Latest news with #conjunto
Yahoo
02-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Flaco Jiménez, Global Tejano Music Ambassador, Dead at 86
Flaco Jiménez, the legendary accordion player who was perhaps the foremost ambassador for regional Tejano music in the 20th century, died at 86 on July 31st. According to a statement, Jiménez died surrounded by his family. 'His legacy will live on through his music and all of his fans,' it read. Throughout his career, Jiménez served as a global emissary of conjunto, the 18th-century regional genre born in Texas that merged traditional Mexican music with the accordion-driven polka music from German immigrants. 'What Elvis Presley was to rock, Muddy Waters to blues…Charlie Parker to Jazz,' wrote the Chicago-Tribune in 1992, 'Flaco Jiménez is to Tex-Mex (also known as conjunto or norteño) music.' More from Rolling Stone Jeannie Seely, Razor-Sharp Country Singer Known as 'Miss Country Soul,' Dead at 85 Tom Lehrer, Influential Song Satirist With a Cult Following, Dead at 97 Hulk Hogan, Wrestling Superstar Turned Right-Wing Hero, Dead at 71 Jiménez took pride in expanding, tweaking, and presenting the genre he grew steeped in as a child to the worlds and genres far from the San Antonio of his youth. 'I would consider myself,' Jiménez once said, 'one of the first ones who started sharing cultures.' Throughout his 70-year career, Jiménez brought his accordion playing to a variety of genres through his collaborations with everyone from Doug Sahm, Linda Ronstadt, Ry Cooder, the Rolling Stones, Buck Owens, and Dwight Yoakam. 'The versatility of Tex-Mex is what makes it,' Jiménez told the Chicago Tribune. 'We play Cajun, we play rock and roll, we play country, we play blues. What comes to our minds to do, to have fun with. I like to share our cultures.' Leonardo Jiménez was born on March 11, 1939. Like his professional accordionist father before him, as a child he took on the nickname of 'Flaco' (skinny) due to his slight frame. Jiménez grew up immersed in norteño and conjunto music, and in addition to his father, he soon became enamored with accordion players like Valerio Longoria, Narciso Martínez, and Juan Lopez. By the age of 12, Jiménez was playing accordion, the instrument with which he would become synonymous for the remainder of his career. 'I like to make my accordion yell and scream and make it happy,' Jiménez said of his trademark instrument. Jiménez began gigging and singing on the local radio with his teenage band Los Caporales with Henry Zimmerle and Joe Ponce. The band name was one Jiménez would revisit throughout his career, eventually repurposing it as a duo with bajo sexto legend Fred Ojeda. 'When I record under my style, Flaco Jiménez, it's flashier, it's more modern,' Jiménez said in 2012 after reuniting his iteration of Los Caporales with Ojeda. 'This is the old style.' But Jiménez always wanted to transcend the confines of the regional San Antonio scene in which he grew up. 'I wanted to cross over,' he told Texas Highways. 'And I got lucky.' Sometime in the late Sixties or early Seventies, Jiménez began playing with Doug Sahm, the frontman of the Texas rock band the Sir Douglas Quintet. The collaboration changed the trajectory of both musicians' careers, and resulted, many years later, in the forming of the Texas Tornados, the beloved, Grammy-winning Tejano supergroup featuring Jiménez, Sahm, Augie Meyers, and Freddy Fender. Jiménez recorded a number of albums throughout the Seventies and Eighties, many of them for San Antonio's D.L.B. Records as well as the California-based roots label Arhoolie. As his career progressed, Jiménez would go on to collaborate with a who's who of rock, folk, and country legends, including the Rolling Stones, who recruited Jiménez to play on 1994's Voodoo Lounge. He also lent his accordion to the Mavericks' 1995 hit 'All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down,' No. 159 on Rolling Stone's list of the 200 Greatest Country Songs of All Time. (Many of the musicians he played with also appeared on Jiménez's 1992 major label debut, Partners.) 'There are musicians. There are great musicians. And then there are musicians that transcend their genre, their place in time as well as cultural and social barriers,' the Mavericks' Raul Malo wrote about Jiménez on social media. 'They create something that generations will study, learn from, and take their own version of that into the world. Flaco Jiménez was such a musician. It's difficult to put in perspective what he managed to do. Simply put, he made a folk instrument (the three button accordion) part of the mainstream.' Throughout his career, Jiménez remained committed to his philosophy of fusion: 'You have to play what's going on in the world,' he said in 1973. 