Sure, the guys performed on the show Sunday evening, but it was the women who blazed.

Are guys even making relevant pop music right now? That's a ridiculous question, obviously, but after Sunday's American Music Awards telecast, it seems almost reasonable. Though plenty of men performed during this roundup of both trending and reliable chart toppers, the show's heat emanated from the feminine sphere.

Lady Gaga playing a blazing piano, Whitney Houston giving a touchingly rough-edged vocal performance, a startled Taylor Swift grabbing the top prize from the spectral grip of Michael Jackson -- this show wasn't just another ladies' night: It marked a notable shift in American pop music.

The AMAs always offer spectacle, in part because the awards themselves feel less meaningful than either the Grammys or more genre-specific fetes like the Country Music Assn. Awards. Won in a public vote after nominations are made according to radio airplay and retail sales, these prizes always have seemed somehow less prestigious than those determined by industry insiders or artistic peers.

What's fun about the AMAs is the breadth of the show, as top draws in many genres work to generate the most glitz in what amounts to a pop free-for-all.

This year, rock bands such as Daughtry and Green Day played and sang earnestly, and Eminem (assisted by 50 Cent) and Jay-Z (partnering with Alicia Keys) both rapped at the top of their game. Yet these moments felt like standard fare on a buffet overflowing with more scintillating choices.

It's not that rock or rap no longer speak to the mainstream; Eminem's album rather quietly became one of the year's bestsellers, as did the latest from Kings of Leon, who were nominated for artist of the year yet did not perform Sunday evening.

Ryan Seacrest was there to introduce Adam Lambert on Sunday night, but his American Music Awards performance of "For Your Entertainment" was a long way removed from the family-friendly confines of "American Idol." There was groping, dragging and bondage outfits, bringing the ABC program to an end with theatrical images of sexual slavery.

"It's about to get rough," Lambert sings in the song's opening moments, and for many of Pop & Hiss'  readers, it went too far. Within minutes of the American Music Awards coming to an end, irate viewers had begun writing in. Reader Kathie Kunish declared that the telecast should have been rated "PG-14," and user "penny" noted that she had to cover the eyes of her 10-year-old daughter.

Reader Richard Bowen agreed, posting on Pop & Hiss, "I know he wants to break out and show the world his dangerous side, but why alienate an entire population of kids to do it?"

Lambert wasn't the only former "American Idol" contestant to get risqué. Earlier in the night, Carrie Underwood strutted in a pants-less outfit, but the country star was still a long way removed from Lambert's sexually suggestive performance. With a crotch rub and a make-out session with a band member, Lambert sent tongues wagging and the Twittisphere erupting in controversy, bolting to the top of the site's trending topics.

"The energy felt good. Adrenaline is a crazy thing to feel," Lambert said to Pop & Hiss after the show. "That's what I love about performing. I'm hoping people were entertained. For those who weren't, maybe I'm not their cup of tea."

When asked if he thought the most extreme moments would be edited out of the West Coast broadcast, Lambert wasn't shy about how he would react to such a move.

Paula Abdul might not be returning as a judge on reality TV juggernaut "American Idol," but backstage at the American Music Awards on Sunday night -- where she was one of the few presenters and performers to visit the press -- she was still every bit the proud "relative" of the "Idol" alums. "It's very surreal and very exciting," she said of being around so many of the young performers she helped mentor over her years with the series. "Its amazing to see them. While presenting, I could see Carrie [Underwood] and [Adam] Lambert. And just now I watched Kelly [Clarkson]."

As for what's next for her career post-"Idol," Abdul remained tight-lipped. "You'll be hearing about it very soon," she said.

After winning the country male artist prize, Keith Urban had only one thing on his mind: some downtime with his family -- wife Nicole Kidman and the couple's young daughter, Sunday. "This is the first time we'll be able to take her to Australia," Urban said.

Urban said he remains grateful for his success: "I just love playing music. I've come from a place where I've played in front of three people to a place where I play in front of thousands."

The young country-pop singer adds five AMAs to her trophy collection. Michael Jackson receives four awards posthumously.

Not long after 19-year-old country-pop sensation Taylor Swift walked off with the Country Music Assn.'s biggest awards in Nashville, the American Music Awards handed her more trophies to add to her growing collection.

Swift, who came in with a field-leading six nominations, landed all but one of those, including the evening's top honor as artist of the year. She also was named favorite female pop-rock, country and adult contemporary artist. Her "Fearless" CD collected the favorite album trophy.

