La Historia de Esteban Jordan (Entry 4)

For decades, The Johnny Canales Show was one of the best platforms for Tejano and Conjunto musicians to showcase their skills. Eventually, after being on the air for three different decades, the program starting being more Norteño based, which was very upsetting to many Tejano and Conjunto fans. This is something that was controversial earlier in the aughts, and something that still continues to be a controversial topic as evident by this recent article by The Monitor's Crystal Olvera. That's a topic that could be explored in a much more austere and extensive manner, but I don't have the writing chops to do it. 

So, back to the topic at hand, these are two great clips from The Johnny Canales Show that feature Esteban Jordan doing his thing. These clip emanate from the year 1986, the same year when Jordan appeared in David Byrne's (Talking Heads) cult classic True Stories. The first song is "Donde Andara" (aka "Donde Estaras"), I believe this song was first released by the Corpus Christi-based Freddie Records label in the 1970's:



Jordan has an impressive list of memorable polkas to his resume, and this polka is one of his most famous ones, "Polkaplex":



The one unfortunate thing about these videos is that the Canales TV filming style at the time had the studio track laid on top of the video, so this is not a live musical performance. Around this time, when Canales was discussing Jordan with David Bennett, Johnny Canales said the following: "I said it on my show last week: Steve Jordan is the greatest accordion player we've seen in our time, and that's no bull."

Broken Hearted Lady

Earlier this summer, I picked up this compilation set of the McAllen, Texas music scene of the late 1960's. It features a variety of different acts, but the main act that anchors this set is Christopher and the Souls. This group became well known in the Valley after a famous eBay auction and an article by The Monitor. That article talks a bit about their song, "Broken Hearted Lady", which I uploaded on my YouTube account here (which I acquired thanks to this neat compilation):

Here is an interview they did right before they were set to perform at SXSW 2010. 

Spinner - Christopher and The Souls Interview

If you want to read more about this band, check out this great page about Christopher and The Souls over at Garage Hangover.

Los Cuatitos Cantu

This is Ramon Cantu, one half of South Texas' "Los Cuatitos Cantu" duet, a well known band that performed for a few decades. As is evident by this video performance on the legendary The Johnny Canales Show, he was a dwarf. But he wasn't just any ordinary dwarf, he was pretty talented at the squeezebox, had a good voice, and was also the lucky recipient of an extra finger. Yes, he had six fingers instead of five, and he ended up becoming an excellent accordion player (maybe thanks to that extra finger?).

Apparently, the other Cantu brother was also a six-fingered dwarf who could rock it on the squeezebox as well as Ramon. Sadly, I think by this point (I'm assuming this video is from the 1980's), the other Cantu brother had already passed away. One of the stories told of that time period was that this duet was so well known in the Rio Grande Valley, that people would innocently joke that when they saw two people who were really close together (like best friends, brothers, etc), they would say - "Ay van los Cuatitos Cantu". Here's a neat photo of this sweet duo.

Ernesto Guerra

Photo Credit: nickchain

On May 2011, I had the pleasure of meeting Ernesto Guerra outside Cine El Rey in downtown McAllen, TX. Unfortunately he was overlooked by the young "hip" crowd as he performed some slick polkas on his two row diatonic accordion. Every once in a while, he would have to take a break to smoke a cigarette and I can sense that his hands were in significant pain due to arthritis. I ended up having a fun conversation with him, but I really regret not getting his contact information. He reminisced about his fellow peers and about the time he bought his first accordion as a young man in the 1950's. He described the accordion as being quite similar to the one he was playing with that late Spring night and talked about how it cost him 30 some dollars at a local McAllen store. So he's someone that has been rocking polkas on the accordion for over seven decades!

He has played and toured with bands under the names of Los Alegres del Valle and Conjunto Del Valle. He has also recorded music for various record labels like Del Valle, Valen, Bego, and El Pato. To accordion aficionados, his polkas like "La Psycodelica", "El Pata de palo", "Flicka" and "King Kong" are fondly remembered as great works by Guerra. But sadly, some of his music has remained pretty obscure and difficult to find. I did luck out when I tracked down and got a hold of this Ernesto Guerra 45 from a gentlemen in Illinois. Both sides have some cool Guerra rancheras and this record happened to be in perfect condition (which is amazing since it has to be close to 50 years old).

Here he is playing one of his original polka compositions with Ramiro Cavazos, one of the members of the legendary South Texas band Los Donneños. Excellent video showing Guerra's maestro accordion work.