Conjunto legend Flaco Jimenez still playing at 80.
Accordion king still rules city’s music scene
Conjunto accordionist Flaco Jimenez, San Antonio’s foremost living musician, celebrated his 80th birthday Monday. He will do it all over again with an all-star cast at a birthday-bash concert tonight at John T. Floore Country Store.
“Music itself keeps me alive. It’s my life since I was a kid,” said Jimenez, who jokes that he doesn’t feel 80 — 90, maybe.
“The heart doesn’t get old. When I’m onstage, whether I’m limping a little or sitting down, I feel like the young Flaco.”
Jimenez, a recipient of the music industry’s highest awards, is hailed as a musical treasure. He is music royalty, a global ambassador. There will never be another one like him.
What does that mean, exactly?
One way to look at it: Leonardo “Flaco” Jimenez is our “Satchmo,” the Alamo City’s Louis Armstrong.
Both men pioneered distinct musical forms tied to their region, culture, race and ethnicity — and brought it to the world. Armstrong did it with his trumpet; Jimenez with a squeezebox.
Like Armstrong, the underage, impoverished Jimenez gathered musical knowledge hanging outside the doors and windows of the bars and cantinas of the red-light district.
In San Antonio, that was an area near where Market Square now stands.
Just as Satchmo was blessed with personality, showmanship, the ability to improvise and cross over into the mainstream, so was Jimenez. The humble homegrown musician gained worldwide fame recording and performing with Doug Sahm, Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, Willie Nelson, Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam, Carlos Santana, Texas Tornados and the Rolling Stones.
And he did it all with a Hohner Corona II three-row button accordion. He still files the instrument’s reed blocks to fine-tune his alegre (happy) tone.
“There are other good ones, but they’re too flashy for me. Some accordions look like Christmas trees,” Jimenez joked.
Since the demise of the Texas Tornados last year, Jimenez has been performing select gigs and recording with Los TexManiacs and Augie Meyers.
Family historian Santiago Jimenez Jr., a revered and influential musician in his own right, said his older brother is
the greatest: “There is never going to be another Flaco.”
“He is very, very important, very humble, very lovable,” Santiago said. “Flaco has helped a lot of Anglo acts, big stars. Flaco is in that class. Everyone knows it.
“In Tex-Mex, he is royalty. He is a pure musician. Once Flaco is gone, that’s it.”
Through it all, Flaco Jimenez has never forgotten where he came from. He was born at home on Pastores Street in San Antonio about 2:30 a.m. on March 11, 1939. The neighborhood, a colonia at the time, no longer exists.
Last month at a black-tie event in Austin, after receiving the HistoryMaking Texan Award (along with businessman Charles Butt) from the Texas State History Museum Foundation, Jimenez first thanked his hometown fans and musicians.
Los Angeles music journalist Oscar Garza remembers when Jimenez used to play his father’s bar on San Antonio’s South Side. He was too young to appreciate Jimenez’s true genius.
“I wasn’t the biggest fan of TexMex music when I was a teen,” Garza said. “But once Flaco started playing with the likes of Ry Cooder, I figured he must be cool. Turns out he’s cooler than everybody.”
Jimenez had been a regional star since the mid-1950s. But it was Les Blank’s and Chris Stachwitz’s documentary “Chulas Fronteras” in 1976 that really cemented Jimenez’s reputation as the genre’s badass.
Only the late iconoclast Esteban “Steve” Jordan rivaled his musical genius and influence. But he remains a cult figure.
Jimenez’s ability, and willingness, to go beyond the boundaries of traditional conjunto can be traced to Sahm’s first solo album in 1973, the commercial failure “Doug Sahm and Band.”
“Flaco is still ‘the guy.’ He’s not an imitator. He’s an original,” said Max Baca, whose TexManiacs will serve as the backing band at Friday’s birthday concert.
“He’s just so cool. He is one of a kind. Flaco has surpassed them all, but what makes Flaco is his humility and those licks. Alegre cool.”
The accolades are nice, but Jimenez plays down the praise.
“Oh, man. I thank God for having me still be here,” he said.