A new
generation of
musicians is leading a
resurgence of conjunto
in the Rio Grande Valley
By Cat Cardenas
Photographs by Christ Chávez
Remember, this music tells a story.
Patricia Avila can still hear her late father, Reynaldo Avila Sr., reciting this refrain to her and her siblings. Their family road trips in the 1970s and ’80s from San Benito to Mexico were scored by songs of the conjunto greats—masters of the accordion and bajo sexto.
Along the way, all seven family members piled into the crimson station wagon they called “The Big Red,” Reynaldo would press play on the tape deck and pepper them with fun facts and questions: This was the first song to use electric bass, but do you recognize the accordion player? “He would ask us about the meaning of the song, what the singer was trying to say, or just tell us trivia about the artist and what they accomplished,” Patricia recalls. For their father, conjunto wasn’t just music; it was history.
The Avila family has made a mission of sharing that history for nearly 25 years, chronicling the evolution and impact of the genre at the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame & Museum. Opened by Reynaldo in 2007, the museum is a testament to the years he spent amassing the musical memorabilia now on display in San Benito, the small city in the Rio Grande Valley best known as the hometown of Tejano icon Freddy Fender. “He was a walking encyclopedia of conjunto,” Patricia says of her father.
When Reynaldo died in 2019, the family wanted to keep his vision alive, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to close the museum. Then in 2023, the doors to the historic Azteca Building—an eye-catching, cream-colored structure built in the shape of a ship—triumphantly reopened. Inside, the winding hallways overflow with displays documenting the origins of a genre that began in the Valley nearly a century ago.
The timing of the reopening proved fortuitous as conjunto experiences a resurgence alongside the wider umbrella of regional Mexican music. Over the last few years, Mexican and Mexican American acts like Peso Pluma, Christian Nodal, Yahritza y Su Esencia, and the Valley’s own Grupo Frontera have infiltrated the mainstream, broken streaming records, and performed on global stages. In South Texas, the community has worked to preserve this music for years.
For the Avilas and so many others, conjunto is personal. It’s not only the soundtrack to their childhoods, but a living, breathing testament to Mexican American culture. There’s palpable pride in the fact that the genre was born here in the 1930s with musicians playing at cantinas and dance halls. Now, the generations who have lived out the music’s glory days are invested in passing it on to their children and grandchildren to ensure its survival.
A product of the borderlands, “conjunto” translates to a small ensemble, or a band. The origins can be traced to the musical traditions of northern Mexico. Borrowing from long-standing styles like the corrido, ranchera, and bolero—as well as the polka purveyed by Germans and Czechs who were working the fields in the Rio Grande Valley and Central Texas—conjunto is a cousin of Mexico’s norteño music and a precursor to Texas’ Tejano. Both utilize many of the same instruments, including accordion, bajo sexto, and drums.
These styles are all branches from the same tree of regional Mexican music. Tejano, like rock ’n’ roll, is a blend of the genres that came before it combined with more modern, experimental sounds. Norteño and conjunto are also closely linked. Their definitions might vary depending on whom you ask, or what side of the border you’re on. Broadly speaking, though, norteño places emphasis on vocal performance and harmonies, while in conjunto the accordion is always the star.
Principally supported by the bajo sexto, a 12-string bass guitar, conjunto was the music of the Mexican American working class—the antithesis to orquesta music, which catered to high society audiences. In the book The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music by Manuel Peña, Narciso Martínez, the “father” of the genre, is quoted as saying, “Conjunto era pa’ la gente pobre, la gente de rancho.” Conjunto was for poor people, rural people.
“This is music from humble beginnings,” says Patricia, explaining that many of conjunto’s trailblazers were migrant workers and laborers. “They had to persevere to get out of the fields, but even when they did, they wanted their music to reflect their roots. They were proud of where they came from, and they wanted us to be, too.”
Enjoying this article?San Benito, a quiet town 25 minutes northwest of Brownsville, is the birthplace of conjunto. Historians look to Martínez to tell its origin story. Born in 1911 just across the border from McAllen in Reynosa, Mexico, Martínez was raised in La Paloma, a tiny, unincorporated community on the outskirts of San Benito. He spent his childhood moving around Texas with his parents and brother, following the crops as they worked in the fields. Though he never received a formal education, he taught himself the accordion, playing his two-row Hohner so furiously he earned the nickname El Huracán del Valle—The Hurricane of the Valley.
Martínez began blending the rancheras and polkas he’d heard his whole life. But it wasn’t until the accordionist teamed up with Santiago Almeida, a bajo sexto player from Skidmore, that conjunto began to develop its trademark sound. By the mid-1930s, the duo was playing in Brownsville and Raymondville, eventually logging marathon recording sessions at RCA’s Bluebird Records in San Antonio. There, they churned out hits like “La Chicharronera,” “La Parrita,” and “Los Coyotes”—upbeat, musica alegre that had them ruling dance halls and radio stations across Texas.
