Don Santiago Jimenez, Sr.

Don Santiago was the visionary person in an accordion-crazy family members. He offers received practically all of the credit for combining the ranchera tunes of North Mexico having a snappy German polka defeat and accordion designs. His dad, Patricio, have been an in-demand accordion performer round the turn from the hundred years in southern Tx. And Don Santiago’s two sons possess made grand titles for themselves as accordion players: Flaco Santiago as a respected firebrand of norteño or conjunto music and Santiago Jr. transporting on using the even more traditional noises of his dad. Tracing the advancement of the family’s musical history back again to their grandfather, one discovers Patricio regularly becoming hired to amuse Texan descendents of German and Moravian immigrants. To maintain them content, he discovered scads of mazurkas, polkas, waltzes, and schotishes. Don Santiago found a lot of this music at his father’s ft, as he was frequently allowed to arrive towards the dances. He got his 1st accordion at age group ten in 1923. From the ’30s, Don Santiago was creating his own status throughout southern Tx with both recordings and live radio broadcasts. One advancement in the documenting market that could possess easily triggered them problems proved to the benefit of local artists rather. When the best labels began support off on documenting this sort of music in the ’40s, small independents in fact stepped up their activity hoping of nabbing a more substantial share of the marketplace. This allowed Don Santiago to record many of his bigger hits, such as for example “Viva Seguin” and “La Piedrera.” In this period, he was probably one of the most important accordion players within the picture, as increasingly more players started to duplicate him and use components of his design. Not content material to relax on his laurels, Don Santiago held up with the adjustments in norteño music; as young disciple Fred Zimmerle developed the thought of getting the Mexican duet performing design into the mix, Don Santiago added materials of the ilk to his repertoire. Within the Arhoolie documenting session that ended up being his last recording, he performed unique songs he previously written in both new and older styles. Among these amounts, “Ay Te Dejo En San Antonio,” was ultimately recorded like a cover from the Los Angeles-based origins rock and roll group Los Lobos, as well as made it within the soundtrack for the film Revenge. Don Santiago was an designer whose fame pass on through person to person and through worldwide record collectors, not really through touring. Actually, probably one of the most impressive reasons for having his career is definitely that he performed every weekend in the same San Antonio nightclub, Un Gaucho, for greater than a 10 years. These shows had been almost without exemption standing room just. He always maintained his individuality being a performer, despite legions of imitators and the type of all-pervasive affects that resulted in music artists playing in his design when they don’t realize it. Some Tex-Mex listeners provide partial credit because of this to Don Santiago’s decision to adhere to the two-row key accordion he began on instead of switching towards the three-row accordions if they came along. This is, in ways, a warranty that he’d sound unique of other people. In 1978, Don Santiago and his family members had been filmed by documentary movie director Les Empty for his creation on Texas-Mexico boundary music entitled Chulas Fronteras. He performed for approximately six years following this film premiered, working a reliable every week gig at Jimmy’s, a Mexican cafe in northeast San Antonio. He’s survived not merely by his sons, but with the wealthy norteño musical custom that presents no signals of fading apart.