Frankie Caballero

Frankie Caballero is from Donna, TX, a home base to many of South Texas' finest musicians like Pedro Ayala, Pedro Ayala Jr., Ramon Ayala (the legendary bajo sexto player), Los Donneños, Mario Montes Jr., Danny Yanez and countless others. The future accordion maestro spent his youth in East Donna and he even attended Donna High School. His brother Chon is also a very talented piono accordionist. Presently, Frankie's son (Frankie Jr.) is also a fellow musician and plays many gigs across the Valley. Here are a few videos I would love to share with the readers of Pharr From Heaven, so they can get a glimpsed of his virtuoso talent.

First off, this is a professionally shot video for a television program named Capital Grupera con furia. It has Frankie Caballero performing with Jimmy Gonzalez y El Grupo Mazz (a Grammy-Award winning band from South Texas). He is performing "Las Polkitas del Tigre", which is a potpourri (also known as a medley). For those not familiar with the terminology, that means it is a musical arrangement of various individual songs. The songs in this potpourri include "Genaro Tamez", "Lo Tengo Decidido", "La del Moño Colorado", "La Piedrera", and "Amarrate el Sincho". As people would say down here, se avienta el guey!



I'm a big fan of unique accordion work, I love hearing Blues and Jazz licks on the three row, diatonic button accordion. This video seems to have been shot from a cell phone camera, but don't let that keep you away from watching this video. Caballero plays some absolutely fantastic blues on his accordion, creating an original sound. Awesome stuff.



Finally, here is Caballero improvising and jamming out, basically showcasing what he is capable of on the accordion. Beautiful skills, him busting out Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" on the three row, diatonic button accordion is the epitome of badass.