Though it is currently without a location, the Narciso Martínez Cultural Arts Center also originated in San Benito. The organization hosts an annual conjunto festival in nearby Los Fresnos—the second largest in the country after the Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio. The center’s director, Rogelio T. Núñez, credits Martínez for creating the template for conjunto music. “He dominated the scene,” Núñez says. “Narciso was the musician who others looked up to and evolved from.”
Alongside Martínez came artists like Valerio Longoria, who added vocals to the previously instrumental genre, and Tony de la Rosa, who introduced amplified bajo sexto and bass. Rising to fame at the same time as Martínez, San Antonio’s Santiago Jiménez introduced the tololoche (double bass) to conjunto. He eventually passed his love of the accordion to his son, the legendary Leonardo “Flaco” Jiménez, who fused the music of his childhood with country, rock, and Tejano as part of the Texas Tornados.
In conjunto’s heyday, from the late 1940s into the ’60s, these and other musicians were part of a burgeoning Chicano music ecosystem. With little investment from major labels, Ideal Records and Falcón Records—established in Alice and McAllen respectively—became the go-to distributors of Mexican American music. When these acts weren’t recording, they were on tour, traveling to Mexican American audiences across the country who had heard their music on “border blasters”—mega-watt radio stations along the border responsible for the proliferation of conjunto and Tejano.
Reynaldo was raised on this golden era of music. Knowing the genre had thrived in his own backyard had always been a source of pride. In his retirement, he visited Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, where exhibits about Hank Williams and Patsy Cline reminded him of Flaco Jiménez and Lydia Mendoza. “I think he decided then and there that he would come back home from Nashville and share the story of conjunto,” Patricia says. “He wanted people to know about our musicians and what was born right here in San Benito.”
The Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame & Museum has inducted more than 90 men and women, their portraits weaving from one exhibit room to the next. Even the most avid Texas music buff is likely to encounter more than a few faces they’ve never seen before. For Reynaldo’s son, Joe Avila, that’s the point.
“Freddy Fender and Flaco Jiménez made it big. But how many people know Martin Zapata or Wally Gonzalez?” he asks. “Not everyone broke out, but in somebody’s eyes and ears, they were part of something bigger. Their stories might never have been told, but now, we get to bring those memories back, not just for fans of the music but for their grandkids and great-grandkids to see.”
Patricia’s favorite items in the museum are two massive steel Finebilt vinyl record presses from Ideal Records, donated to her father in 2001. During the late 1940s-’60s, these machines were responsible for the dissemination of conjunto music across the U.S., Mexico, and Central America, pressing up to 1,500 records a day. The afternoon they were moved in, Patricia remembers it began to drizzle. “It was my dad crying tears of joy,” she says. “They were back, right where it all started.”
Jose “Pepe” Maldonado doesn’t need to walk the halls of the museum to remember conjunto’s history. His photograph in the Hall of Fame is proof he lived it.
The son of migrant workers from Rio Grande City, Maldonado worked the cotton fields alongside his parents and siblings as a child. By the time he was 13, he knew that wasn’t the life for him. “I wanted to be an artist,” Maldonado, 83, says. “So, I went out and did it.”
Maldonado’s parents didn’t initially approve of his choice. But he was persistent, practicing singing and teaching himself multiple instruments, including accordion, bass, and bajo sexto. Music was Maldonado’s lifeline, a way out of the hard life of manual labor his family had known.
Throughout the ’50s and ’60s, he performed around the Valley, playing songs like “El Troquero” and “Amorcito Consentido.” In 1967, he hit it big with “Al Pie de un Crucifijo,” a plaintive song about a son praying for his father to come home, accented by a melancholy accordion. At the time, it wasn’t rare for popular conjunto tracks to make their ways to Latino markets in California, Arizona, Florida, and Illinois, but this song broke through to New York.
“Conjunto is the music of the people, music of our roots—people who lived and worked these stories,” Maldonado says. “A lot of the songs are about the struggles of life. It’s music that people can feel, and when it’s happy, you get drunk on it. You put in a good hard day’s work in the field, and then you stomp your feet, clap, and have a good time.”
In the ’70s, Maldonado started his own label, Del Sur Records. His recording studio, El Rancho Sound, hosted many of the conjunto groups throughout Texas, as well as across the border in Monterrey and Reynosa.
“Conjunto music and lots of love, that’s what we grew up on,” says Pepe’s son, Joe Maldonado Jr. Their house was a revolving door for musicians including Gilberto Perez and Lydia Mendoza, known as the Alondra de la Frontera (Meadowlark of the Border). She recorded her 1983 album Destino Cruel with Del Sur. “Everybody who was somebody in conjunto would stop by the house on any given day,” Maldonado Jr. says.
Pepe and other conjunto acts toured into the ’70s and ’80s, but by the ’90s the genre’s popularity declined. Most of the attention and investment was redirected toward Mexico’s norteño music, something Núñez says came down to the cyclical nature of music trends, influenced by the increase in migration from Mexico to the Valley. With fewer and fewer artists looking to record, Pepe closed shop.