'Starting with polka, and a little rock and roll, or a little cumbia, cha-cha-cha…It's pretty hard just to play polka, polka, polka, polka, or cumbia, cumbia, cumbia. You have to mix it up.' In later years, Jiménez was proud to serve as a representative of his hometown. 'San Antonio is a music city,' he said in 2021. 'Like Nashville is to country and New Orleans is to jazz, San Antonio is to conjunto. The whole city has a musical groove.' Jiménez slowed down in his later years, but continued to perform and remain active. As recently as 2020, Jiménez reunited with the Mavericks and appeared on their album En Español. Asked the following years whether he prefers to communicate in English or Spanish, Jiménez demurred. 'I'm not good at speeches,' Jiménez said. 'People that know me know I let my accordion talk for me.' 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CNN
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Flaco Jimenez, Texas accordionist who expanded popularity of conjunto and Tejano music, dies at 86
Flaco Jimenez, the legendary accordionist from San Antonio who won multiple Grammys and helped expand the popularity of conjunto, Tejano and Tex-Mex music, died Thursday. He was 86. Jimenez's death was announced Thursday evening by his family on social media. 'It is with great sadness that we share tonight the loss of our father, Flaco Jimenez. He was surrounded by his loved ones and will be missed immensely. Thank you to all of his fans and friends—those who cherished his music. And a big thank you for all of the memories. His legacy will live on through his music and all of his fans,' Jimenez's family said in a statement. His family did not disclose a cause of death. Jimenez's family had announced in January that he had been hospitalized and had been 'facing a medical hurdle.' His family did not provide any other information on his medical condition at the time. Born Leonardo Jimenez in 1939, he was known to his fans by his nickname of Flaco, which means skinny in Spanish. He was the son of conjunto pioneer Santiago Jimenez. Conjunto is a musical genre that originated in South Texas and blends different genres and cultural influences. According to the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin, the development of conjunto 'began more than a century ago when Texans of Mexican heritage (Tejanos) took an interest in the accordion music of German, Polish, and Czech immigrants. The ensuing Tejano accordion music, accompanied by the bajo sexto (replacing the European tuba) soon came to represent the Tejano way of life, which was closely associated with working in the agricultural fields. The music remains unchanged and serves as a symbol that binds many Tejano communities in South and Central Texas.' Jimenez refined his conjunto musical skills by playing in San Antonio saloons and dance halls. He began performing in the 1960s with fellow San Antonio native Douglas Sahm, the founding member of the Sir Douglas Quintet. Jimenez also played with Bob Dylan, Dr. John and Ry Cooder. Throughout his career, Jimenez added other influences into conjunto music, including from country, rock and jazz. In the 1990s, Jimenez was part of the Tejano supergroup the Texas Tornados, which included Sahm, Augie Meyers and Freddy Fender. The group won a Grammy in 1991 for the song, 'Soy de San Luis.' Jimenez also won another Grammy in 1999 as part of another supergroup, Los Super Seven. Jimenez earned five Grammys and was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. He was also inducted into the National Hispanic Hall of Fame and NYC International Latin Music Hall of Fame and was named a Texas State Musician in 2014. When Jimenez was named a 2022 National Medal of Arts recipient, the White House said he was being honored for 'harnessing heritage to enrich American music' and that by 'blending Norteño, Tex Mex, and Tejano music with the Blues, Rock n' Roll, and Pop Music, he sings the soul of America's Southwest.' 'Flaco, your legacy will forever be remembered with fond memories. We appreciate the gift of your musical talent, which brought joy to countless fans. Your passing leaves a void in our hearts,' the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum said in a post on social media. Kyle Young, the CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, said Jimenez 'was a paragon of Tejano conjunto music.' 'Whether he was recording with Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt or the Rolling Stones, or working with his own supergroup, the Texas Tornados, Flaco drew millions of listeners into a rich musical world they might not have discovered on their own,' Young said.
