Augie Meyers

August Edmond George Meyer Jr. was born on May 31, 1940, in San Antonio, Texas, to Emma (Kosub) Meyer and August E.G. Meyer. According to Texas Public Radio, he was born with a club foot and without one ear, and he later wore a prosthetic ear that was usually hidden by his long hair.

As a child he was stricken with polio. The illness kept him at home, and he used that time to teach himself the piano. He also worked in his mother's grocery store on East Houston Street in San Antonio. It was in the family store, when both boys were about 12, that he first met Doug Sahm, the young musician who would become his lifelong friend and bandmate.

Meyers was raised partly on an 87-acre family farm in Bulverde, in the Texas Hill Country, which he later inherited from his grandparents. His father came from rodeo people, and Meyers liked to tell the story of his father reminding him that famous people, even Roy Rogers, were no different from anyone else.

No formal music education has been documented. Meyers was largely self-taught: confined at home with polio as a boy, he learned the piano on his own. As a teenager in the 1950s he joined San Antonio bands and absorbed the city's West Side sound in neighbourhood dance halls and clubs, where he went to hear conjunto players such as Flaco Jiménez, Mingo Saldivar and Santiago Jiménez. In 1962 he ordered his first Vox Continental organ from England through a local music store, the instrument that would define his sound.

In the early 1960s Meyers played organ for Denny Ezba and the Goldens, one of San Antonio's rock bands. After a show, producer Huey P. Meaux suggested that Meyers and Doug Sahm form a group to compete with the British Invasion. The Sir Douglas Quintet was born in late 1964, its English-sounding name chosen to make the Texans pass as British. The original members were Sahm, Meyers, Jack Barber, Frank Morin and Johnny Perez. "She's About a Mover", powered by Meyers' Vox riff, reached number 13 in 1965, and the band appeared on television shows including Hullabaloo and Shindig!.

After a drug arrest broke up the first Quintet, Meyers formed Lord August and the Visions of Lite, which dominated the San Antonio rock scene from 1966 to 1968. He then joined Sahm in California, and the revived Quintet scored again with "Mendocino" (1969) and "Nuevo Laredo" (1970).

In the 1970s Meyers formed the Western Head Band, whose album Western Head Music Co. came out on Polydor in 1971, and he played on Sahm's Atlantic album Doug Sahm and Band (1973). He launched his own Texas Re-Cord Company with Lucky Tomblin and later ran Superbeet Records, White Boy Records and El Sendero. He appeared on Austin City Limits five times, beginning with the show's first season in 1976. In the 1980s he and Sahm became stars in Scandinavia on the Swedish label Sonet, and Meyers released solo albums including Still Growin' (1982), August in New York (1984) and Augie's Back (1986).

Around 1989 Meyers, Sahm, Flaco Jiménez and Freddy Fender formed the Texas Tornados. Their self-titled 1990 debut reached number 5 on the country albums chart and was also released in Spanish as Los Texas Tornados. "Soy de San Luis" won the Grammy for Best Mexican-American Performance. Later albums included Zone of Our Own (1991), Hangin' On by a Thread (1992) and 4 Aces (1996), whose "A Little Bit Is Better Than Nada" opened the film Tin Cup. The band performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Farm Aid and an inaugural event for President Bill Clinton, and appeared on David Letterman's late-night show.

Meyers was a prized session player. He played on Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind (1997) and Love and Theft (2001), John Hammond's Wicked Grin (2001), Tom Jones' Praise and Blame (2010), Raul Malo's Sinners and Saints (2010) and Tom Waits' Bad as Me (2011), among many others. He released more than 20 solo albums, the last including Monkeys on Cocaine (2017) and I Know I Could Be Happy, If Myself Wasn't There (2019).

Meyers' first wife was Carol, with whom he had his son, Clayton (Clay) Meyer. Clay played drums in his father's bands and on his later albums. Meyers was later married to Sara Ramirez-Meyer, who designed many of his album covers and was at his side when he died. He was survived by Sara, his son Clayton and daughter-in-law Sandra Bass-Meyer, and his grandson Dylan Meyer.

Meyers lived for years in the Bulverde area and in San Antonio's northern suburbs. Known for his long braid, beard and cowboy hat, he was remembered by musicians and fans as funny, upbeat and down to earth. He kept detailed scrapbooks of flyers, tickets, contracts and clippings from his career. In 2009 a routine checkup revealed near kidney failure, and he went on daily dialysis at home while continuing to perform.

