Tejano Music History: 4 Characteristics of Tejano Music

Tejano music, also known as Tex-Mex music, is a popular form of music in Central and South Texas and northeastern Mexico that combines stylistic elements from both cultures. Tejano music draws from norteño, a style of music from Northern Mexico (“norteño” is the Spanish word for “north”), and the brass music of German and Czech immigrants who settled in Texas during the nineteenth century. Tejano artists borrowed the accordion, stringed instruments like the violin, and brass instruments like the trumpet and tuba from these styles.

Conjunto music—traditional Tejano music from the Rio Grande borderlands—is another primary influence on the sound. Both conjunto groups in Texas and grupos norteños (norteño groups) in Mexico perform with a mix of traditional Mexican and Eastern European instruments like the button accordion, bajo sexto (a 12-string guitar), bass, and drums. Conjunto and norteño groups also play similar setlists built around traditional forms of Mexican music, including corridos, or ballads, and dance music like cumbias, polkas, and waltzes.

Tejano music offers variations on these band arrangements and songs and draws on forms of American music, such as rock, blues, and country, for its sound.

Here is a brief overview of the history of Tejano music:

• Beginnings: The history of Tejano music begins in the 1930s when a handful of Latinx and Latin American musicians from Texas and Mexico began playing to Mexican and Eastern European audiences along the borderlands between the United States and Mexico.
• Popular artists build the audience: Accordionist and conjunto musician Narciso Martínez (“El Huracán de Valle”) and bajo sexto player Santiago Almeida helped anchor those instruments as the bedrock of the Tejano sound. Both Martínez and Houston-based singer Lydia Mendoza reached audiences on both sides of the border thanks to the expanded recording of “race records”—music by Black and Latin performers—from US labels during this period.
• La Onda debuts: The 1950s saw the adoption of American rock and country into Tejano rhythms, which helped create a more concrete division with conjunto and norteño music. A new wave of performers like Austin’s Little Joe & the Latinaires (later La Familia) and the Latin Breed added elements of soul to the Tejano sound by replacing the accordion with synthesizers. Radio stations in the Rio Grande Valley began broadcasting “La Onda Chicano”—a wave of new Chicano music—to listeners in Texas and Mexico, which boosted Tejano music’s popularity by the 1970s and 1980s.
• Selena’s worldwide success: Musicians such as Laura Canales, La Mafia, and Roberto Pulido rose in popularity as La Onda reigned on the airwaves. Their success in the 1970s and 1980s paved the way for one of Tejano’s biggest superstars, Selena, the first Tejana to earn a Grammy. Her pop-influenced music won over audiences from Mexico and the US. Her success accelerated the careers of such modern Tejano musicians as Emilio Navaira, Mazz, and Los Palominos.
• Shifting toward norteño influences: A shift in the Tejano sound toward accordion-based norteño, exemplified by veteran performers like Ramón Ayala and new groups like Intocable, led to a decrease in both audience and radio stations devoted to modern Tejano sounds. Though greatly reduced in scope, Tejano remains popular regional music in Texas and northeastern Mexico.

Several characteristics exemplify Tejano music, including:

1. 1. Influence: Regional Mexican music and traditional Eastern European dance music, like polka, are the primary influences on Tejano music. However, the genre also draws on popular music forms from the US, including rock ‘n’ roll, country, soul, rhythm and blues, and pop music.
2. 2. Band makeup: There are three types of Tejano bands: conjunto Tejano, orquestas, and modern. Conjunto Tejano features the same lineup as Mexican conjunto and norteño bands, while orquestas adopted a traditional rock/soul/jazz arrangement of guitar, bass, and drums with synthesizers and horns. Modern Tejano roots its sound around the synthesizer with accompaniment from a rock-style band. However, many contemporary bands have gone back to the roots of Tejano by elevating the accordion’s role over the synthesizer.
3. 3. Instruments: Tejano music also shares its core musical arrangement with conjunto and norteño, especially in its most traditional or conjunto Tejano form. A lineup of accordion, bajo sexto, bass, and drums forms the foundation of this lineup. The orquesta form of Tejano adds horns and keyboards (later synthesizer) to lend swing to dance numbers, while the modern Tejano band resembles a rock band, with electric guitar and bass, drums, and keyboards.
4. 4. Songs: A Tejano band’s playlist can include traditional Mexican song formats like corridos, rancheras (poetic folk songs), harmony-driven mariachi music, and dance music like cumbia, polkas, waltzes, and folk dances. However, Tejano music also embraces American songwriting styles like rock, blues, soul, and country. Ballads remain popular, though performers like Selena and La Mafia added mainstream pop shadings to the sound.

