiscent of early rock and roll. I am glad James Hand is giving lessons in how to make exciting music recorded live by real people playing real instruments, and I hope young artists are taking notes.

Throwback Thursday – Doug Sahm – Doug Sahm and Band

1. Rarely has one artist assimilated so many influences into a single sound. Managing to meld the 60’s British Invasion sound he heard on the radio with the country, Tejano, and R&B he heard in Texas, Doug Sahm turned in a masterpiece of a record with Doug Sahm and Band. Revered by the great Jerry Wexler and Bob Dylan (who contributes “Wallflower” to this record), Sahm cut this record in New York with an incredible band: Dr. John on piano, Flaco Jimenez on accordian, David Bromberg on several stringed instruments, and the unmistakable organ of Augie Meyers.

2. The record kicks off with one of Meyers’ most recognizeable organ parts — the intro to “Is Anybody Going to San Antone?”. Recounting the wandering that had typified his career thus far, Sahm’s doubled vocals show the strain of earnestness that makes his music indelible. On Dylan’s “Wallflower”, the man himself shows up to sing along to the waltz, accompanied by Bromberg’s droning dobro and fiddle, while “It’s Gonna Be Easy” imagines a Texas-born Beatles, with its easy harmonies and loping beat.

3. The truly remarkable thing about this record how every single song sounds like a Doug Sahm song, despite the fact that he only wrote three of them. Even when taking on Willie Nelson’s autobiographical “Me and Paul”, a less-informed listener might think that the “me” refers to Sahm himself. “Loose” could be used liberally to describe the feel of this record, and perhaps that was how Doug recorded best – live, without many rules or boundaries. Sahm died of natural causes (amazingly) in 1999, but cast a long shadow on a generation of genre-blending artists.

Buy this track