Flaco Jiménez, master of the accordion and pioneer of tejano music, has died at the age of 86.
“It is with great sadness that we share tonight the loss of our father, Flaco Jimenez,” reads a post from his family on Facebook. “He was surrounded by his loved ones and will be missed immensely. Thank you to all of his fans and friends – those who cherished his music. And a big thank you for all of the memories. His legacy will live on through his music and all of his fans.”
The cause of death is unknown but a January post from his family stated that he was “in the hospital facing a medical hurdle”.
According to his son Arturo, his last words were “Ya estoy cansado”, which translates to “I’m tired.”
Jiménez won six Grammy awards in his career, including for country instrumental performance and tejano music performance, and a lifetime achievement award in 2015. “This one, the lifetime achievement, is top of the line,” he said at the time. “You can’t go higher than that one.”
His sound was instrumental in defining tejano and conjunto music. The Guardian’s Piper LeMoine wrote that “the soundtrack of the American south-west would be incomplete” without these two genres.
“The way I learned to play the accordion was on the wild and happy side, much like Cajun and zydeco music,” he once said in an interview. “One of my early idols was Clifton Chenier. The way he played, it was like the accordion was yelling at you: hey, take this. I like to make my accordion yell and scream and make it happy.”
After performing in San Antonio in the 1960s, Jiménez went to New York City and worked with artists including Bob Dylan, Carlos Santana, Willie Nelson and the Rolling Stones.
His first solo album was released in 1972 and he would go on to record more than 25 in his career.
A tribute was paid by Cesar Rosas, a member of Los Lobos who worked with Jiménez on the song Don’t Worry Baby.
“Not only was Flaco my musical mentor, but he was also a dear friend to all of us Los Lobos,” Rosas said to the San Antonio Express-News. “He was such a musical influence on me that [he] made me run out and buy a bajo sexto and start using it in my band. He will forever be in my heart. What a tremendous loss.”
