Tejano music

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Tejano music (Spanish: música tejana), also known as Tex-Mex music, is a popular music style fusing Mexican and US influences.^[1] Typically, Tejano combines Mexican Spanish vocal styles with dance rhythms from Czech and German genres – particularly polka or waltz.^[2][3] Tejano music is traditionally played by small groups featuring accordion and guitar or bajo sexto. Its evolution began in northern Mexico (a variation known as norteño).^[4][5]

It reached a much larger audience in the late 20th century thanks to the explosive popularity of the singer

Norteño/conjunto accordion pioneer Narciso Martínez, known as the "Father of Conjunto Music", defined the accordion's role in conjunto music. He learned many tunes from German, Polish and Czech brass bands and transposed them to accordion.^[10] Martínez gave accordion playing a new virtuosity in the 1930s, when he adopted the two button row accordion. At the same time, he formed a group with bajo sexto player Santiago Almeida.^[11]

With the accordion, drums, and bajo sexto, Tejanos now had a sound they could begin to call their own. In the 1940s, Valerio Longoria introduced lyrics to conjunto music, further establishing the Tejano claim to this new sound.^[12]

In the 1950s,

Tejano musicians like Flaco Jiménez and Esteban Steve Jordan carried on Martinez's tradition of accordion virtuosity and became a fixture on the international World Music scene by the 1980s.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1950s and 1960s, rock and roll and country music made inroads, and electric guitars and drums were added to conjunto combos. Also, performers such as Little Joe added both nuances of soul music and R&B, and a Chicano political consciousness. Little Joe, Estevan Jordan, The Royal Jesters, Romances, Carlos Guzman, Joe Bravo, Dimas Three, Chuck & the Dots, the Sky Tones, the Broken Hearts, the Volumes and Sunny Ozuna and the Sunliners were popular in 1960s.^[13]

The 1960s and 1970s brought a new chicano music and the first La Onda Tejana Broadcasters. Popular Tejano musician and producer

La Onda popularity continued to surge in the early to mid-1980s with the fusion progression of Tejano music coming to the forefront regionally with Tejano ballads like Espejismo's hit "Somos Los Dos", written and sung by

Since the end of the 20th century, Tejano has seen a decline of dedicated radio stations across the US, due to several factors. Among these is the success of Intocable. As a result, many radio stations across the U.S., especially in Texas, have converted to Norteño/banda. This has caused Tejano internet radio to become popular.^[15]

At the turn of the 21st century, Tejano influence has declined in part due to decreased promotion, the rise in Regional Mexican and other Latin music, the breakup or retirement of established performers, and the emergence of few new performers. Most Tejano artists who performed throughout the 1990s during the music's peak who are still performing today have rarely played to the same wide attention in recent years. Regardless, today's Tejano music, while far more pop-oriented than its Depression-era roots, is still a regional musical style in several Tejano communities as well as in other parts of the United States.^{[citation needed]}

Development

Tejano music was born in Texas. Although it has influences from Mexico and other Latin American countries, the main influences are American. The types of music that make up Tejano are

There has been an increasing Mexican influence on Tejano music resulting in a sound more like Norteño.^[19][20] The accordion, while a historically popular instrument in Tejano music, has gone from a secondary instrument to a must-have instrument. Today, groups like Sunny Sauceda, Eddie Gonzalez, and La Tropa F^[21][22] emphasize the accordion.

Music industry

During the Post World War II years, local and regional companies emerged to record and market Tejano music. Key factors that influenced the production of Tejano music can be attributed to a diversifying American culture and greater socioeconomic opportunities enabled Mexican American musicians to perform and record music for regional audiences. Early popular forms of Tejano music in the form of female duets and orquesta tejana of the 1940s later influenced the development of Tex-Mex style of the 1950s, and La Onda Chicana (The Chicano Wave) of the 1960s.^[23] The growing popularity of accordion based music and "homegrown" records directly influenced the need for Tejano record producers and labels.

Record companies such as Discos Ideal established in San Benito, Texas in 1947 and Freddie Records established in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1970 are among the most prolific in producing conjunto style music. Freddie Records, named after founder, Freddie Martinez, Sr. has remained a key figure in the production of Tejano music well into the 21st century.

Influence

The term "Tex-Mex" is also used in American rock and roll for

Contemporary Swedish-American composer Sven-David Sandström has incorporated Tejano stylings in his classical music.

Tejano and conjunto music is so popular that organizations such as the Guadalupe Arts Center in San Antonio, Texas hold annual festivals every year. The performers have included legends such as Flaco Jiménez, conjunto groups from around the world, and contemporary artists.

Tejano music female singers of the late 1980s and 1990s

The unknown history of many Tejano female singers in the late 1980s and 1990s has remained in the dark because of little to no media exposure; perhaps, the media was fixated on the biggest names like Selena, Laura Canales, Elsa García (singer), Elida Reyna, Shelly Lares and a few others. They were famous and well promoted for good reason - they had notable vocal talent, great producers, top class musicians (bands), and recording studios that rushed to give them the publicity they needed. Tejano female singers Lynda V (and the Boys) and Letty Guval are two amongst others who made their mark in Tejano Music in 1990s but little is known about them. Lynda V (and the Boys) formed her band in 1988, signed a record contract with Bob Griever and CBS Records in 1990, and two years later signed a record deal with major company Capitol EMI. Lynda V and the Boys worked together as a band until 2005. Letty Guval started her Tejano music career in 1994 after singing with the University of Texas Pan American Mariachi Band in Edinburg for two years. She signed a record contract with Wicker Records in 1994 and signed a four-year contract with Fonovisa-Platino Records; her career was short-lived, but she was the first female Tejano artist to be invited to sing at the White House during the Clinton administration in 1994. In her News article, Kelly James from the South Bend Tribune writes about Letty, "Born in California, raised in Mexico, and educated in Texas, Guval incorporates her cross-cultural experience into her music."^[25] In his book, Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr. writes about both, Letty Guval and Lynda V, he writes, "EMI Latin … had five relatively new female acts: Stephanie Lynn, Elsa García, Lynda V. and the Boys, Agnes Torres of the New Variety Band, and Delia y Culturas".^[26]  About Letty Guval San Miguel says, "Occasionally, Tejano musicians provided only touches of music from other styles, their incorporation into Tejano music was brief enough so that it did not interrupt the beat of the song. Two examples come to mind—one from Letty Guval and the second from Conjunto Bernal. In the mid-1990s, Guval, a popular Tejana performer, recorded a ranchera called 'Sentimiento.' At key points in the song and for only a few seconds, she incorporated some banda rhythms."^[26] Both Lynda V. and Letty Guval traveled the United States and Mexico performing for many. In the 1990s both performed different times at the Tejano Music Awards and the Johnny Canales Show.

See also

• Carlos Santana
• Chicano rap
• Chicano rock
• Chulas Fronteras (1976 film)
• Latin American music
• Latin Grammy Award for Best Tejano Album
• Latin music
• Music of Texas
• Tejano Music Awards

References

Further reading

• Díaz-Santana Garza, Luis (2021). Between Norteño and Tejano Conjunto: Music, Tradition and Culture at the U.S.–Mexico Border. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  OCLC 1240575442
  .
• Villarreal, Mary Ann (2015). Listening to Rosita: The Business of Tejana Music and Culture, 1930–1955. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
  OCLC 908192594
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tex-Mex music.

• Tejano Music News