Michael Jackson was the evening's next big winner, taking four posthumous awards as favorite male pop-rock and soul-R&B artist, while his "Number Ones" hits collection won the favorite soul-R&B and pop-rock album awards.

The pop-rock album category was the only one in which Swift was nominated but did not win.

"There's no one that's ever been able to wow audiences quite like Michael," said Paula Abdul, former "American Idol" judge and onetime choreographer for Jackson, on Sunday, "and I don't think there will ever be someone as magical."

Swift had to skip the show at downtown L.A.'s Nokia Theatre because she was in London rehearsing, but she accepted her awards with enthusiasm by satellite from backstage at Wembley Arena.

"I will never be able to say how much I love you," she told her transatlantic audience.

Grading the performances at the 2009 American Music Awards, typos and all.

Janet Jackson. So, supposedly the American Music Awards were going to open with a performance from Janet, and that's technically what happened. Except Janet's performance was largely a commercial for her  "Number Ones," in which the singer, in a tan outfit that looked like it was ripped straight from the racks at REI, performed a medley of her hits. Imagine going to Amazon.com and clicking on a bunch of song samples from her two-disc set. That's largely what this performance was -- it's "Miss You Much"! and now it's "What Have You Done for Me Lately"! -- and if you were a Janet fan, you surely enjoyed this swift little medley. It was a safe and solid opening, and it gets a slight bonus for focusing entirely on Janet and not becoming another Michael tribute, so B-.

Daughtry. Boom! Nothing ignites the excitement of a three-hour award show like a mid-tempo rock ballad from heartland rockers Daughtry. "No, there's no life after you," leader Chris Daughtry sings through gritted teeth, trying to muster some importance out of these tepid lyrics and lightly strummed electric guitars. This type of song is typically saved for the moments during an arena show when a band says, "This one is for the ladies," and everyone goes and buys a hot dog. D

Pop & Hiss will update this post as reports come in live from the red carpet at downtown's Nokia Theatre. Click here for photos from the red carpet.

5:02 p.m. As the start of the show neared, the stars made their way to the venue. Toni Braxton was a red carpet phantom, rushing by before most crews could get their cameras in place. So did Pete Wentz. Oh, and Carrie Underwood. Guess no one wanted to miss Janet Jackson's big opening performance. 

4:43 p.m. The presence of so many chart-topping female performers became one of the biggest topics of conversation on the AMA carpet. Selena Gomez, who took an unrelated moment to rave about John Mayer's newest album, "Battle Studies," said she was excited to see Rihanna onstage. "She's such a strong, beautiful person," Gomez said. "And between her, J-Lo, Whitney ... It's such a girl-empowered show."

Blogger Perez Hilton paused during an interview to text another one of those empowered ladies, his "wifey" -- Lady Gaga. "She's gonna give an amazing performance," Hilton said. "People don't even know what's gonna hit them."

Gaga wasn't the only one on his mind either. "I just met Shakira," he said. "I used to study her lyrics when I was in high school. They're such tongue-twisters." 

It was Gaga that Mary J. Blige singled out, however. "I like her. I think she's talented. She does her thing full throttle and with love for music. It's always interesting to see what she pulls off."

Nominations and winners for the 2009 American Music Awards. Winners will be in bold italics.

ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Kings of Leon
Taylor Swift
Lady Gaga
Eminem
Michael Jackson

POP/ROCK -- Favorite Male Artist
Eminem
Michael Jackson
T.I.

POP/ROCK -- Favorite Female Artist
Beyoncé
Lady Gaga
Taylor Swift

POP/ROCK -- Favorite Band, Duo or Group
The Black Eyed Peas
Kings of Leon
Nickelback

POP/ROCK -- Favorite Album
"The Fame" -- Lady Gaga
"Number Ones" -- Michael Jackson
"Fearless" -- Taylor Swift

It's hard to imagine that this is finally happening. A music awards show without Kanye West and/or Taylor Swift will go down on Sunday night, and right here in our hometown.

The American Music Awards are set for a live Sunday night broadcast -- tape-delayed for the West Coast. Set to air at 8 p.m. on ABC, expect at least 20 music performances, and the occasional fan-voted award to be handed out at the gala at downtown's Nokia Theatre. 

