Flaco Jimenez crossover album ‘Partners’ named to the National Recording Registry
Janet Jackson. Kermit the Frog. Flaco Jimenez.
The Library of Congress announced today that Jimenez’s 1992 bilingual crossover album “Partners” is on its new list of 25 audio recordings worthy of preservation for the ages.
The latest selections for the National Recording Registry also include Jackson’s 1989 album “Rhythm Nation 1814”; the song “The Rainbow Connection,” first performed by Jim Henson as Kermit in 1979; and Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s 1993 recordings of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “What a Wonderful World.”
“I never expected something like that,” Jimenez said. “I had a delayed reaction: ‘Is this important?’ It’s real satisfying. It was one of the best (albums) I’ve done.”
Other recordings recognized this year for their cultural, historic and aesthetic importance: Thomas Edison’s 1878 recording of music on a piece of tinfoil; Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra’s 1938 “When the Saints Go Marching In”; and the radio broadcast by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill from Christmas Eve 1942.
Leonardo “Flaco” Jimenez, who turned 82 this month, is considered the greatest living ambassador of conjunto music, an artist with a global reputation who counts as friends the likes of Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.
The down-home San Antonio native has received every major music award and a wide array of honors.
A multi-grammy Award winner as a solo artist and as a member of the Texas Tornados and Los Super Seven, Jimenez also is a recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship and a Texas Medal of Arts.
Photographer Al Rendon’s
photo of Jimenez was added to the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in 2017. And last year, Jimenez received the Chris Strachwitz Legacy Award from the Arhoolie Foundation, which is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of American roots music.
Though musicians such as Doug Sahm and Ry Cooder had heralded Jimenez for decades, “Partners” built on the wider mainstream recognition he achieved as a member of Texas Tornados. It paired him with guest artists such as Stephen Stills, Dwight Yoakam, Linda Ronstadt, John Hiatt, Emmylou Harris and Los Lobos.
“I just wanted to explore something else, be part of other stuff,” Jimenez said, adding that “Partners,” at the time, was just another album for him. “I didn’t call them. They called me. I just did my thing.”
Now, hearing his sensitive accordion playing lay in right behind the acoustic guitar, pedal steel guitar and drums to introduce the vocals on Stills’ classic “Change Partners” is a thing of “satisfaction and pride,” he said.
Produced by Bill Halverson, “Partners” also included a song close to Jimenez’s heart, “Eres Un Encanto,” which was written by his father, accordionist Santiago Jimenez.
Jimenez recalled an earlier recording of the song when he backed up his dad on bajo sexto at session for Joey Records.
“It was my dream (to record it),” he said.
His memories of making the album almost 30 years ago are
admittedly a little fuzzy, though Jimenez recalls traveling to numerous recording sessions in Nashville and Hollywood, and watching Yoakam record his lead vocal flawlessly on the Warren Zevon song “Carmelita.” “He was into it,” he said. Jimenez listened to the allstar album recently. His assessment: “It was a real crossover.”
The Librarian of Congress, with input from the National Recording Preservation Board, selects 25 recordings every year for the National Recording Registy based on nominations made by the public. The recordings must be at least 10 years old.
With this year’s picks, the number of recordings in the National Recording Registry is 575. Jimenez’s “Partners” is one of 21 albums on the registry featuring Latino artists.