![]() Listen: “ Las Nubes” by Little Joe y la Familia, “ Talk to Me” by Sunny and the Sunliners Coming of Age: 1980s Joining this wave were Tortilla Factory, Ruben Ramos & the Mexican Revolution, Latin Breed, Snowball and Company featuring Laura Canales, and Fandango USA. La Onda standard bearers Little Joe and the Latinaires from Temple, Texas, changed their name to Little Joe y la Familia (the Family) to reflect the band’s cultural pride. Rockero Baldemar Huerta out of San Benito near the Texas-Mexico border achieved fame in the 1960s as Freddy Fender, with the hits “Wasted Days, Wasted Nights” and “Holy One,” then re-emerged in the 1970s as a country crooner with the bilingual hit “Before the Next Teardrop Falls.”īy the 1970s, La Onda had given birth to La Onda Chicana as big bands introduced synthesizers in lieu of accordion and horns. ![]() The singing was in Spanish, except for some cover versions of English-language hits, a few of which made their way into the mainstream, such as “Talk to Me” by Sunny and the Sunliners.Īt the same time, other Texas-Mexican musicians eschewed cultural traditions to fully embrace pop music and sing in English. The orquestas set the table for the rise of La Onda, the Wave, which transformed Texas-Mexican music into a modern sound influenced by the rhythm and blues and rock ’n’ roll sweeping across America during the 1960s and ’70s. Listen: “ Diganle” by Isidro Lopez, “ Mi Unico Camino” by Conjunto Bernal The Rock Influence: 1960s–70s A Texas-Mexican variant of big-band swing popular in the 1940s into the 1950s, orquesta incorporated a distinctive Latin/Mexican flavor and Spanish lyrics. It was popularized by Santiago Jimenez and his son Flaco Jimenez, and by modernists such as Esteban (Steve) Jordan, regarded as the “Jimi Hendrix of the Accordion.”īeto Villa, Isidro Lopez, and Oscar Martinez were among the best-known leaders of the other Tex-Mex sound, orquesta. Conjunto, the music of small combos featuring the accordion and bajo sexto 12-string guitar, was favored by working-class Mexican-Americans in South Texas. ![]() Listen: “ Mal Hombre” by Lydia Mendoza, “ La Cuquita” by Narciso Martinez The Post-War Split: 1950sīy the end of World War II, the music created by Tejanos diverged. Polka and waltz informed the rhythm and sound, punctuated by the accordion, which had been brought to Texas and Northern Mexico by German, Polish, and Czech immigrants. Their recordings blended rancheras and boleros with European musical styles. Martinez and Villarreal were accordionists from the Rio Grande Valley. ![]() Mendoza, a singer known as the Lark of the Border, came from a San Antonio family of traveling musicians. Tejano trailblazers Lydia Mendoza, Narciso Martinez, and Bruno Villarreal were among the first Mexican-Americans in Texas to make records. Read: With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero by Américo Paredes The Formative Years: 1930s–40s Tejano would become its own distinctive sound, eventually taking on characteristics of American country and rock in the 1950s and ’60s and exploding in popularity in the ’90s with the incomparable Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. It evolved from many influences - part corrido, a story-song tradition whose lyrics about current events functioned like a newspaper part mariachi, the Mexican ranchera music rooted in the state of Jalisco part norteño, the Germanic-inflected traditional rural sound of the northern reaches of Mexico. The name of the musical mashup came from the name given to Mexican-Americans living in Texas: Tejano. In the 1930s, the musical intersection of cultures around the Texas-Mexico border birthed a new sound. What do you get when you mix American, European, and traditional Mexican influences and simmer them in Texas? Tejano. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |