Tejano Music ...
& History
This is an opinionated history link of my own, and perhaps it's just me and my wondering mind trying to figure out things logically, thinking about our Onda, and caring about our music. Maybe it's just a generation gap and trend when I say that our music is changing. Well, it is changing, but surprisingly it is evolving - ever so slowly.
Secondly, we have come an exceptionally long way from the early 1920's and on to the 1950's; that is, from the early pioneers of conjuntos to the big orchestras; from Gilberto Perez to the bands of Little Joe and the Latin Breed; on to groups with organs and keyboards; and better studio recordings.
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Our proud tejano music history is long and distinguished with so many musicians and artists that made history and won so many awards. Of course, I do not live in Texas either and perhaps I am just missing the ball in right and left field, but I do sense that: "Something is just not the same and not like it was years ago. Is our tejano music on a pivotal edge and about to change? Again?" ​​
In retrospect, it is intriguing to me that we've gone through a 360-degree turn in our music.
I mean, the tejano music evolution of our time began in northern Mexico, with influences from Spain, native Americans, we are a mixed race, indeed ...
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... and most of our dance rhythms came from Czech and German genres, and all this happen in south Texas/Mexico.
Today we hear Grupo Frontera all over the map and they're from Edinburg, south Texas ... to me, they sound more Tex Mex than real tejano music.
Tejano music history repeating itself again.
The term Tejano, derived from the Spanish adjective tejano or (feminine) tejana (and written in Spanish with a lower-case t), denotes a Texan of Mexican descent, thus a Mexican Texan or a Texas Mexican.
The term received greater currency at the end of the twentieth century than previously with subsequent changes in nuance and usage. It encompasses cultural manifestations in language, literature, art, music, and cuisine. As an adjective, Tex-Mex is a recently coined term related to, but not synonymous with, Tejano.
Broader terms used at different times or for different segments of this ethnic group are Hispanic American, Latin American, Mexican, Mexican American, and Chicano. As early as 1824, Miguel Ramos Arispe, author of the (Mexican) Constitution of 1824, referred to the citizens of Texas as Tejanos in correspondence with the town council of Bexar.
Tejano music has rich cultural roots that reflect the diverse heritage of Texas and the Mexican-American community. Here's a look at some of the key cultural influences:
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1] Mexican Folk Music: Tejano music draws heavily from traditional Mexican music, such as rancheras and mariachi. These styles provide the foundation for Tejano's melodies and rhythms.
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2] German and Czech Polkas: In the 19th century, German and Czech immigrants brought their polka music and instruments, particularly the accordion, to Texas. These elements were integrated into the local music scene, creating a distinctive sound.
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3] Latin Pop and Cumbia: As Tejano music evolved, it incorporated modern Latin pop influences and the infectious rhythms of cumbia, a dance music style that originated in Colombia.
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4] Country and Western: Given Texas's strong country music tradition, Tejano music also features elements of country and western, particularly in its use of the guitar and storytelling lyrics.
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5] Rock and Roll: The influence of rock and roll is evident in the energetic performances and instrumentation of Tejano bands, adding a contemporary edge to the genre. ​​These cultural influences combine to create the unique and vibrant sound of Tejano music. It truly is a celebration of the multicultural tapestry of Texas!
The origins of Tejano music / By Scott Sosebee / The Daily Sentinel / From the internet
Texas is a powerhouse when it comes to producing notable musicians in all genres. From Van Cliburn to George Strait, Miranda Lambert to Beyoncé, and Bob Wills to Ornette Coleman, Texas can boast of musical stars of every variety.
However, while Texas claims a multitude of performance stars, the music most of those played did not truly have Texas origins (Bob Wills’ “western swing” may be the closest to having Texas roots, but it borrowed its fundamental elements to a blend of jazz, Big Band, country, and bluegrass stylings), except for one genre that was essentially born in Texas. That would be Tejano music, a sound that is vibrant and soulful and that has a deep heritage in “Tex-Mex” border culture.
Tejano’s origins date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries and while it has evolved and expanded in many ways past its roots, it remains - at its most structural levels - a unique blend of Mexican folk music, polkas, the Celtic folk sounds of the American frontier that would eventually evolve into what we would come to term country music, as well as American rock-and-roll..
It is truly a melding of cultures whose meeting ground was the brush country of South Texas.
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German and Czech migrants who came to Texas brought their polka style of music and dance with them to their new home, with the emphasis on the accordion. When those immigrants came in contact with Tejanos in San Antonio and areas south of that city, their stylings fused the traditional Mexican forms of the corrido and mariachis.
The result was a hybrid form between the two; Tejanos in South Texas began to incorporate the German polka beat and melody into their songs and also made the accordion a part of their instrumentation. These small Tejano bands, referred to as orquestas, played at small community dances and gatherings all over South Texas, for audiences and dancers of both Mexican and European ancestry. It was not just a musical innovation, but also a social phenomenon.
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Those earliest Tejano arrangements were mostly instrumental, although there were some lyrics added but in a traditionally corrido fashion. The music and its adherents were rural in nature as South Texas was a base for ranching and agriculture. The songs - when they were sung - were the same ones that had survived in an oral tradition for generations in Northern Mexico, just adapted for the new instruments like the accordion, guitar, drum, and often a flute.
When recordings became a more pervasive cultural affectation in the 1920s, the RCA corporation made some recordings of these earliest artists as part of their “race music” division - forms such as traditional African American genres such as the Blues, and traditionally Mexican mariachi music, with Lydia Mendoza, the “Lark of the Border,” becoming the earliest star of what would eventually be termed “Tejano” music.
The Fame of Tejano Music​
While Tejano was already popular among the Mexican American community in Texas, it still had a long way to go before it had a widespread following. During the Mexican Revolution, a lot of people migrated to Texas. These people spread around America taking with them the unique singing and dancing styles of Tejano Music. These people spread their culture everywhere they went, sharing it with people they met, and thus, bringing Tejano Music out to a bigger audience.
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The biggest boom in the popularity of Tejano Music was when the songs were recorded and distributed. In the 1930s, Narciso Martinez was the first person to have recorded a Tejano Music song. His main purpose was to share his passion with the world, and didn’t care much for fame, or money. Narciso was the person that laid the foundation for the dreams of many young Hispanics, and one of them, a young girl named Selena, would go on to make the genre even more popular.
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In the Second World War, music in Texas divided itself. Conjunto became famous in South Texas. Working-class Americans liked the song too much. Santiago Jimenez and his son Flaco Jimenez were popular conjunto singers. The other part of Tejano Music was orquestas, led by Beto Villa, Isidro Lopez, and Oscar Martinez.
A Music Style: Tejano Music ... "What Is Tejano Music?"
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1) Tejano music, also known as Tex-Mex music, is a popular music style fusing Mexican and US influences. Typically, Tejano combines Mexican Spanish vocal styles with dance rhythms from Czech and German genres -particularly polka or waltz. Tejano music is traditionally played by small groups featuring accordion and guitar or bajo sexto. Its evolution began in northern Mexico.
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2) Music is something enjoyed all over the world. It brings entire nations, and people together. With time, different ethnicities have put their twist to the tunes and have come up with new genres of music. One such very popular genre is Tejano Music. Tejano is a blend of European, Mexican, and American music styles. It is now enjoyed both nationally and internationally.
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3) Tejano music is a genre of music born in the states of Texas and Mexico in the 18th century. Over three centuries, Tejano music has absorbed a lot of different styles, and instruments. The music features tunes from the Czech Republic and Germany, especially polka, and waltz.
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Here’s why the genre is called Tejano Music. The name Tejano was given to Mexican Americans living in Texas. The music is played using the accordion and has since developed from being a small genre of music to being played on large stages worldwide. Tejano music was born in Texas, near the Mexican-Texas border, and in Northern Mexico.
The origins of the genre can be traced back to people from Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic, migrating to the US. These people influenced the Tejanos by their polka music and accordion. The accordion would go on to be the major instrument used to make Tejano Music.
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The music gained immense popularity with the working class. The Mexican working class spends days working and music is the perfect way to loosen up. Soon musicians and small bands became very common at festive events, and pubs and taverns. These small bands were called orquestas and included musicians that played the accordion, flute, guitar, and drums. Finally, the genre gained popularity after famous artists got their music recorded.
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More and more people heard Tejano Music through the radio, and later the television. Tejano Music is important for the Mexican American people, not only because it is a part of their history, but also because it has kept their identity alive. In the racist times of the 1800s and 1900s, Tejano music was a way to bring Mexican Americans out to the world.
Tejano Music History
History in general is essentially the study of past events, people, and societies. It's about understanding how previous actions and decisions have shaped the world we live in today. By examining historical documents, artifacts, and other sources, historians aim to piece together narratives that explain how and why things happened the way they did. Historians uncover the stories of our collective past. From the rise and fall of empires to the everyday lives of ordinary people, history provides a rich tapestry of human experiences and helps us make sense of our present and future.
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Allow me to add this: Our tejano music is now into the modern times category of 2025, but as most of us know it today, it is progressing ever so slowly. There is plenty of room here to discuss our heritage and our tejano music roots but most people cannot comprehend why it is changing and to what degree or direction we are heading to.
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Seems like most of us want to go back where we were, nostalgically, and/or keep the sounds of today, but we are unwilling to accept the realistic paradigm that we are in the center of a tejano transformation. It is here already, and we cannot cope with it and refuse to let go of our past and present artists. Perhaps we are unwilling to see what is across that hill; maybe we are afraid of this monumental tidal wave heading our way - music and affluence from the south.
Who Are Tejanos?
Tejanos are descendants of the Spaniards and Mestizos – Spanish, Native American, and other groups – so they are largely a mixed-race people. As a group, they are identified as a Hispanic people. Texas history and the Southwest are very intricately linked to the Spanish colonial period. Initially, Spanish settlers referred to themselves as “vecinos,” meaning citizens of Spain. The general requirements to be a vecino were that you were male, that you were over 21, that you were an adult, a property owner, and that you lived in a fixed residence in a town. The Spanish settlers in Texas lived in a small part of what they called “New Spain.”
In the beginning, Tejanos were the older generations of people in Texas or descendants of this Spanish vecinos. At one point they use the word Tejano as a self-designation or Tejana for women. They even used [Tejano] in a formal document in the early 1800s, but they still saw themselves as citizens of Spain just as everyone else within this Spanish empire here in the New World.
When Spanish rule ended in 1821, Mexico was born as a new nation. Overnight, these people who were Spaniards had new sovereignty, a new authority. Their allegiance is now to the United States of Mexico, and so they call themselves “Mexicano” meaning Mexican. Because they are resilient, the Tejanos went along with the changes in government and became citizens of Mexico.
The word Tejano is still in use to the present day and so the older generations of the descendants of the Spaniards and the Mexicanos in Texas refer to themselves as “Tejanos.” If you go to California, there will be a Tejano community there, and if you go to Wisconsin there will also be people from Texas who say, “we’re originally from Texas, we’re Tejano people.” So, Tejano is still a popular term of identity. It’s not a race, but it’s a social construction of identity.
What made you interested in studying Tejano history?
I am trained as a U.S. historian, but I began to take courses in the histories of Mexico and Latin America and then basically self-trained in the history of the U.S. and Mexico, the Spanish borderlands, and now the Mexican borderlands. There wasn’t a natural discipline for these fields that I work in.
On a personal level, I knew that I wanted to undertake a graduate program in history. I grew up in South Texas in the lower valley and I would see some of my relatives including my great grandmother. One day I said, “Abuela, where are you really from?” She said, “We’re from the river valley,” referring to the Rio Grande Valley. From then on, I had an interest in finding out more about my own personal history and the roots of the people, not just of me and my family but the roots of what we call the Tejano people and the Mexican American people - I’m using both terms interchangeably here.
This got me interested in the research that I do, so I began to research and write about it and did a dissertation that focused on the settlers in South Texas, both the Tejanos and the non-Tejano people, the Anglos, and the Europeans that came to settle in what is now South Texas.
What made you interested in studying the history of Texas and Northern Mexico in the period of 1700-1865 specifically?
I became interested in understanding how the history of Texas is very strongly connected to the history of northern Mexico. We had small rail lines in the Houston area before the Civil War, the railroad mileage in Texas was very small. After the Civil War, the railroads expanded, and then in the 1880s, we had the national railroads move into Texas and expand to the Rio Grande, to the border. At the same time, the American capitol in Mexico built railroads in Mexico, which cemented this connection between Texas and northern Mexico.
It wasn’t really to let people get on the train and move to Texas; Mexico had riches, particularly very valuable minerals like silver, magnesium, zinc, lead, copper. The American nation was industrializing very strongly at the end of the Civil War, so we needed all those minerals, and merchants wanted to sell in Mexico because they had money and were the leading producer of silver in the world. So, the merchant class in the U.S. and Europe wanted to trade with Mexico, but because Texas had no significant railroads, the links are all overland from Texas to northern Mexico and northern Mexico to Texas and the goods go out through ports like Galveston, Corpus Christi, Brownsville and then ports below Brownsville.
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For this whole period, in the late 1800s, the bulk of the trade went to the Atlantic world economy. Northern Mexico and Texas are linked through this Atlantic world and of course, the merchant class in Texas profits a great deal from that. No state in the union had more economic links than Texas.
In a nutshell, Texas and Mexico are very closely linked because we have historical ties, cultural ties, economic ties, and at times, political ties. Texas has always been the number one state to receive the benefits of our connections with the modern nation-state of Mexico.
What are some of your favorite moments in Tejano history?
Tejano history is complicated, like a lot of history, and depending on what time you look at, you’re going to see Tejano leaders. For example, when we look at the Texas revolution of 1835-36, we see there were Tejano heroes on both sides. Some of the Tejanos sided with the revolution against the dictator Santa Ana. Yet, there were a few folks in Texas that fought on the side of Santa Ana.
Another famous Tejano was Juan Seguin who was the leader of the Tejanos at the battle of San Jacinto and was a mayor of San Antonio. He became quite controversial because, during the period of the Texas Republic, he then left San Antonio with an army saying he was deeply disturbed and bothered by the behavior of Anglos in San Antonio. But later, he came back to live the rest of his life in Texas. He was truly a Tejano hero and political leader even though others saw him as a traitor to Texas.
And then, if you look at political history, some of the Tejanos in the early 20th century began to organize civil organizations to advocate for their community. Eventually, they formed the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) at Corpus Christi in 1929, which is the oldest civil rights advocacy group. Their basic ideology was assimilation into American life and politics and even though they hired lawyers and would go into court, they hardly won anything.
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It took a long time before LULAC, and another organization got a very important victory in the supreme court case Hernandez v. Texas 1954. It was the first case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Mexican American lawyers who worked on it were hailed as heroes. The main significance was that treating Mexican Americans as a class apart from others was unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Why is it important to study Tejano and Mexican history?
It’s important to study the history of our homeland; Texas in this case. It gives us a vantage point to see what it is that took place in the past, what people were able to do, and what struggles and successes they had. Whether it was in the colonial period or the period of the Texas revolution or in the 20th century, history is a good way to look at that. It also allows us to understand how people sometimes must struggle to see themselves as equal citizens in this evolving, complex society. It gives us an opportunity to learn about the past and issues that took place and how leaders- social, political, and educational leaders- can resolve those problems and move forwards. This is a story that continues to evolve.
NOTES ON - TEJANO MUSIC / Jose R. Reyna / Perspectives in Mexican American Studies - Tucson, AZ
The present study is intended in large part to fill a gap in the study of Tejano music which has resulted from neglect on the part of scholars - a situation not unlike that which exists in many other areas of Chicano Studies. Therefore, what follows is primarily a descriptive treatment of the subject. Although there is also an attempt to discuss the subject from an historical perspective, that is not the principal consideration currently, since much more basic research is needed for precise historical documentation.
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In the future, once a basic framework has been established, more detailed analytical, even polemical, studies will no doubt be undertaken.' The focus of this paper is upon instrumentation and orchestration as distinctive features of the Chicano music of Texas. Other aspects, such as Chicano lyrics, individual performers, groups, dance tradition, comparative questions, and the role of the Tejano music industry are touched upon only briefly for it is in instrumentation and orchestration that we can see the evolution of a strain of music that is clearly Chicano / Tejano, although it is influenced by Mexican and American traditions.
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It should be stated further that at any given time in this evolution there have existed ensembles consisting of various combinations of instruments, some of which can still be found in South Texas. All of these contribute to the broad range of Chicano music traditions in Texas. But at present, there are two types of groups that are dominant - the conjunto and the orquesta or banda. It is the evolution of these two forms which I will examine here.
The first to appear as an independent and identifiable type was the conjunto.
Among Chicanos in Texas, the term "conjunto," which in Hispanic countries, including Mexico, may refer to different types of musical groups, has come to refer to a group in which the accordion is the principal instrument, with the bass, guitar, and trap set providing the rhythm and accompaniment. Of course, this ensemble is a relatively recent form, that is, the accordion, guitar, bass, and drums did not really become firmly established as a musical unit until the 1940s and 1950s.
The exact origins of the conjunto Tejano, as well as of its Mexican relative the conjunto norteño, are impossible to ascertain primarily because of their folk origins. It is possible that the former is a descendant of the latter, which might be a logical conclusion since most Chicano cultural traditions are of Mexican provenience.
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One problem, however, is that the conjunto norteño has been the unwanted stepchild of Mexican folkloric and popular music, having been eclipsed by the mariachi and other forms considered more representative national types. Thus, it has been and continues to be ignored by the students of Mexican popular music and by purveyors of Mexican culture.
The key to determining the origins of the conjunto would seem to be the appearance in Mexico and South Texas of the accordion and certain
non-Hispanic musical forms identified with the conjunto, especially in its early stages. For instance, the schottisch (in Spanish, schotis), redova, waltz, mazurka and particularly, the polka - all European instrumental forms introduced during the French period (1864-1867) - were the rage among the elite in Mexico, and by the late nineteenth century became part of Mexican folk music tradition.
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This assumes further that these forms were also transmitted to Texas where they became equally popular among the folk. The same route would have been followed by the accordion, similarly a non-Mexican contribution to conjunto tradition. It is a well-known fact that German immigrants settled in the South Texas /Mexico border area as early as the 1830s, which means that the features mentioned above could have been introduced first in Texas then transmitted south into Greater Mexico. This could be true especially of the accordion.
Tejano music enjoyed the decade-long golden age - Its golden age was a ‘magical time,’ one artist recalls wistfully.
By Hector Saldana, [Not recent]
In Tejano music’s glory days, about 35 years ago, it could feel as if there was no limit to where the music and its stars might go. In fact, that golden age - defined by stars such as Little Joe y La Familia, Grupo Mazz, La Mafia, Patsy Torres, Laura Canales, Emilio Navaira and Selena, as well as songwriter Luis Silva — lasted about 10 years.
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Tejano music - sometimes called Tejano Onda (Texas Wave) or La Onda (the Wave) in the early days - was a mix of pop, country and Tex-Mex music (rancheras, cumbias, boleros and polkas), characterized by synthesizers in place of the accordion of conjunto or horns of orquesta Tejana bands.
It was down-home, working-class dance music, which for many Mexican Americans was elevated to a lifestyle - not unlike disco in the ’70s. Like Cajun, zydeco and blues, Tejano was primarily regional music.
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But during its golden period, when the music industry took notice, there were possibilities. Could a Tejano star cross over to the mainstream of pop or Latin music? Maybe.
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Grammy-winning record producer and musician Gilbert Velasquez said Tejano musicians received a huge boost when major record labels such as Sony, BMG and EMI Latin came calling, looking to sign acts in the mid - and late -1980s. San Antonio was being hailed as the Tejano capital of the world.
Bob Grever’s Cara Records, before it was absorbed by EMI Latin, sometimes was called the Motown of Tejano.
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Manny Guerra, the mastermind behind the Sunglows and the producer of that pioneering group’s hit “Talk to Me,” with singer Sunny Ozuna, was another of S.A.’s movers and shakers in the early days of the Tejano explosion. The first Tejano Music Awards ceremony was staged in 1981 to recognize and celebrate the rising tide. The early years honored Roberto Pulido, Jimmy Edward, La Mafia, Lisa Lopez and, in 1986, a newcomer named Selena Quintanilla. Later, names such as Ram Herrera, David Marez and Joe Lopez dominated.
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San Antonio may have been ground zero, but Tejano also thrived at ballrooms in Dallas, El Paso, Houston, Seguin, the Rio Grande Valley and Corpus Christi, home to the music’s biggest and most enduring star. Twenty years after her untimely death, Selena remains Tejano music’s great icon. Only Marco Antonio Solis and Luis Miguel have more No. 1 albums on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart.
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“It felt like a magical time, like we could do no wrong,” said Chris Perez, Selena’s widower, who was the lead guitarist in her band, Los Dinos. “They want to use the whole icon (explanation) and that she passed away and that she’s forever going to be young and all that (expletive). No. You know what? She was that (expletive) good. Accept it.” The murder of Selena on March 31, 1995, by her fan club president, often is framed as the end of an era.
But when she was alive, Selena was little known outside of the region or in Mexico and cities such as Chicago, with large Mexican American populations - even with hits such as “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” “Amor Prohibido” and “Como La Flor.” But she had been on the rise, and the grief over her death confirmed the magnitude of the morena Chicana goddess.
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Perez acknowledged recently that Selena “was thinking bigger than Tejano.” In 1997, Jennifer Lopez’s portrayal of the slain Tejano queen in “Selena” ensured she would remain bigger than life. Selena’s death coincided with Tejano superstar Emilio Navaira moving to Nashville to become a country star. He wanted to be the Garth Brooks of Tejano.
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He recorded country albums “Life Is Good” and “It's On the House” for Capitol Records. Emilio’s country hits included “It's Not the End of the World” and “Even If I Tried.” “He was in it all the way,” said record producer Ron Morales at Studio M in 2013. Morales and his brother, Michael, were charged with keeping Navaira's Tejano recording output going during that same period. “Everyone had high hopes. He looked like a cowboy, and he could sing country really well.” It felt natural for the Tejano singer. “That's me. I love country. I love Tejano. I love it all,” Navaira said.
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Tejano music remains a strong draw in some nightclubs and festivals. But several factors contributed to its decline as a regional powerhouse with the potential to produce national hits: aging artists and fans; the rise of regional Mexican music such as norteño and banda as well as genre-bending reggaeton and the club music known as tribal; and eventually the loss of Tejano radio stations. Those changes date to the late ’90s.
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In 2011, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences eliminated 31 categories at the Grammy Awards. One of them was Tejano. That category still exists as part of the Latin Grammys, but the award presentation is not part of the telecast. Los TexManiacs were the last San Antonio band to win in the Tejano category at the Grammy Awards. The Max Baca-led outfit won in 2009 for the Smithsonian Folkways-produced “Borders y Bailes.”
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The last Tejano to win in the Tejano category - in the last year it existed, 2011- was, fittingly enough, the pioneering Chicano act Little Joe
y La Familia for “Recuerdos” - that is, “Memories.”
How Manny Guerra Shaped the Tejano Music Scene
The San Antonio producer created a style that would endure for decades—and he helped Selena get her start. / By Cat Cardenas / DATE Jan 20, 2021
From the crib in his childhood home, a newborn Manny Guerra listened as music poured into the room from the radio that sat on the windowsill of his family’s tamale company next door.
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Long before he could string together a sentence or take his first steps, the top hits of the forties filled his ears and flowed through his mind. “Even before I was conscious, music was just instilled in me,” he says.
As a teenager, Guerra would take up the accordion, the piano, and eventually the drums before going on to become one of the premier producers of the Tejano music scene. Though he never became a household name, the style he helped pioneer would endure for decades.
Guerra, now 81, was the eldest of six siblings raised on San Antonio’s South Side. His mother, Lucia, played the piano, and his father, Manuel Sr., was happy to support his son’s budding interest in music by buying him an accordion. By the time Manny was 14, he was playing the drums in the Burbank High School band and joining local conjunto acts around town.
Over the course of his five-decade career in the music industry, Guerra worked first as a musician and later as a self-taught producer, shaping and recording tracks that would come to exemplify the West Side Sound - a blend of genres such as R&B, conjunto, and soul music that was unique to San Antonio. The term, popularized by San Antonio musician Doug Sahm, was retroactively applied to artists from a wide array of styles whose work spanned nearly twenty years, and who shared and borrowed from one another, fundamentally changing the city’s music scene for years to come.
By the eighties, these years of musical hybridization led to the Tejano music boom, with artists including Grupo Mazz, Little Joe y La Familia, La Mafia, and, later, Selena Quintanilla bringing the genre to an international stage. Behind the scenes, Guerra played a major role in making it all happen.
In 1958, when Guerra was just nineteen years old, his younger brother Rudy started a band with a friend, vocalist Ildefonso “Sunny” Ozuna. Manny decided to join as their drummer, and with Rudy on saxophone, Norwood Perry on bass, Al Condy on guitar, and George Strickland on drums, they formed the six-piece act Sunny & the Sunglows. The group initially focused on soul music, but Manny Guerra pushed them to include big band and conjunto influences. Guerra already had a little experience on the professional circuit, so he contacted promoters to arrange gigs, and soon the Sunglows were off performing at fairs, military bases, and nightclubs across Texas.
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Guerra also suggested the group make one simple change that would have a big impact: swapping out an accordion, commonly used in ranchera and conjunto music, for an electronic organ. In his 2007 book, Chicano Soul: Recordings & History of an American Culture, Ruben Molina writes, “Accordion was too ‘country.’ To give the music more sophistication, [the Sunglows] used the organ in place of the accordion but kept the droning sound.”