CNN
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Flaco Jimenez, Texas accordionist who expanded popularity of conjunto and Tejano music, dies at 86
Flaco Jimenez, the legendary accordionist from San Antonio who won multiple Grammys and helped expand the popularity of conjunto, Tejano and Tex-Mex music, died Thursday. He was 86. Jimenez's death was announced Thursday evening by his family on social media. 'It is with great sadness that we share tonight the loss of our father, Flaco Jimenez. He was surrounded by his loved ones and will be missed immensely. Thank you to all of his fans and friends—those who cherished his music. And a big thank you for all of the memories. His legacy will live on through his music and all of his fans,' Jimenez's family said in a statement. His family did not disclose a cause of death. Jimenez's family had announced in January that he had been hospitalized and had been 'facing a medical hurdle.' His family did not provide any other information on his medical condition at the time. Born Leonardo Jimenez in 1939, he was known to his fans by his nickname of Flaco, which means skinny in Spanish. He was the son of conjunto pioneer Santiago Jimenez. Conjunto is a musical genre that originated in South Texas and blends different genres and cultural influences. According to the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin, the development of conjunto 'began more than a century ago when Texans of Mexican heritage (Tejanos) took an interest in the accordion music of German, Polish, and Czech immigrants. The ensuing Tejano accordion music, accompanied by the bajo sexto (replacing the European tuba) soon came to represent the Tejano way of life, which was closely associated with working in the agricultural fields. The music remains unchanged and serves as a symbol that binds many Tejano communities in South and Central Texas.' Jimenez refined his conjunto musical skills by playing in San Antonio saloons and dance halls. He began performing in the 1960s with fellow San Antonio native Douglas Sahm, the founding member of the Sir Douglas Quintet. Jimenez also played with Bob Dylan, Dr. John and Ry Cooder. Throughout his career, Jimenez added other influences into conjunto music, including from country, rock and jazz. In the 1990s, Jimenez was part of the Tejano supergroup the Texas Tornados, which included Sahm, Augie Meyers and Freddy Fender. The group won a Grammy in 1991 for the song, 'Soy de San Luis.' Jimenez also won another Grammy in 1999 as part of another supergroup, Los Super Seven. Jimenez earned five Grammys and was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. He was also inducted into the National Hispanic Hall of Fame and NYC International Latin Music Hall of Fame and was named a Texas State Musician in 2014. When Jimenez was named a 2022 National Medal of Arts recipient, the White House said he was being honored for 'harnessing heritage to enrich American music' and that by 'blending Norteño, Tex Mex, and Tejano music with the Blues, Rock n' Roll, and Pop Music, he sings the soul of America's Southwest.' 'Flaco, your legacy will forever be remembered with fond memories. We appreciate the gift of your musical talent, which brought joy to countless fans. Your passing leaves a void in our hearts,' the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum said in a post on social media. Kyle Young, the CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, said Jimenez 'was a paragon of Tejano conjunto music.' 'Whether he was recording with Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt or the Rolling Stones, or working with his own supergroup, the Texas Tornados, Flaco drew millions of listeners into a rich musical world they might not have discovered on their own,' Young said.
The Independent
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Flaco Jimenez, Texas accordionist who expanded popularity of conjunto and Tejano music, dies at 86
Flaco Jimenez, the legendary accordionist from San Antonio who won multiple Grammys and helped expand the popularity of conjunto, Tejano and Tex-Mex music, died Thursday. He was 86. Jimenez's death was announced Thursday evening by his family on social media. 'It is with great sadness that we share tonight the loss of our father, Flaco Jimenez. He was surrounded by his loved ones and will be missed immensely. Thank you to all of his fans and friends—those who cherished his music. And a big thank you for all of the memories. His legacy will live on through his music and all of his fans,' Jimenez's family said in a statement. His family did not disclose a cause of death. Jimenez's family had announced in January that he had been hospitalized and had been 'facing a medical hurdle.' His family did not provide any other information on his medical condition at the time. Born Leonardo Jimenez in 1939, he was known to his fans by his nickname of Flaco, which means skinny in Spanish. He was the son of conjunto pioneer Santiago Jimenez. Conjunto is a musical genre that originated in South Texas and blends different genres and cultural influences. According to the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin, the development of conjunto 'began more than a century ago when Texans of Mexican heritage (Tejanos) took an interest in the accordion music of German, Polish, and Czech immigrants. The ensuing Tejano accordion music, accompanied by the bajo sexto (replacing the European tuba) soon came to represent the Tejano way of life, which was closely associated with working in the agricultural fields. The music remains unchanged and serves as a symbol that binds many Tejano communities in South and Central Texas.' Jimenez refined his conjunto musical