In a tradition started last year by Pop & Hiss, here's three reasons to tune in, and three reasons one may be better off catching up on those episodes of "The Mentalist" you have on your DVR.

Reasons to watch:

1. Rihanna. Her "Russian Roulette" stands as one of the starkest, bravest, toughest singles to be released in 2009. The fact that it came from one of the world's biggest pop stars, and sounded more fit for a horror soundtrack than a dance floor, only added to its mystique. Even if it's not the song she'll be performing Sunday, it instantly catapulted Rihanna from a singles artist to a serious force to be reckoned with. 

2. Lady Gaga. In terms of unpredictable pop stars, no one, perhaps, can top one Mr. West. But the man who should have been Gaga's touring partner is a bit MIA at the moment, and likely won't grace an awards  show again until the Grammys, if they'll have him. But in the absence of Kanye, Gaga can be counted on for some sort of spectacle, even if her award-show speeches won't be quite as off the cuff. Her recent video for "Bad Romance" was a sci-fi-inspired explosion of arresting images, and her last major TV appearance -- a performance on "Saturday Night Live" -- featured the artist completely breaking down her hits.

3. Because the Bears are on. This doesn't really apply to those of us on the West Coast, where the American Music Awards will air later than the rest of the country, but there won't be anything broadcast on the gala that comes close to the train wreck that is the 2009 Chicago Bears. Heck, you can slap Adam Lambert, Carrie Underwood and 50 Cent together for a medley of Broadway hits of the '40s, and the three of them doing the foxtrot would make for more captivating television than the Chicago branch of the National Football League. 

Reasons to skip are after the jump.

R&B singer Maxwell will perform a concert at downtown's Club Nokia on Dec. 2 after the venue plays host to the unveiling of the nominations for the 52nd annual Grammy Awards. The Maxwell appearance will be open to the public, and proceeds will benefit the next-door Grammy Museum, which will celebrate its first anniversary Dec. 6.

Maxwell will earlier appear on the live CBS broadcast to announce the 2010 Grammy slate, "The Grammy Nominations Concert Live!! -- Countdown to Music’s Biggest Night.” The latter, which will be tape-delayed for SoCal viewers but air live on the East Coast at 9 p.m., will also feature live performances from Nick Jonas and the Administration, the Black Eyed Peas and Sugarland.

In a switch from last year, however, when the contenders were announced at the larger Nokia Theatre, the Grammy nomination prime-time special will not be open to the public.

Eminem is rebooting plans for the successor to his first studio album in five years, “Relapse,” which brought the Detroit rapper back to the top of the national sales chart when it was released in May.

He had announced his intention to release “Relapse 2” in December, but now comes word that on Dec. 21,  he and his label, Interscope Records, are putting out “Relapse: Refill,” an expanded version of the first “Relapse” that includes seven bonus tracks. He said he and producer Dr. Dre had to rethink what they had come up with for the follow-up.

“I got back in with Dre and then a few more producers, including Just Blaze, and went in a completely different direction which made me start from scratch,” Eminem states in post on his website. “The new tracks started to sound very different than the tracks I originally intended to be on ‘Relapse 2,’ but I still want the other stuff to be heard."

The bonus material includes “Forever” from the “More Than a Game” soundtrack; “Taking My Ball,” which appeared first in the DJ Hero video game; and five previously unreleased recordings.

"Hopefully, these tracks on 'The Refill' will tide the fans over until we put out 'Relapse 2' next year," Eminem said.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Getty Images

The most animated act (think: Adult Swim) grabs the spotlight at a metal mash.

It's telling that the most orthodox act on one of the season's most anticipated metal package tours was the one composed of cartoon characters. The sprawling quadruple bill of High on Fire, Converge, Mastodon and Dethklok -- the last a Gorillaz-like animated band project for self-aware Hessians -- proved Thursday night at the Hollywood Palladium that while the heaviest strains of rock music are very much thriving, the rule book for what constitutes metal today has been burned at the stake.

Booked at the distinctly un-metal hour of 6:30 p.m., High on Fire's druggy, swaggering and dread-laden metal had to compete with the brutal reality of playing a dinner-time set prefacing a very long night of difficult music. No matter the strength of their bleak grooves and tooth-cracking clatter -- and they're strong indeed -- that's a tall order.

