When I first heard Leonardo "Flaco" Jimenez doing his accordion magic, he was in distinguished company. It was on the album Doug Sahm and Band, which I acquired not long after its release in 1973. Along with Doug and Flaco, the musicians on the album included Bob Dylan, Dr. John, David "Fathead" Newman, David Bromberg, and Kenny Kosek. With all that I heard Flaco's accordion, an instrument for which I hadn't yet developed a great liking, doing wonderful things.
After that, Flaco joined the Texas Tornados, another Doug Sahm led group that included Freddy Fender (born Baldemar Huerta), a star in his own right, and Augie Meyers, whose stylings on his Vox Continental organ (an instrument also used by Ray Manzarek of The Doors) thrilled me since I'd first listened to the Sir Douglas Quintet in the '60s. The video above is of the Tornados doing "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone," a song that was made a hit by Charley Pride, the first Black artist to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. I chose the Tornados' version of this song as an example of Flaco's style because of the delightful interplay of his accordion with Augie's Vox organ, and because of my own connection to San Antonio, where I spent a couple of formative childhood years.
As I've told elsewhere, it was in San Antonio that my mother, who grew up in central Pennsylvania, learned to buy fresh tamales, wrapped in cornhusks, that we would often have for dinner, and where, for my fourth birthday, I was given a "Billy the Kid" outfit that included a hat, denim shirt and jeans, boots, a belt with a holster, and a cap pistol, from Joske's of Texas. When I returned to San Antonio in the '90s for a convention I went to what had been Joske's but had become part of a national chain, hoping to get a pair of "cowgirl" boots for my then three year old daughter. I was told they didn't carry such things. I then learned that the place to go for Western attire was el Barrio.
I now know that Flaco and I had San Antonio in common; he was born and raised there. When I first moved to Brooklyn Heights in the mid '80s I often indulged the taste for tamales I had acquired in San Antonio at a now long gone little restaurant called Old Mexico. On weekends an accordionist, whose name I'm sorry to say I've forgotten, would play there. I told him I enjoyed his music, and that I was a fan of Flaco's. He said he had recently seen Flaco perform, that he was as good as ever, but that Flaco wasn't flaco (Spanish for "skinny") any more.
Adios, Flaco. Perhaps the heavenly choir will appreciate some accordion accompaniment
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