ALBUM REVIEW: Son Volt Finds a Truer Sound in Song Selection for Doug Sahm Tribute

The roots of this album stretch back even further than Uncle Tupelo’s 1993 swan song Anodyne, which featured a glorious cover of Doug Sahm’s “Give Back the Key to My Heart” that helped introduce Sahm to legions of younger fans. Before their 1990 debut album, No Depression, Uncle Tupelo’s Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn had played St. Louis club gigs as Coffee Creek alongside future Bottle Rockets frontman Brian Henneman, whose love of Sahm’s music led to several of the legendary Texas groover’s songs popping up in Coffee Creek sets.

When Sahm died in 1999 at age 58, Henneman and his Bottle Rockets bandmates quickly paid tribute with the 2001 album Songs of Sahm. Vanguard Records followed in 2009 with the Bill Bentley-produced Keep Your Soul, a 15-song various-artists set with contributions from Los Lobos, Alejandro Escovedo, The Gourds, and others. Now comes Day of the Doug, a belated but beloved salute to Sahm’s enduring influence from Farrar and his Son Volt compadres.

Son Volt (photo by Auset Sarno)

It’s maybe just as well that Son Volt’s tribute took a while, thanks to lineup evolutions over the past couple of decades that brought two musicians from Sahm’s Central Texas home turf into the mix. Bassist Andrew Duplantis and drummer Mark Patterson help cement the Texas connection alongside Farrar, guitarist Mark Spencer, and multi-instrumentalist John Horton. A pleasant surprise: Duplantis steps out with a couple of lead vocals, kicking “Float Away” and “Juan Mendoza” into a higher gear with his spirited delivery.

Day of the Doug apparently happened in part because Farrar spent early pandemic downtime listening to a box set of Sahm reissues, reminding him of what he loved about Sahm’s music but also turning him on to deeper cuts. As a result, the tracklist here is refreshingly adventurous: Instead of more takes on Sir Douglas Quintet hits such as “Mendocino” and “She’s About a Mover,” we get songs that richly deserve a wider audience: the gutsy roots-rock of “Yesterday Got in the Way,” the richly melodic glow of “Beautiful Texas Sunshine,” the beer-and-BBQ-bash good times of “Seguin.”

Just two tracks on Day of the Doug appeared on the aforementioned tributes: “Float Away” kicked off the Bottle Rockets disc, while Dave Alvin did “Dynamite Woman” on the Vanguard set. Two tunes are by other songwriters Sahm memorably covered, Elmer Laird’s “Poison Love” and Atwood Allen’s “It’s Gonna Be Easy.” The former is well-traveled, via versions by T Bone Burnett and Buddy Miller, among others. But the latter, which appeared on Sahm’s landmark 1973 Atlantic Records album, is a true hidden gem: It closes the proceedings in a stripped-down arrangement that allows Farrar’s emotional singing to reach the heart of the songwriter’s regrets.

The icing on the cake: Farrar apparently saved voicemails he received from Sahm, and he uses them as bookends here. Each one is about 15 seconds, but for those few magic moments, Sahm comes back to life for us all — affectionately singing (slightly wrong) lyrics to Farrar’s “Tear Stained Eye” and talking baseball. Long may his music run.

Son Volt’s Day of the Doug comes out June 16 via Transmit Sound/Thirty Tigers.