Music History In The Rio Grande Valley
...and waltzes to the state’s musical culture. By the middle of the 19th century, Mexican-American musicians had acquired the accordion and a taste for polka rhythms, creating bouncy Conjunto music and leading to today’s Tejano sound. One of Conjunto’s leading accordionists, Flaco Jimenez, even recorded with the Rolling Stones and Dwight Yoakum, making accordion music “hip.”
Steel guitarist prodigy Doug Sahm embraced the Tex-Mex sound and played homage to his Texas roots. He eventually hooked up with his mentor Freddy Fender, Augie Meyers and Flaco Jimenez to form the Texas Tornados, a Tex-Mex supergroup who earned Grammys and high chart action. Today, Los Super Seven, featuring former Texas Tornados and adding country star Rick Trevino, continues the Mexican-American supergroup tradition.
“Tejano” usually refers to the electrified, pop-oriented music of younger generations of Mexican-Americans. The contagious dance music combines the modern - synthesizers - with the traditional -- accordion - and is extremely popular in Texas. Its biggest star, Corpus Christi’s Selena , combined the Latin American cumbia with American dance music. Immensely popular, Selena and her band played to huge crowds including more than 60,000 at the Houston Astrodome . Selena died in 1995, but not before influencing hundreds of thousands of Mexican-American youth who idolized the young singer. Today, Tejano continues to be a culturally significant symbol of collective pride.
In 1939, the Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show and Agricultural Exposition, the forerunner of today's show, was organized as a project of the Mercedes Chamber of Commerce. The first Show was held in 1940 on the grounds of a local livestock sales yard with makeshift pens and lean-to sheds. The show continued to be held on this same property until 1949, when it moved to its...
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