Leonardo “Flaco” Jiménez, the singer, songwriter, and grasp accordionist, has died. Throughout a profession spanning over 70 years, which included collaborations with Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and plenty of others, Jiménez helped to popularize the Mexican music birthed in his native South Texas alternatively referred to as conjunto, norteño, or Tejano, although Jiménez typically most well-liked to label it Tex-Mex. No reason behind dying was given in the Facebook post from Jimenéz’s household saying his dying. He was 86 years outdated.
Born in San Antonio, Texas, Jiménez got here from a lineage of accordionists, together with his grandfather, Patricio, and father, Santiago Jiménez Sr. A pioneer of conjunto who injected his sound with accordion melodies impressed by the German and Czech polkas and waltzes he heard at dance halls in South and Central Texas, Santiago didn’t want to show his son methods to play the instrument; as a substitute, the youthful Jiménez discovered the instrument himself at age seven merely from listening to his father play. “I used to be self-taught,” Jiménez defined to NPR in 2014. “You recognize, I used to look at my dad play at residence and feeling the instrument—not simply enjoying it, however feeling it, .” He rapidly earned the nickname “Flaco,” or “Skinny,” the identical moniker that his father used when he started enjoying music.
Jiménez’s unmatched exuberance and ability on the accordion made him a fast-rising star in his native Texas. He was a daily within the dirt-floor dance corridor scenes of cities and cities within the Sixties throughout the state, and he ultimately paired up with Douglas Sahm, the founding member of the Sir Douglas Quintet and a key inventive collaborator; the pair would go on to discovered the Texas Tornados, a conjunto supergroup that recorded seven albums. In 1973, Sahm recruited Jiménez to contribute to his Doug Sahm and Band album, the place he brushed shoulders with luminaries like Bob Dylan and Dr. John, paving the way in which for Jiménez’s personal breakthrough. “Doug informed me ‘you’re not imagined to play simply that easy, conventional conjunto music,’” he mentioned in a 2000 interview. “There are such a lot of gamers who stayed in the identical crater like my papa did. Doug confirmed me there have been different worlds on the market.”
Over the next many years, Jiménez introduced his expressive accordion enjoying to collaborations with the Rolling Stones, Linda Rondstadt, Dwight Yoakam, and Ry Cooder, amongst many others. He launched over 25 studio albums of his personal and acquired six Grammy Awards in his lifetime, together with trophies for Greatest Nation Instrumental Album, in 1996, and the inaugural Greatest Tejano Music Efficiency, for 1998’s Mentioned and Achieved. “I began making conjunto extra progressive due to the flexibility that I imagine in,” Jiménez mentioned in an interview for PBS’ American Roots. “I feel it’s good to alter it a bit.”