Meyers believed music should cross cultural lines. He described going to Westside San Antonio clubs where few white fans went, simply to hear Flaco Jiménez and other conjunto musicians, and he saw his organ style as a translation of conjunto rhythm into rock and roll.

He took to heart Huey Meaux's songwriting advice to write about things people can relate to, such as being happy or sad, and called himself a romantic at heart. He was wary of the major-label system: after a distribution dispute with Atlantic Records in the 1980s he borrowed money to buy back his publishing and contract, and he said the big labels had to coax him to sign again because he was scared of them. From his father he took the lesson that famous people were no different from anyone else, and he treated the stars he worked with as simply fellow musicians and friends.

Meyers' Vox organ is credited with helping to define Tex-Mex rock and the San Antonio West Side Sound. Author Joe Nick Patoski said that Doug Sahm, Flaco Jiménez and Augie Meyers together "really define the sound of South Texas". Hector Saldaña of the Wittliff Collections called him "one of the greatest musicians that Texas ever produced".

The Sir Douglas Quintet influenced artists across roots music, from Steve Earle and Alejandro Escovedo to Uncle Tupelo and the Mavericks, and echoes of Meyers' organ style have been heard in 1960s garage rock and later new wave. Meyers recalled that members of the Beatles asked him how he got his Vox sound. His song "(Hey Baby) Que Paso" is widely called the anthem of San Antonio, and in 2022 the Congressional Hispanic Caucus proposed it for the National Recording Registry.

After his death, tributes came from Rolling Stone, the San Antonio Express-News, Austin City Limits and many musicians. On May 31, 2026, Stable Hall in San Antonio hosted "Remembering Augie Meyers", with Jimmie Vaughan, Joe King Carrasco, the Krayolas and others who knew him.

Grammy Award for Best Mexican-American Performance for "Soy de San Luis" with the Texas Tornados, presented at the 1991 ceremony for work released in 1990.

Further Grammy nominations with the Texas Tornados, including Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "A Little Bit Is Better Than Nada".

Member of the Texas Music Hall of Fame.

Gold and later platinum certification in Scandinavia for the Sir Douglas Quintet reissue The Scandinavian Years, as reported by The Austin Chronicle in 2009.

Key recordings with the Sir Douglas Quintet include "She's About a Mover" (1965), "The Rains Came", "Mendocino" (1969), "Nuevo Laredo" (1970) and the album Border Wave (1981). With the Texas Tornados he recorded Texas Tornados and Los Texas Tornados (1990), Zone of Our Own (1991), Hangin' On by a Thread (1992), 4 Aces (1996), Live from the Limo (1999) and Está Bueno (2010). The band's 1990 Austin City Limits performance was released as Live from Austin, TX.

Selected solo albums: The Western Head Music Co. (1971), You Ain't Rollin' Your Roll Rite (1972), Live at the Longneck (1975), Finally in Lights (1977), Still Growin' (1982), August in New York (1984), Augie's Back (1986), My Main Squeeze (1986), Sausalito Sunshine (1988), White Boy (1992), Alive and Well at Lake Taco (1996), Blame It on Love (2002), My Freeholies Ain't Free Anymore (2006), Country (2009) and Loves Lost and Found (2013).

The Tornados' "A Little Bit Is Better Than Nada" played over the opening credits of the 1996 Kevin Costner film Tin Cup. Meyers was featured in numerous Texas music television programmes and interviews, including Austin City Limits and the South Texas Soul: The San Antonio Sound series.

Meyers himself was not the subject of major public controversy. The original Sir Douglas Quintet was derailed in the mid-1960s by a marijuana arrest involving Doug Sahm; Meyers later said the bust kept the band from leaving Texas for years, and Sahm moved to San Francisco by 1966. In the 1980s Meyers had a business dispute with Atlantic Records over the distribution of his album My Main Squeeze, which ended with him buying back his stock, publishing and contract.

Augie Meyers died peacefully in his sleep on Saturday, March 7, 2026, at his home in San Antonio, with his wife Sara at his side. He was 85. The New York Times and the San Antonio Current reported that he died of pneumonia, and the Express-News said he had suffered a recent illness. His family announced the death on his Facebook page on March 9, 2026.

Private services were held. A celebration of life was held on April 8, 2026, and a committal service took place on May 31, 2026, his birthday. At his death he was the last surviving original member of the Texas Tornados, after Doug Sahm (1999), Freddy Fender (2006) and Flaco Jiménez (2025).