SAN ANTONIO — Flaco Jimenez, a six-time Grammy winner who took his conjunto accordion musicianship to the national and worldwide stages with countless superstar musicians and bands, has died, his family announced. He was 86.
The San Antonio music gem, whose first name is Leonardo but who was better known by his nickname, Flaco (which means Skinny), continued the music tradition handed down by his father and shared with his siblings. He built a legacy that honored the Texas-Mexican music tradition centered on the trills of his three-row accordion and gave it modern twists.
“It is with great sadness that we share tonight the loss of our father, Flaco Jimenez,” his family said in a social media post Thursday. “He was surrounded by his loved ones and will be missed immensely.”
Jimenez, a San Antonio native, was perhaps most popularly known as a member of the Texas Tornados, which gained fame with its hit song “(Hey Baby) Que Pasó.” The band also included Doug Sahm, Freddy Fender and Augie Meyers, also Texas musicians.
But well before that success and after, he was making hits, breaking barriers and widening the interest in the sound of conjunto music beyond South Texas. Beyond the greats of the Texas Tornados, he collaborated with The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Dwight Yoakam, Carlos Santana, Los Lobos, Joe Ely, Willie Nelson and Linda Ronstadt, to name a few. He performed with various bands, from Leonardo Jiménez y sus Caporales to Los Super Seven, and played alongside others such as Los Texmaniacs.
He had learned from his father, Santiago Jimenez. Though he doesn’t enjoy as much fame, his brother Santiago Jimenez, Jr., also carries on the tradition.
His decades of work were honored with multiple awards, including lifetime achievement awards from the Grammys, Billboard and the Tejano Music Awards.
He was given the National Medal of Arts by President Joe Biden in 2022, but could not attend the ceremony because of illness.
His 1992 “Partners” album, featuring him in several collaborations with other well-known music stars was entered into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2021.
“People used to regard my music as cantina music, just no respect,” he said in an interview with the Library of Congress at the time. “The accordion was considered something like a party joke … I really give respect to everyone who helped me out on this record and I’m flattered by this recognition.”
Hohner, the accordion brand he preferred saluted his legacy in a posting, calling him a “Global Ambassador for Tex-Mex conjunto music.”
In 2012, the nation recognized the cultural preservation achieved by his music as well as his trailblazing work with a National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the nation’s highest honor for folk and traditional arts.
Jimenez remained close to his roots. He performed annually — though not this year because of illness — at the Tejano Conjunto Music Festival in San Antonio, held at a San Antonio city park on its west side, where he grew up. The festival featured up and coming and established Tejano and conjunto players, including several accordionists and is a fundraiser for the local Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. The center posted condolences on social media and noted his contributions to the center.
