5/18/2023 0 Comments Button accordion![]() He did and eventually moved to Sacramento, California, where he worked for Wells Fargo and Lt. His father, though, encouraged him to go to college. He was intrigued by his grandfather playing in cantinas on the weekends, and he learned to play guitar, bass, and accordion. As a young boy, all Gilberto realized at the time, though, was that his father had killed a steer for the barbecue that was the center of the party documented by the filmmakers. In 1975, he met Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz, who was in the valley to film the milestone documentary on Texas conjunto music, Chulas Fronteras. He knew Narciso Martínez, for example, as a zookeeper, his day job. He remembers how rural border life shaped both him and the music we today call conjunto: while neither his father nor grandfather were widely known as musicians, they were friends with musicians now considered to be among the most notable names in Tejano (Texas Mexican) music―accordion pioneer Narciso Martínez, Los Alegres de Terán, Los Donneños (named after Donna, Texas), Tony De La Rosa, Valerio Longoria, and many others.Īs a young boy, Gilberto had little idea of the cultural importance of these musicians. ![]() ![]() Both his grandfather and his father played the two-row button accordion as a pastime and as part-time professionals. His parents were from General Terán, Nuevo León, on the Mexican side of the border, and they eventually settled on the Texas side. Gilberto grew up in the heart of the Texas Rio Grande Valley, born in Harlingen in 1961 and raised in Weslaco. “We came from very humble beginnings, working in the cotton fields, so my perspective in music comes from humble beginnings,” he recalled. ![]() Photo by John Loggins, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives He oversees all of Hohner’s accordion products and has been at the forefront of a resurgence of accordion music, especially the button accordion favored by Mexican and Mexican American musicians. To me, he was a cultural advocate and music game-changer of the first order. To Hohner, a German company founded in 1857, he was one of five product managers, each assigned to certain musical instruments. I left with the understanding that Gilberto Reyes was one of the most influential, modest, and under-recognized people in American regional and Mexican traditional music. I have all his collection of LPs and 45s.” Gilberto had graciously arranged to donate one of Flaco’s accordions to the National Museum of American History, so museum curator Margaret Salazar-Porzio and Folklife media director Charlie Weber teamed up with me to interview him about Flaco’s significance in American culture, the accordion that would mark Flaco’s role in history, and Gilberto’s own work with Hohner. King of Texas Mexican accordion music: “I’ve been listening to him since I was a kid. Gilberto had long been a Flaco fan: “He’s such a hero of mine, and to work with him on this project was amazing.” I was a Flaco fan, too, and had recently produced an album for Smithsonian Folkways with Flaco and the brilliant bajo sexto innovator Max Baca, entitled Flaco & Max: Legends and Legacies, so we had lots of stories to share. I had learned that Gilberto was a major follower of accordion legend Flaco Jiménez and that he had recently spent several days with Flaco, taking extensive field notes, photos, and sketches of accordion parts, with the intention of creating a new Corona II Classic Flaco Jiménez model accordion for Hohner’s Signature Series. ![]() He and I had many mutual friends but had never met in person. Gilberto Reyes met us at the door of Hohner’s national headquarters in historic Glen Allen, Virginia. Interviewers: Daniel Sheehy, Margaret Salazar-Porzio ![]()
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