Max Baca is one of the foremost artists of Tex-Mex music, the infectious dance music sweeping through the Texas-Mexico borderlands since the 1940s. His Grammy-winning group, Los Texmaniacs, and his extensive work with the accordionist Flaco Jiménez established the Albuquerque-born and San Antonio–based bajo sexto player/bandleader as a spokesperson for a too-often-maligned culture. The list of artists who have contributed to Los Texmaniacs’ albums include Alejandro Escovedo, Joe Ely, Rick Trevino, Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel, David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, and Lyle Lovett.
Max Baca was born to play music. By his eighth birthday, he was already playing in his father’s band. Polkas, redovas, corridos, boleros, chotises, huapangos, and waltzes are in his blood. Baca’s music grew out of the harsh life of the borderland, and the duality of borderland music—its keening beauty—remains a recurring theme in everything he does.
Max Baca's memoir offers an invaluable contribution to the very thin body of memoirs written by nonwhite musicians who have been key figures in the historical development of Hispanic musical cultures in the United States.--Ana R. Alonso-Minutti, coeditor of Experimentalisms in Practice: Music Perspectives from Latin America
Max Baca is an American original. The music he makes is indistinguishable from the life he has lived, and it could never have happened anywhere else in the world.--Daniel Sheehy, curator emeritus, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
Max Baca is an American original. The music he makes is indistinguishable from the life he has lived, and it could never have happened anywhere else in the world.--Daniel Sheehy, curator emeritus, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
