SAN ANTONIO – When Santiago Jimenez Jr. thinks about his conjunto legend brother’s impact, he focuses on the way Flaco Jimenez made people feel.
“Flaco was a person that makes people happy,” said the younger Jimenez. “You could see a guy kind of sad, and then he would hear Flaco. He would go crazy, man."
Jimenez’s family announced his death late Thursday night on social media, saying the 86-year-old multiple Grammy award-winning accordionist died surrounded by loved ones.
The family did not provide a cause of death, but the musician was previously hospitalized in January.
“I’m going to tell you right now, with my respect of all my conjuntos bands. I respect them. They’re musicians,” his brother said. “They’re not going to be like Flaco. I don’t think so.”
The 86-year-old San Antonio legend was known for his many achievements in Tejano music.
One of his albums, “Partners,” was inducted into the U.S. Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2021.
The Library of Congress called Jimenez “a champion of traditional conjunto music and Tex-Mex culture who also is known for innovation and collaboration with a variety of artists.”
He won six Grammys, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 and was nominated eight times.
He was known for his part in the Tejano supergroup, Texas Tornados, and working with a variety of artists, from Bob Dylan to Dwight Yoakam to the Rolling Stones.
Santiago Jimenez Jr. said when his brother started playing the accordion, it was in the “old school tradition, my father’s stuff.”
“Flaco wanted to show my dad that he could do better than that,” he said, “so he started progressing, playing — not changing completely my father stuff, but he wanted to tell my dad he could more of what he was doing. That’s where Flaco started playing with country bands."
Musicologist and archivist Ramon Hernandez, whose work is currently being used for an exhibit at the Guadalupe Latino Bookstore, said Jimenez “would fill up stadiums in Italy, all over Europe, with Ry Cooder and Peter Rowan.”
”The difference was they were doing country music, in English, but with accordion," he said. “In other words, it’s conjunto with English lyrics. And I told — when I came back to Texas, I would tell the conjuntos, ‘you’re missing the boat. You need to record in English so you can take your music across the sea.’ Nobody listened."
“He was the first, and probably only. So that’s what made him unique,” Hernandez said.
The exhibit on Jimenez is available for public viewing for the rest of the summer from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.
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