Leonardo Jimenez, Conjunto musician
Leonardo “Flaco” Jimenez discusses his career as a conjunto musician in South Texas and his efforts to reach larger audiences. Host Linda Fregoso first offers a brief history of conjunto music and its origins in the Mexican working class and the musical styles of the French and German immigrants who settled in Texas. She then speaks with Jimenez about how he got started playing conjunto music. Jimenez, whose father was the famed accordionist Don Santiago Jimenez, started teaching himself how to play the guitar and then the accordion when he was still a child. By the age of ten, he was accompanying his father at some of his gigs, and when he was 15 he started his own band. Jimenez explains that in these early years the recording industry was hesitant to promote conjunto music because they associated it with the lower classes and did not think it would sell, but that has changed as conjunto music’s popularity has exploded. Throughout his career, Jimenez has played with several popular musicians, including Bob Dylan and Ry Cooder, and he appeared with the latter on Saturday Night Live. Jimenez then discusses his interest in expanding his audience and how he alters his music when he plays for Anglos. Jimenez has also appeared in several films and recorded songs for soundtracks. He concludes that he plays for the people and that he will never fully quit the music industry.
KEYWORDS
Abre La CorazonAccordion
Assimilation
Bajo Sexto
Bilingual Music
Bob Dylan
Bolsa Vacia
Border
Cantinas
Chicken Skin
Conjunto Music
Cross-Over Music
Discos Joey
Dough Sahm
Freddy Fender
French Immigrants
German Immigrants
Hasta la Vista
Henry Zimmerle
Internal Migration
Jack Nicholson
Joe Ponce
La Bamba
Leonardo “Flaco” Jiménez
Leonardo Jimenez y los Caporales
Leonardo Jimenez y su Conjunto
Manuel Peña
Middle Class Culture
Orquesta Music
Peter Rowan
Polka
Popular Culture
Recording Industry
Rock Music
Ry Cooder
San Antonio, Texas
Santiago Jimenez
Santiago Jimenez Jr.
Saturday Night Live
Sir Douglas Quintet
South Texas
Tejano music
Tololoche
Urban Culture
Working Class Culture