Flaco Jimenez: A South Texas Music Legend
The legendary accordionist from San Antonio, passed away on July 31, 2025.
Flaco Jiménez, the legendary accordionist from San Antonio, passed away on July 31, 2025, at the age of 86. Over a remarkable seven-decade career, he redefined conjunto, Tejano, and Tex-Mex music, earning global acclaim and numerous accolades, including six Grammy Awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He received the National Medal of Arts award in 2022.
Flaco’s signature accordion style enlivened the rich conjunto and Norteño Borderland sounds. His improvisational and instantly distinguishable music and the songs he wrote became symbolic of Texas border sounds. He recorded over 100 albums and appeared on countless other recordings as a collaborator, performing with iconic artists such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Ry Cooder, Linda Ronstadt, and Dwight Yoakam. As a member of groups like the Texas Tornados and Los Super Seven, he bridged genres and generations, inspiring musicians across cultural and stylistic boundaries.
When Flaco plays, everyone dances. Del Rio, Texas mural by Cris Escobar. Courtesy of the artist.
Flaco grew up in a talented musical family. His grandfather, Patricio Jimenez, a Texas native from Eagle Pass, gave Flaco’s dad, Don Santiago Jimenez, his first music lessons. Patricio Jimenez came to San Antonio as a young man and found work in the quarry adjacent to Brackenridge Park. The family lived in the “Mexican Village,” a housing camp for laborers located next to the quarry.
The musicians of that era all had day jobs and played for tips in the evenings or weekends. Many of them found receptive audiences at the San Antonio Plaza de Zacate, a city park across from Farmer’s Produce Market, which is now Market Square. It was there that the famed singer, Lydia Mendoza, got her start.
Flaco loved to listen to his father play the accordion. As a pre-school child, Flaco often sat in the living room in awe as his dad wrote songs and practiced new musical scores. By age six, Flaco began to practice with his dad’s accordion and bajo sexto while his father was away at work. His dad came home early one day and found Flaco playing. His dad’s tears told Flaco that his dad not only approved, but that he saw musical talent in his son.
Flaco and members of his band at a backyard [East 6th Street] Austin political fundraiser for State Senator Gonzalo Barrientos. Photo by Ricardo Romo, circa 1984.
Flaco has fond memories of the day his music career began in 1947 at age eight. His dad had taken him to watch his performance at “El Gaucho,” a nightclub on El Paso Street on the Westside of San Antonio. Cruz Saenz, owner of the nightclub, contracted Don Santiago in the mid-1940s, and the accordion maestro played there every weekend over the next ten years. [Full disclosures: Cruz Saenz was my uncle, the brother of my grandmother, Maria Saenz Romo, who also lived on El Paso Street]. I first went to the nightclub when I was 14, and I vividly recall the great conjunto music of Don Santiago Jimenez.
Flaco, who learned to play both the bajo sexto and accordion, formed a band at age 15, Los Caporales. By the 1960s, Flaco had become one of South Texas’ most popular TexMex musicians. He pioneered a sound that fused traditional Mexican rhythms with German-influenced polkas, and creatively blended conjunto with country, blues, rock, and jazz. Flaco was famous in Texas, but little known nationally, and largely unknown internationally. In 1973, his friend, Doug Sahm, founder of the Sir Douglas Quintet, invited Flaco to record with him for Atlantic Records. Music critic James Head wrote that Doug Sahm released the album “Doug Sahm and Band” with help from his friends Flaco Jimenez, Bob Dylan, and Dr. John. The album includes the popular song “Is Anybody Going to San Antone?”
Flaco by San Antonio photographer Guillermina Zabala, 2006. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Doug Sahm’s album helped Flaco gain national exposure, but Flaco’s introduction to international audiences came with his association with the famed singer and master guitarist, Ry Cooder. In the mid-seventies, Cooder invited Flaco to join him on a European tour. Cooder loved Flaco’s music and in 1976 included him in his album “Chicken Skin Music.” Flaco, then in his late forties, was becoming the most admired and most well-known representative of TexMex music.
Every decade has had its memorable moments for Flaco. One of his more important moments of the mid-1970s occurred when a documentary film crew from California came to South Texas to produce a movie about the region’s important Norteño and TexMex musicians. The movie, “Chulas Fronteras,” brought Chris Strachwitz, founder of Arhoolie Records, and famed documentary film producer, Les Blank, to Texas. Bank filmed several TexMex and Norteño bands and singers. Among the stars of the movie were the Jimenez family– Don Santiago, his son Santiago, and Flaco. Also featured were Lydia Mendoza and the famed Norteño band, “Los Alegres de Teran.”
Flaco Jiménez in concert. Photo courtesy of Arturo and Lisa Jiménez.
Music historian David Witt commented that the film Chulas Fronteras included many of the songs that are “standard tales of unrequited or dysfunctional love— Lydia Mendoza’s rendition of Mal Hombre and La Nueva Zenaida by Flaco .” Flaco’s introduction to Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records led to the release in 1978 of the album “Flaco Jimenez & His Conjunto” and to a famous Flaco recording of Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio which won Flaco the Grammy award in 1986.
In 1989, Doug Sahm formed the Texas Tornados and invited Freddy Fender, Augie Meyers, and Flaco Jimenez to join him. Soon after, they were signed by the prestigious recording studio Warner Brothers Reprise, and the group recorded its first album, Texas Tornados, in 1990. The popular album hit Number 5 on the country charts, and a song from that album, “Soy de San Luis,” won the 1991 Grammy for Best Mexican American Performance.
Flaco was performing in San Francisco in 1994 when he received a call from Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. Would he fly to Los Angeles and add a song to their album? A quick “yes” got him on a flight to a Los Angeles studio where he recorded an accordion solo for the Stones’ upcoming album “Voodoo Lounge.” Soon after, Raul Malo of the Mavericks invited Flaco to join them in their album “Music for All Occasions.” Flaco made a notable contribution to the Mavericks’ popular rendition of “All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down.”
Flaco’s Grammy award case in his home. Photo by Ricardo Romo. August 2022.
In the 1960s, Flaco Jiménez ’s sound expanded along with his list of collaborators. The New York Times captured Jiménez’s musical style and influence in his obituary on August 5, 2025. Times music critic Clay Risen wrote that Jiménez “played with Mr. Sahm in his band, the Sir Douglas Quintet, which exposed him to rock; in the 1970s, he picked up New Orleans blues from his work with Dr. John, and world-fusion sounds from collaborating with Ry Cooder.”
Jiménez pioneered a sound that fused traditional Mexican rhythms with German-influenced polkas and creatively blended conjunto with country, blues, rock, and jazz. Calling this rich mix “Tex-Mex,” he introduced these regional styles to international audiences and helped define a Mexican-American musical identity. New York Times writer Risen added: “The result was a rollicking, upbeat style that proved enormously influential among younger generations of Tex-Mex musicians. If you’ve heard the jaunty, happy sounds of an accordion-backed quartet recently, then you’ve heard Mr. Jiménez’s legacy in action.”
A tribute to Flaco. Del Rio, Texas mural by Cris Escobar. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Flaco joined with some of the great Latino music talents in the late 1990s when they formed Los Super Seven. The band performed to full houses with Cesar Rosas and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos and famed musicians Freddy Fender, Rick Trevino, Ruben Ramos, Doug Sahn, Max Baca, Raul Malo, and Joe Ely. Twenty years later, Flaco again performed with some of his Super Seven friends. When Flaco and I met in August of 2022, he was preparing for an upcoming recording session.
As Harriett and I visited with Flaco in his home in 2022 and listened to him talk about his truly memorable music career, I realized that I was in the presence of an amazing musical genius who has made Latinos all over the world proud of this South Texas heritage.
Arthur & Lisa Jimenez and Javier & Raquel Fernandez invite Flaco’s beloved friends and fans to join them for a public memorial honoring his long life and musical legacy this Thursday, August 7, at 6:00 pm at the Carver Community Cultural Center in San Antonio.
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Copyright 2025 by Ricardo Romo. All photo credits as indicated.