The wonkish post-hardcore act Converge had a slightly easier time of it. The Massachusetts-based band was one of the early adopters of the metalcore genre, in which the speed and ferocity of '80s American punk gets applied to the precision-cut riffs and polyrhythms of thrash. Converge's new album, "Axe to Fall," expertly refuses to put more than one foot in any camp of heavy music -- guitarist Kurt Ballou is equally at home squealing off pinch harmonics in a throwback solo or a sub-sonic churn of contemporary white noise. At times the restless pummel of drums even leans toward something Sun Ra could nod to.

It’s easy to be skeptical of Neon Indian, the bedroom pop-turned-big-time project of 21-year-old Alan Palomo. For one thing, there’s the name. Neon Indian sounds more appropriate for a hirsute Bombay-born fixture on the Cobrasnake/Cinespace circuit, circa 2006.

Then there was the breathless blog buzz generated from songs called “I Should’ve Taken Acid With You” and “Terminally Chill,” titles that sound straight out of a Hipster Runoff Parody. Plus, this is Palomo’s third new band in two years -- though I’m willing to bet it will be his last.

Since making the aforementioned lysergic anthem for his friend, Neon Indian visual artist Alicia Scardetta, as penance for flaking on a would-be addled afternoon, Palomo’s star has rapidly ascended on the strength of his faded psychedelia. Lumped into the awkwardly named “glo-fi” genre, along with Washed Up, Memory Tapes and Delorean, Neon Indian owned the blogs and influential music magazine Pitchfork all summer long, culminating with the latter garlanding them with a rare Best New Music tag last month.

Liked Green Day's "21 Guns" but thought it lacked a certain -- how shall we say? -- pizazz?

Then you are in luck, as Green Day will re-release the cut later this month with the cast of Berkeley Rep's "American Idiot." The musical, based on the 2004 Green Day album of the same name, made its debut in the Bay Area earlier this fall, where Times theater critic Charles McNulty found it more positive than negative, writing, " 'American Idiot' translates Green Day's generational angst into a moody theatrical fantasia. If it doesn't spin an entirely satisfying yarn, its roar is still irresistible."

An official release date wasn't given for the newly recorded single, but it will be made available for purchase at all major digital outlets. Green Day will perform this Sunday on the American Music Awards on ABC, and "American Idiot" just finished its run in Berkeley.

The next stop for the musical? Likely Broadway. 

Rehearsals started today for the American Music Awards and the first to test out the mammoth stage at Nokia Theatre was Adam Lambert, the ebony-haired runner-up in last season’s batch of “American Idol” contestants. With his new album, the obsequiously titled “For Your Entertainment,” out vamping the streets this week, Lambert will showcase the Dr. Luke-penned title song for his Sunday night performance at the audience-selected award show.

For about five minutes, this reporter was allowed to write notes from a cushy blue chair in the audience during Lambert’s rehearsal, watching as dancers sashayed across the floor in spangly harem pants, leotards with torn tights and in one particular eye-catching costume, leather pants topped off with a few leather suspender-straps and silvery chains on an otherwise bare-chested male dancer. A Lambert performance, we were reminded, is not a place for demure displays of postmodern dance. As for the panther himself, he took a few leisurely leaps to various levels of scaffolding, singing into a phantom mic and writhing with whatever dancer was around. On the top level of the scaffolding, a band of indeterminate numbers played keyboards, a flying V guitar and other gadgets, all of which collude to formulate the glam-rock pyramid that Lambert mightily prays to on a seemingly daily basis.

And then we were kicked out, in the oft-fickle ways of rock star management. And then we waited an hour or so, nibbling Panda Express and text messaging friends. At long last, we got a few words with Lambert himself, who has the dashing good looks of a soap opera villain. His ice-blue eyes were rimmed with kohl, his T-shirt beneath his glittery jacket emblazoned with David Bowie’s heavily made-up visage.

It turns out Lambert is feeling the pressure of, um, outing his new material (speaking of OUT...). “The expectations are high -- the audience's and my own. But I’m really excited to perform live -- it’s what I know the most. It’s what I do best.”

Many have applauded “For Your Entertainment,” while others have deemed it a series of hedged bets. What does he think of the chance-taking on his first studio album? “I think I straddled the line between commercial and esoteric. I think the album’s eclecticism is the big risk I took.”

For all his forays into gothic kingdoms and its neighboring fiefdoms of glam-rock, power balladry and rock-god bombast, Lambert has barely scratched the Champagne-fizzy R&B of some of his peers. Would he ever perform something from the pen of Ne-Yo or Justin Timberlake? “It’s not the style I’m gravitating towards now but I might down the road.”

