Texas Tornados - Biography
Indisputably the ultimate Chicano-Yanqui super group, the Texas Tornados brought together some of the most formidable musical talents to which the Lone Star State ever laid claim. Boasting Norteno and Tex-Mex Conjunto accordion patriarch Flaco Jiménez (born San Antonio, Texas, March 11, 1939), the incomparable country singer guitarist Freddy Fender (born San Benito, Texas, June 4, 1937) and veteran pop-roots-rock paragons Doug Sahm (born San Antonio, Texas, November 6, 1941) and Augie Meyers (born San Antonio, Texas, May 31, 1940), the Tornados churned out an intoxicating bilingual brand of swinging, stomping Tejano, country, Southwestern pop and country-rock. Although this world-class alliance only hung together long enough to deliver four studio albums, they enjoyed both immediate critical acclaim and respectable chart activity.
Longtime duo Sahm and Meyers, best recalled for their Sir Douglas Quintet incarnation, had formed affectionate alliances—personal and professional—with both Fender and Jimenez years before they all joined forces (indeed, Sahm had recorded an album using the Texas Tornados during the 1970s). But it was not until a felicitous onstage collision of their talents in California circa 1989 that this best-known version of the Tornados touched down. The group had no trouble landing a recording contract and wasted no time in issuing their debut album, Texas Tornados (1990 Reprise) which—despite the project’s somewhat idiosyncratic nature and the overwhelming dominance of Garth Brooks and Nashville’s other Hat Acts—made it to #25 on the country album chart. It also, significantly, won the 1990 Grammy Award for “Best Mexican-American Performance.”
With such a collection of talent, success was virtually guaranteed for the Texas Tornados. The band’s most recognizable name was Fender, the legendary singer-guitarist who began his career as a Chicano rockabilly cat, did hard time in Louisiana’s notorious Angola State Prison and struggled for years before scoring a series of monster country hits (“Wasted Days and Wasted Nights,” “Before the Next Teardrop Falls”) that made him a household name in the early-1970s. Although, Jimenez was revered throughout the Southwest as a giant in his field too, an artist on a level comparable to Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley, while Sahm and Meyers—long-time cult heroes in the Lone Star State—had made their commercial bones with such memorable hits as “Mendocino” and “She’s About a Mover.” The Tornados mutual enduring friendship created irresistible chemistry on the bandstand and the band began playing shows everywhere from rodeo arenas to concert halls, before graduating to prestigious dates ranging from the Montreaux Jazz Festival to the Clinton White House.
Their second release A Zone of Our Own (1991 Reprise) only rose to the country album chart’s #50 spot, but they had consistently tremendous success touring from one SRO date to the next. Surprisingly, their first-rate Hangin’ On by a Thread (1992 Reprise) didn’t make the charts at all, nor did the follow-up 4 Aces (1994 Reprise). The Texas Tornados also did Live from the Limo (1999 Virgin) to end the decade.
Sahm died not long after the release of Live From the Limo, and Fender passed away in 2006, but the group made a surprising return with Esta Bueno! (2010 Bismeaux). On the album, Meyers and Jimenez collaborated with Doug’s son, Shawn Sahm, and featured five never before heard performances by Fender. That kind of posthumous longevity underscores not only Fender and Sahm’s appeal and legacy, and also speaks to the magical nature of this one of a kind Tejano supergroup.