Soon other Texas bands followed suit. Later in the book, former Sunglows member Henry Parrilla recalls, “Once [the band] started to use the organ, that was it - everyone wanted to use that sound.”
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It was with this kind of experimentation in mind that the band recorded “Talk to Me,” a 1963 hit produced by Huey P. Meaux on his Tear Drop Records label. The song, originally recorded by Little Willie John in 1958, peaked at number eleven on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. “Talk to Me” had been a crowd favorite during Sunny & the Sunglows’ sets around the state. Within seconds of the first plaintive notes, the entire audience would be out on the dance floor. Guerra wanted to capture some of that magic. In his arrangement of the song, Sonny’s sweet tenor voice is supported by a swelling backing track of strings as he begs for his love to tell him how much she cares for him.
“We sent it out to as many radio stations as we could,” Guerra recalls. “Before you know it, we came back one weekend and our phone was ringing off the wall. It really was overnight.”
The hit could have propelled the group into national stardom, but following Meaux’s advice, Sunny took it as an opportunity to form his own band, Sunny & the Sunliners, without his original bandmates. It was a devastating blow for Manny Guerra, who watched as Sunny’s fame grew with several hits and a historic appearance as the first Chicano act on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, with a performance of “Talk to Me.”
“We were on our way to the top,” Guerra says. “We had no contract. We did not know anything about the business part of it. So, when Sunny left, it was embarrassing and humiliating. I didn’t know how I was going to survive.”
He tried to move past the betrayal by shifting his focus on producing. Guerra had managed to support himself thus far with his music, and he had arranged and recorded the version of “Talk to Me” that became a hit. So, he buckled down and figured he could do it again.
He purchased Sunglow Records, a record label that a friend sold to him when he moved out of town, and opened his own small studio, Amen Music, in 1966. The white, one-story brick building was so unremarkable that artists would often drive past it before realizing it was their intended destination. Inside, Guerra housed a mixing console, a one-track recorder, and a jukebox speaker in lieu of a monitor. It was not exactly state-of-the-art equipment, but it got the job done.
Over and over, Guerra’s instincts as a producer would serve him well. He leaned into the Spanish-language music that his bandmates had originally shied away from. Without a formal music education, he relied on his gut, incorporating newer instruments, such as synthesizers and B-3 organs, whose use had previously been confined to mainstream pop music.
These changes helped plant the seeds that eventually made Tejano music take off, writes music historian Alex La Rotta in his dissertation, “Talk to Me: The History of San Antonio’s West Side Sound.” “Elements of the West Side sound combined with a resurgence in the popularity of orquestas tejanas … to help forge a new musical genre known as Tejano,” La Rotta argues. “By the early 1980s, Tejano would become the most popular and commercially successful Texas-Mexican musical idiom ever.”
By the eighties, Guerra was working with Shelly Lares, Emilio Navaira, La Mafia, and Grupo Mazz, all mainstays of Tejano music who dominated Latin and Tejano music awards for years. Around 1984, Guerra got a call from Abraham Quintanilla Jr., an old friend. Quintanilla was looking for someone to produce his family’s band, Selena y los Dinos, but no one would give them a chance. Guerra was sympathetic, opening his studio to help them record six of their earliest albums.
At the time, Selena was just fourteen and had not yet found her signature sound. “We couldn’t give those albums away,” Guerra remembers. But within a few years’ time, Selena was in the running for Female Vocalist of the Year at the Tejano Music Awards, and her 1988 album, Dulce Amor, drew the attention of producers at EMI’s Latin record label. Quintanilla decided to take the opportunity. He signed with EMI, leaving Guerra behind. “Again, we didn’t have contracts,” Guerra says. “I didn’t believe in that because we were like family.”
By the nineties, Guerra had decided to leave Tejano behind for the world of gospel and Christian music. As a born-again Christian, he felt called to it by God. Now focused exclusively on gospel music from his home studio, he still looks back on his early years with fondness. He knows he was a pioneer in the industry, but he says that was never his goal. “We never planned anything,” he said. “Whatever we saw that people liked is what we would record. And it was a success.”
In studying the evolution from the regional West Side Sound to the birth of the wildly popular Tejano music scene, La Rotta says there’s no doubt that Guerra is the bridge between these major musical moments. “Manny is the linchpin between the West Side Sound and Tejano music,” La Rotta says. “He was there at the very beginning when Tejano music was basically breaking out. And it is his vision that, to some degree, really created the West Side Sound.”