Still, there was a need for a place in the Valley where local musicians could play. After a decade-long hiatus, Pepe began to rework his old recording studio, turning it into a dance hall he called La Lomita Park.
Opened in North McAllen in 2000, the park comes alive each Sunday. The property was built to look like a set from a vintage Western movie. Guests pay $10 at the door and are greeted with the sounds of classic Texas conjunto.
“The first Sunday we opened up, we had maybe five people,” Pepe says. “But week after week, we started growing. Every Sunday it got bigger, and now we have 200 people coming in.”
Underneath the rainbow lights, Pepe’s guests shuffle around on the dance floor to new and veteran conjunto acts. People all over the world tune in to the night’s show on the livestreams the dance hall posts to its Facebook page. In person, visitors have traveled from as far as Chicago and Miami to dance at La Lomita.
Joe is ready to carry on his father’s work. He doesn’t have the same concerns he once did about the genre fizzling out. Across the Valley, school districts have incorporated conjunto into their curricula. Kids are rediscovering their parents’ and grandparents’ music.
“That’s what we need to keep this tradition going,” Maldonado Jr. says. “It’s not dying, it’s growing.”
The members of LFE Conjunto stand onstage at the Texas Best Conjunto Competition in Brownsville this past April, sporting maroon button-ups, crisp denim, boots, and white cowboy hats. They’re energizing the crowd with a cover of Selena Quintanilla’s “Tus Desprecios,” the singers side-stepping to the beat each time the group’s two accordionists take the lead. Looking at them, it’s hard not to marvel at their youth. In fact, they’re the youngest group to take the competition stage, there to represent Los Fresnos Elementary School.
The nonprofit La Cultura Vive en Brownsville has hosted the annual showdown since 2016, bringing together students to show off their musical skills. This year, 16 groups from schools across the region registered to compete. Conjunto Halcón from Los Fresnos High School and Conjunto La Tradición from Palmview High School have participated since the competition’s inception, setting the tone as the bands to beat.
Under the leadership of band director Juan Longoria Jr., Conjunto Halcón has won multiple titles, making them one of the most successful student groups in the Valley. An award-winning accordionist who took first place at the Texas Folklife Festival’s “Big Squeeze” competition in 2007, Longoria launched the program in 2013 with just 13 students and has grown it to nearly 100. He manages the high school’s varsity and junior varsity groups, along with teaching a beginner class.
“We’re booming,” Longoria says. “All across the Valley, conjunto has become a hot item. People want to get on board and start their own groups, from middle schools to universities.”
Many of his students had never picked up an instrument before, but learning conjunto has connected them with their parents and kept their family heritage alive. It doesn’t hurt that acts like Grupo Frontera have catapulted to global fame, collaborating with Shakira and performing onstage with Bad Bunny.
Mariana and Myrian Larrasquitu, 18-year-old twins, first signed up for Longoria’s conjunto class in 2022. Mariana joined as an accordionist, while Myrian came on as a bajo sexto player. “I always wanted to play the bajo sexto because that’s what my uncle played,” Myrian says. “It’s the music that we heard our whole childhoods.”
To outside ears, the students’ musical inspirations might seem a bit surprising, but their playlists include everything from Ariana Grande to Carin León and Ramón Ayala. Those tastes inform the way Longoria teaches.
“Conjunto is a blend of music,” he says. “For my students, it’s a mix of cumbias, Tejano, norteño, the classic conjunto music, and the regional Mexican songs that are popular right now. Across Texas, ‘conjunto’ means something different. We like to get creative and create our own sound.”
Mariana and Myrian credit the group with helping them come out of their shells. Encouraged by their mother to join, the twins have used Conjunto Halcón to build friendships and find their voices. Upon graduating from high school, they plan to join their colleges’ conjunto bands.
“Any opportunity to keep performing onstage, I would take in a heartbeat,” Myrian says. Mariana agrees: “It’s the way our instruments come together—the emotion each and every one of us puts into the songs. That chemistry is really exciting.”
When she’s programming the museum’s events, Patricia keeps students like Mariana and Myrian top of mind. She wants to create an environment that bridges the gap between the younger and older generations.
“We’re 90 years into this genre, and it’s still going strong,” Patricia says. “Some people think conjunto music is for our grandparents’ generation, but when you see these kids loving this music, you know it’s still alive.”
Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame
& Museum
402 W. Robertson St., San Benito.
956-245-5005
Open Thu-Sat 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Display items include accordions of the genre’s icons, artist performance outfits, and Freddy Fender memorabilia in an exhibit room dedicated entirely to the Tejano icon. There are also photos of San Benito’s La Villita Dance Hall dating to the 1940s, stacks of albums distributed by Rio Grande Music Company, and a replica of the recording booth at Ideal Records. facebook.com