skills by playing in San Antonio saloons and dance halls. He began performing in the 1960s with fellow San Antonio native Douglas Sahm, the founding member of the Sir Douglas Quintet. Jimenez also played with Bob Dylan, Dr. John and Ry Cooder. Throughout his career, Jimenez added other influences into conjunto music, including from country, rock and jazz. In the 1990s, Jimenez was part of the Tejano supergroup the Texas Tornados, which included Sahm, Augie Meyers and Freddy Fender. The group won a Grammy in 1991 for the song, 'Soy de San Luis.' Jimenez also won another Grammy in 1999 as part of another supergroup, Los Super Seven. Jimenez earned five Grammys and was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. He was also inducted into the National Hispanic Hall of Fame and NYC International Latin Music Hall of Fame and was named a Texas State Musician in 2014. When Jimenez was named a 2022 National Medal of Arts recipient, the White House said he was being honored for 'harnessing heritage to enrich American music' and that by 'blending Norteño, Tex Mex, and Tejano music with the Blues, Rock n' Roll, and Pop Music, he sings the soul of America's Southwest.' 'Flaco, your legacy will forever be remembered with fond memories. We appreciate the gift of your musical talent, which brought joy to countless fans. Your passing leaves a void in our hearts,' the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum said in a post on social media. Kyle Young, the CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, said Jimenez 'was a paragon of Tejano conjunto music.' 'Whether he was recording with Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt or the Rolling Stones, or working with his own supergroup, the Texas Tornados, Flaco drew millions of listeners into a rich musical world they might not have discovered on their own,' Young said. ___
Associated Press
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Flaco Jimenez, Texas accordionist who expanded popularity of conjunto and Tejano music, dies at 86
HOUSTON (AP) — Flaco Jimenez, the legendary accordionist from San Antonio who won multiple Grammys and helped expand the popularity of conjunto, Tejano and Tex-Mex music, died Thursday. He was 86. Jimenez's death was announced Thursday evening by his family on social media. 'It is with great sadness that we share tonight the loss of our father, Flaco Jimenez. He was surrounded by his loved ones and will be missed immensely. Thank you to all of his fans and friends—those who cherished his music. And a big thank you for all of the memories. His legacy will live on through his music and all of his fans,' Jimenez's family said in a statement. His family did not disclose a cause of death. Jimenez's family had announced in January that he had been hospitalized and had been 'facing a medical hurdle.' His family did not provide any other information on his medical condition at the time. Born Leonardo Jimenez in 1939, he was known to his fans by his nickname of Flaco, which means skinny in Spanish. He was the son of conjunto pioneer Santiago Jimenez. Conjunto is a musical genre that originated in South Texas and blends different genres and cultural influences. According to the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin, the development of conjunto 'began more than a century ago when Texans of Mexican heritage (Tejanos) took an interest in the accordion music of German, Polish, and Czech immigrants. The ensuing Tejano accordion music, accompanied by the bajo sexto (replacing the European tuba) soon came to represent the Tejano way of life, which was closely associated with working in the agricultural fields. The music remains unchanged and serves as a symbol that binds many Tejano communities in South and Central Texas.' Jimenez refined his conjunto musical skills by playing in San Antonio saloons and dance halls. He began performing in the 1960s with fellow San Antonio native Douglas Sahm, the founding member of the Sir Douglas Quintet. Jimenez also played with Bob Dylan, Dr. John and Ry Cooder. Throughout his career, Jimenez added other influences into conjunto music, including from country, rock and jazz. In the 1990s, Jimenez was part of the Tejano supergroup the Texas Tornados, which included Sahm, Augie Meyers and Freddy Fender. The group won a Grammy in 1991 for the song, 'Soy de San Luis.' Jimenez also won another Grammy in 1999 as part of another supergroup, Los Super Seven. Jimenez earned five Grammys and was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. He was also inducted into the National Hispanic Hall of Fame and NYC International Latin Music Hall of Fame and was named a Texas State Musician in 2014. When Jimenez was named a 2022 National Medal of Arts recipient, the White House said he was being honored for 'harnessing heritage to enrich American music' and that by 'blending Norteño, Tex Mex, and Tejano music with the Blues, Rock n' Roll, and Pop Music, he sings the soul of America's Southwest.' 'Flaco, your legacy will forever be remembered with fond memories. We appreciate the gift of your musical talent, which brought joy to countless fans. Your passing leaves a void in our hearts,' the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum said in a post on social media. Kyle Young, the CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, said Jimenez 'was a paragon of Tejano conjunto music.' 'Whether he was recording with Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt or the Rolling Stones, or working with his own supergroup, the Texas Tornados, Flaco drew millions of listeners into a rich musical world they might not have discovered on their own,' Young said. ___ Follow Juan A. Lozano:
