Flaco Jiménez

The Texas accordion

Leonardo "Flaco" Jiménez was born on March 11, 1939 in San Antonio, Texas, and died there on July 31, 2025 aged 86; the BMI notice says Friday, most reports Thursday night. Flaco means skinny, and was also his father's nickname. His father Santiago Jiménez Sr. is credited as the father of modern conjunto music and recorded one of the first conjunto records, "Dices Pescao", in 1936. Flaco began on the bajo sexto and then the accordion, influenced by his father and by zydeco's Clifton Chenier, and began performing with his father around 1946 at age seven. He recorded as a teenager with Los Caporales or Los Caminantes, depending on the source, in the early 1960s filled San Antonio dance halls, and from the 1960s worked with Doug Sahm, which gave him his first major recognition outside the Tejano scene. His first studio album, Una Sombra, came in 1972.

Chulas Fronteras (1976) documented the border music scene, and he appeared on Saturday Night Live on November 13, 1976 with Ry Cooder. Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio (Arhoolie 3021, 1986) won the Grammy for best Mexican-American/Tejano music performance at the 29th ceremony, his first. He played on Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens's "Streets of Bakersfield" (1988), a number 1 country hit, and in 1990 founded the Texas Tornados with Doug Sahm, Augie Meyers and Freddy Fender; "Soy de San Luis" won a Grammy. He guested on the Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge (1994), won a Grammy for Flaco Jiménez (1996), joined Los Super Seven in 1998 and won a 1999 Grammy for Said and Done. He recorded Partners (Warner Bros., 1992, added to the National Recording Registry in 2021), and Wikipedia says he contributed to over 100 albums.

Honors include the Billboard Latin Lifetime Achievement award (1999), the Texas Medal of Arts (2001), the NEA National Heritage Fellowship (2012), a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award (February 2015), and the National Medal of Arts (2022). He played an NPR Tiny Desk concert on November 12, 2012. Hohner made a Flaco Jiménez signature accordion series, and he performed at the Tejano Conjunto Festival every year until 2025. Hector Saldaña wrote that he was to San Antonio what Louis Armstrong was to New Orleans.