From KUTX:
On December 31, 1940, Rocky Morales was born.
Morales learned to play the sax in high school and absorbed rhythm and blues through Jimmy Reed, T-Bone Walker, and his mentor, San Antonio’s own Spot Barnett. By the late 1950s, together with Louis Bustos and Charlie McBurney, Morales formed a horn section indispensable to what would come to be called the West Side Sound. The style blended rhythm and blues with country and western, rock ‘n’ roll with ranchera, and just about everything in between.
In 1959, Morales first recorded with another champion of the West Side Sound, Doug Sahm, on the Harlem Records single “Why Why Why.”