There are numerous famous Tejano musicians. Among the most enduring are:

1. 1. Emilio Navaira: San Antonio-born Emilio Navaira was a Grammy- and Latin Grammy Award–winning Tejano artist who enjoyed a devoted following in the United States and Mexico. Over his career, Navaira has had numerous singles enter the Billboard Latin and Country charts between 1989 and 2007. Critics widely credit him with helping popularize Tejano music for audiences outside of Latinx and Latin American communities. His death at age 53 in 2016 cut short his celebrated musical career.
2. 2. Jennifer Peña: Singer Jennifer Peña first gained attention at age twelve by performing at a Selena tribute concert in 1995. Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr., produced Peña’s debut album, Dulzura, in 1996. After four consecutive gold records and a 2001 Grammy nomination, Peña signed with Univision Music Group to release Libre, which yielded her Latin chart-topping 2002 single “El Dolor de Tu Presencia.” However, later releases underperformed, and Peña transitioned to Christian music in 2009.
3. 3. La Mafia: Houston’s La Mafia refined the modern Tejano sound by combining accordion, bajo sexton, guitar, bass, and percussion. Their take has survived numerous changes in the Tejano and Latin music industry over their four-decade career and earned numerous awards, including two Grammys and three Latin Grammys.
4. 4. Mazz: The Brownsville, Texas-based El Grupo Mazz was one of the most successful Tejano bands in history, netting a record five Latin Grammy Awards over their four-decade career. Founded by singers Joe Lopez and Jimmy Gonzalez, Mazz blended traditional Tejano music with rock, pop, and blues. The pair split in 1997, leaving Gonzalez at the helm of Mazz until they reunited in 2006. His death in 2018 rang down the curtain on one of Tejano music’s most beloved bands.
5. 5. Selena: One of the top-selling Latin artists of the 1990s, Texan Selena Quintanilla-Pérez began her career as the vocalist for Selena y Los Dinos before rising to international fame as a solo artist in 1989. In less than a decade, she had earned a Grammy award and netted one of the best-selling Latin albums of all time with her second studio album, 1994’s Amor Prohibido. Selena’s friend and fan club president Yolanda Saldívar fatally shot the singer in 1995, cutting her chances for crossover stardom short. The groundbreaking singer remains a revered figure in Tejano and Latin music.
6. 6. The Texas Tornados: The Texas Tornados was a multiethnic supergroup of Anglo and Latin American music legends from the Lone Star State. The Tornados featured San Antonio-born multi-instrumentalist Doug Sahm and keyboardist Augie Meyers, who performed together in the 1960s in the garage/psychedelic band the Sir Douglas Quintet. Singer/guitarist Freddy Fender scored a huge solo hit in the 1970s with “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights,” and conjunto accordion giant Flaco Jiménez completed the quartet. The group blended Tex-Mex rock, Tejano, and country on four albums and earned a Grammy Award for Best Mexican American Performance in 1990. Sahm, Fender, and Jiménez later joined another all-star Tejano act, Los Super Seven, which featured members of Los Lobos, the Mavericks, rockers Joe Ely and Rick Treviño, and Tejano Music Awards Hall of Famer Ruben Ramos.

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