And who’s Lambert looking forward to seeing Sunday night? His sister in outrageousness, of course: Lady Gaga.

-- Margaret Wappler

Photo of Lambert in rehearsal. Credit: Kevin Winter / Getty Images for DCP

The 'Idol' runner-up goes for it all in his major label debut, with the help of the Hollywood pop A-list. The results are mixed, but never a bummer.

To point out Adam Lambert’s boutique addiction is to reinforce a gay stereotype, but Lambert himself enjoys playing around with preconceived notions, and that includes proudly showing that there's depth and self-awareness beyond those stereotypes. Lambert's other clear goal as a newly minted pop star is to celebrate all aspects of the word "play": pleasure, performance, flirtation, virtuosity, masquerade. That's what he does on this quickly assembled yet purposeful major label debut.

"For Your Entertainment" is a polished affair, but stylistically, it shows Lambert running loose like a kid in a Comme des Garçons store. With the Hollywood pop A-list at his disposal, he chose to go for it all: The only names missing from his list of collaborators are those firmly in the R&B camp (wouldn't it be great if he worked with fellow drama club type Ne-Yo?) The results on "FYE" are inevitably mixed, but never a bummer; Lambert's deft enough to avoid getting stuck in any one of the tropes he explores.

On many tracks, Lambert stretches himself by putting on the style of his more seasoned collaborators. He's pleading and soulful on the Pink co-write, sneering on the song Rivers Cuomo tossed his way, moody when it comes to parsing Muse and appropriately silly on the neo-glam crusher penned for him by Justin Hawkins, formerly of the English band the Darkness. Versatility is Lambert's strategy here, one he might consider changing in the future -- when the material's second-rate, it sinks him a bit. 

 Of all the instruments and sounds in a rock band's arsenal, the most difficult one to use well might be sheer noise. For a band like The Big Pink -- a UK duo that brilliantly grafts the synth textures of Underworld and old rave to druggy, unshowered shoegaze -- the tension between the loveliness of its melodies and its nastier sonic impulses needs a sure pair of studio hands to keep the peace. On the band's debut album "A Brief History of Love," they pull it off gracefully. But at their L.A. debut at the El Rey last night, things got a little overheated.

A four-piece touring concern, Milo Cordell and Robbie Furze's project had plenty of options for making sense of the many ephemeral, textured elements of "History" onstage. But they need a certain fidelity to make it all translate, and for whatever the reason -- the in-house mixer, the band's live arrangements -- clarity just wasn't there at the El Rey. I tried standing in every corner of the room: two feet from the stage, in front of the central mixing board, the very back of the theater, but the mix kept me wondering if this is what an errant seagull last hears before it gets sucked into a passing jet engine.

That's not necessarily a bad thing -- I'm a glutton for punishment when the right situation arises -- but The Big Pink's pleasures aren't in volume and tumult alone. They have a soft touch on their record, and as it turns out, it's what makes the whole thing work.

Furze has a marvelous voice for this band -- a leering disaffection tempered by the occasional real sweetness of his lyrics. But it just couldn't compete with the redlining gain of just about everything else around him. Pairing the low-end gut punch of techno with the mids and highs of a rock band is never easy, but save for all but the quietest moments, Cordell's noise gadgets and samples were just filetted into hisses and grumbles.

A little singing, a little dancing from the performer in his first local show since his sentencing.

Chris Brown had already pleaded guilty to assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna earlier this year. But Wednesday night at the Avalon, in his first local performance since being sentenced to probation and community service in the February altercation in L.A., Brown still seemed to be offering up character witnesses in an attempt to prove, as he insists in a widely circulated YouTube video, that he's no monster.

First up was Keri Hilson, who appeared not long into Brown's hourlong set and sang her hit "Turnin' Me On." Hilson was followed by Ester Dean, whose song "Drop It Low" features a cameo from Brown. Later, the singer introduced a medley of Michael Jackson covers as a homage to his "homie, friend and loved one." And near the end of the show, during "No Air," Brown even pressed squeaky-clean "American Idol" winner Jordin Sparks into service, trading verses with Sparks' recorded voice in a duet that has surely taken on new meaning in Brown's mind over the last nine months of smothering media scrutiny.

