- Place – London – New York – San Antonio
- Time – 1981 – 2000
- Artist – Augie Meyers
Augie Meyers is a legendary Texas musician, best known as the keyboard player for The Sir Douglas Quintet and The Texas Tornados.
Bob Dylan once said of Augie.
“Augie’s my man, he’s like an intellectual who goes fishing using bookworms. Seriously though he’s the shining example of a musician, Vox player or otherwise, who can break the code.
His playing speaks volumes, speaks in tongue actually. He can bring a song, certainly any one of mine, into the real world. I’ve loved his playing going all the way back to the Sir Doug days.
What makes him so great is that internally speaking, he’s the master of syncopation and timing and this is something that cannot be taught.
If you need someone to get you through the shipping lanes and there’s no detour, Augie will get you right straight through. Augie’s your man.”
Meeting Augie
In 1981, I was producing an album at Pye Studios in London for Sonet Sweden.
The record company informed me that one of their American artists, Augie Meyers, who played great keyboards and accordion was in London on a stopover.
They asked, if I could find something for him to do on the album I was making.
Due to being on a tight budget and schedule, I told the record company this didn’t really suit the session, also I really had no need of any extra musicians.
They offered to cover any extra cost and studio time, plus should it not work out I didn’t have to use any of Augies performance.
I contacted Augie and invited him to the studio the next day.
The next afternoon I was working on a track called Crusin On A Saturday Night, when the control room door opened and in came a six foot two tall Texan carrying an accordion.
“Hi, I’m Augie Meyers, am I in the right place?”
Entering the control room walking with a slight limp, his facial hair, covered lines that told of a life full of experience and from under his Stetson hat hung a ponytail that ran all the way down his back, like a dookie rope.
Little did I know at that time, this person would soon become a great friend and an honorary member of my family forever.
Augie’s message written on my studio board
How to Play Accordian
After a polite howdy Augie took his accordion from out of his case and started to play along to the track in the control room.
To my surprise the tone of the instrument and Augie’s fine playing suited the track perfectly, but I was uncertain about the rhythmic feel that was being played.
To explain the rhythm vibe I wanted, I played the track and stood in front of Augie playing air accordion, looking totally ridiculous, with my arms going up and down a like chicken trying to fly.
When the track finished Augie looked at me and said,
”Man, you make it look so easy.”
Being the complete professional he persevered and within a few tries in the control room the feel was perfect so Augie went down into the studio and we started to run through the track on mic.
Typical Augie
During the first run through Augie was complaining that his headphones were only working in one ear so I had the assistant replace them with another set.
On the second take the same situation occurred,
“I can still only hear the track in one ear.” He told me again
I quickly had the assistant change the headphones once again but on the third take the same problem occurred.
Augie could see I was getting quite upset with this as I went down into the studio and put on set of cans myself, plugged them in and asked the assistant to run the tape.
At last, I could hear the cans were working perfectly on both sides. I handed my working cans to Augie.
He put them on, looked at me and said,
”Nope, still only working one side.”
and then handed them straight back.
I put them on to listen and they worked fine on both sides.
“Augie” I said, “They are working on both sides.”
“Oh, it’s OK Kenny, it must be me.”
Pulling back his hair from over his ear I was astounded to see he had an ear missing.
This was my first introduction to Mr. Meyers’ wonderful sense of humour.
I found out later, that the limp and the loss of his ear was due to polio as a child.
My initial feelings of not wanting Augie to play on the record turned out to be completely groundless
His contribution to the track actually made it far better than I could have ever imagined.
Augie & Kenny in Sonet Records Stockholm Sweden 1985
The next few albums
The next time I would meet Augie was in San Francisco when I recorded The Midnight Sun album.
See Doug Sahm Nightmare Part 1
I went on to produce two of Augie’s solo albums, August In New York and Augies Back, as well as using him as a session player on recordings in the UK, Sweden and Nashville.
In 1984 I travelled to Nashville to record four tracks for an album with the country singer Joe Sun at Glaser Sound Studios.
I asked Augie if he would come to Nashville to play piano on the sessions for me.
As the sessions started it became very apparent that the Nashville session players weren’t exactly inviting to outsiders.
As well as being a fine player Augie was one of the most likeable guys you could ever hope to meet, however both these attributes were completely disregarded by the session players.
Should Augie try and join in any conversation he was completely ignored, they really treated him like shit.
After the first few run throughs, I called Augie into the control room and told him let this unfriendly Nashville clique finish their parts and we would overdub his piano parts later once they were done.
Having finished the tracks, I began to really disliked the whole project, so when I returned to the UK, I told the record company I would only finish the album if we recorded in London.
One last addition
A few months before this project I was working in Nashville on another recording.
The record company asked me to meet up with Joe Sun to say hi and discuss the future recordings.
I was in my hotel room when my phone rang and I was told that Joe was in reception.
I asked him to come up to my room. A few minutes later he arrived and knocked.
I opened the door and said,
“Hi Joe? – I’m Kenny.”
Almost before I had finished saying the word Kenny, he jumped in with
“So, what’s an English guy like you know about country music?”
Not exactly a great start.
I replied,
“Nowhere near as much as you, but that’s not my job, your job is to know about your music and mine is to get the best out of you.”
It really didn’t get much better after that. The full Joe Sun story coming soon.
August In New York Album 1984
Some Augie Moments
Augie and I were in a Nightclub in San Antonio. I was sitting at the bar with Augie standing next to me.
We were enjoying the band on the stage and having a beer.
After a while this muscle-bound redneck walks over to us at the bar and said to Augie,
“Hey man what are you doing here? We don’t like your kind in our club.”
As he was saying this, he kept looking over at three of his sizeable redneck friends.
I thought to myself oh shit this is not going to end well; it was easy to see that this guy was just looking for trouble.
Augie very coolly replied,
“I’m just having a drink and enjoying the music”.
The redneck still looking around at his friends said,
“I guess you didn’t hear me boy, we don’t like you hippy long-haired types you ain’t welcome here.”
Although Augie was a lot taller than this guy, he was as wide as Augie was tall, plus he had his friends to back him up, it wasn’t looking good.
Augie looked at him straight in the eyes and in a relaxed voice whispered,
“Sir would you like to quietly step outside and show me your ID.”
Augie Meyers Different Fur Studio 1983
The redneck, thinking Augie was an undercover cop, put his hands up in front of him, palms towards Augie and started to walk slowly backwards saying,
“I am really sorry man, I thought you were someone else.”
I turned to Augie and said,
“Augie, that was genius.”
He replied, “Kenny, it will never work for you.”
How deal with a drunk
In a London pub we were having a beer and minding our own business.
Seated next to us at the bar was a drunk, tough looking tattooed skinhead looking for trouble.
He said to Augie,
“Eh mate how come your hair is so fucking long?”
Augie replied,
“I was kinda wondering why yours is so short.”
The skinhead said in a slurred voice,
“Fuck off, why don’t ya get ya fucking hair cut?”
In a very calm manner Augie said,
“I’ll tell ya, when I was a little bitty boy, I had my hair cut and the barber cut off my ear.”
Pulling back his hair to show he had an ear missing.
The skinhead immediately said,
“Fuck me, what did ya do?”
In a low mean voice looking straight into his eyes, Augie replied,
“Well, I killed that son of a bitch.”
The skinhead’s Adams apple bounced up and down in his throat like a basketball, he took the last mouthful of his beer and swiftly left.
Augie’s Back Back Cover
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