Thanks to Dale Watson, I had the chance to see the great Flaco Jiménez perform at the Ameripolitan Awards in Austin, Texas.
Flaco received the Lifetime Achievement Award and he was led out on stage. At 84 years old, Flaco still had that charisma he was known for. They had him sit at center stage and play accordion alongside Augie Meyers for “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.”
Tejano Royalty
Flaco is part of the Tejano royalty that invented the genre we know today, the son of conjunto pioneer Santiago Jiménez Sr. who released what’s considered the first recording of this style in 1936 on Decca with “Dices Pescao” / “Dispensa el Arrempujon.” Flaco started out performing on Bajo Sexto with his father.
“Years back, they considered the accordion like a party joke or even something that grandpa played,” Flaco told Roots World. “The way I learned to play the accordion was on the wild and happy side, much like Cajun and zydeco music. One of my early idols was Clifton Chenier. The way he played, it was like the accordion was yelling at you ‘hey, take this.’ I like to make my accordion yell and scream and make it happy.”
Along with Chenier, Flaco was inspired by Elvis Presley.
“For years I dreamed of recording with him. But the closest I got was recording with The Jordanaires, his back-up vocal group,” Flaco said.
Flaco led dances in the San Antonio night clubs alongside his brother Santiago Jiménez Jr. His first group Los Caporales was a regional success that played weekly on the local television station.
Country Introduction
Flaco’s introduction to the larger country audience came through his connection to Texas legend Doug Sahm. He appeared alongside Bob Dylan and Dr. John on a recording session that helped change his sound.
“Doug showed me there were other worlds out there,” Flaco said. He would later go on to play with Ry Cooder and record with the Rolling Stones, Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens.
“You must remember that when my papa played, there weren’t record companies out there willing to expose conjunto music. They considered it low class, cantina music, Mexican hillbilly music,” Flaco said. “The conjunto record companies were all local, independent operations. San Antonio may have been the base of conjunto music but the major labels weren’t interested in this scroungy music. It was just among Mexicanos. I would consider myself one of the first ones who started sharing cultures.”
Texas Tornadoes
In 1989, the Texas Tornadoes, a supergroup of legendary performers with Sahm at the helm, Freddy Fender on guitar, and Augie Meyers on keys made radio history with “Hey Baby, Que Paso” and other Tex-Mex fusion hits. They would go on to receive a Grammy for Best Mexican-American Performance in 1991.
Sahm passed away in 1999, which essentially ended the Texas Tornados decade of success. When Fender passed away in 2005, it was the end of an era.
We were lucky to have Flaco and Meyers on stage together at the Moody Theater once again. The passing of Flaco isn’t the end of conjunto music in Texas, it’s the memorial for a family that changed the hearts of generations. The Jiménez family forever shaped music in the Southwest, and their influence will continue to ring out in the dancehalls across the Lone Star State for years to come.
Read More
Aaron Howard from Roots World.
The Legacy of Texas Tornados: A Tex-Mex Supergroup from the TSHA.
Photo provided by Al Dia News.
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