If the female-heavy crowd at the Avalon was serving as Brown's jury, the testimonials had their desired effect: This was precisely the sort of adoring audience Brown presumably intended to draw by calling his current trek, which launched last week in Houston, the Fan Appreciation Tour. The singer made no mention of the Rihanna incident; instead, he repeatedly announced that he was in the mood to party.

A federal judge in Los Angeles granted Capitol Records’ request for a preliminary injunction today against a San Jose-based website that had put the Beatles catalog online for digital downloading at 25 cents a track, without permission from the band or its record label.

U.S. Central District Court Judge John F. Walter said the defendant in the case, BlueBeat.com and its owner, Hank Risan, had failed to demonstrate that it had not violated Capitol’s copyright because it claimed to be selling “psychoacoustic simulations” of the Beatles catalog, not the actual protected recordings.

“Mr. Risan fails to provide any details or evidence about the ‘technological process’ that defendants contend was used to create the ‘new’ recordings or adequately explain how the ‘new’ recordings differ in any meaningful way from plaintiffs' recordings,” Walter wrote in approving the preliminary injunction.

Walter also got to play music critic for a day, noting that “after listening to the CD attached as Exhibit 1….the court, albeit to its musically untrained ear, was unable to detect or discern any meaningful difference between plaintiffs’ recordings and defendants’ recordings.”

Reached Wednesday, Risan claimed he had received the label’s permission to work with the recordings (The full interview with Risan is at the bottom of this post).

“Had we been able to appear in court,  we can show that we obtained that content lawfully,” Risan said. “If you obtain something lawfully, we have the right do things with it, like perform it, display it. We were paying the statutory royalties on it….We’re not pirates.”

A spokeswoman for EMI, Capitol’s parent firm, said Wednesday that the company declined to comment,  “as it is a matter of litigation.”

-- Randy Lewis and Todd Martens

After the jump, a Q&A of Pop & Hiss' brief chat with BlueBeat's Risan:

If concert-going is on your docket this weekend, consider steering your ticket budget toward any of three exceedingly worthwhile special fund-raising shows, all of which happen to be at the Avalon in Hollywood. On Thursday and Friday, Deftones will play two shows to raise money for bassist Chi Cheng, who's still in a semiconscious state after a 2008 car crash that left him with huge (and accumulating) medical bills. On Saturday, Band of Horses, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Sea Wolf, Shirley Manson and many others play one-off sets to benefit the Pablove Foundation, the childhood cancer research fund of Dangerbird Records founder Jeff Castelaz and his wife, Jo Ann Thrailkill. And on Sunday, Slash joins Ozzy Osbourne, Chester Bennington, Perry Farrell and a motley crew of other hard rockers for a set to fund the Los Angeles Youth Network, a homeless-services charity. Any one of them will be worth your time, money and eardrums this weekend.

-- August Brown

All shows at the Avalon, 1735 Vine St. Tickets available at avalonhollywood.net.

Deftones photo by Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times

Ten years ago today -- on Nov. 18, 1999 -- the pop music world lost a bona-fide original, Tex-Mex innovator Doug Sahm. First as frontman for the Sir Douglas Quintet in the 1960s and 1970s, through his solo work in the '70s and '80s  and then through his musical and spiritual leadership of the Texas Tornados in the '90s, Sahm helped break down walls between rock, country, soul, R&B and norteño music.

Earlier this year, Vanguard Records put out a spirited salute to the San Antonio-based singer, songwriter and guitarist, “Keep Your Soul:  A Tribute to Doug Sahm.” It’s worth seeking out for empathetic versions of his music by admirers including Los Lobos, Dave Alvin, Jimmie Vaughan, Joe “King” Carrasco with surviving members of the Tornados, longtime friend and collaborator Flaco Jimenez, Delbert McClinton, his son, Shawn Sahm, and several others.

He’s best known for the Sir Douglas Quintet’s signature hits “She’s About a Mover” and “Mendocino,” but his legacy extended well beyond those brief encounters with the pop mainstream. Bob Dylan once said he considered Doug Sahm a kindred spirit in his innate understanding of music and his ability to find the heart and soul of a song.

Here’s a clip of Sahm during his Tornados days doing the song that usually springs to my mind first whenever his name is mentioned: “Is Anybody Going to San Antone,”  built on one of his irresistible, border-defying Tex-Mex grooves. He died, far too early, at age 58, apparently of natural causes.

-- Randy Lewis