When did it start to become Tejano? When did he start putting Mexican American rhythms into it?
Well, I would say the Polka beat has been the same all the way through, of course, but he added a little taste of the Mexican flavor to it and started recording in Spanish lyrics. In 1936 he started recording with the bajo sexto, and then he changed to Lorenzo Caballero, who was a guitar player, so he added guitars to a bajo player, because he wanted to make it sound a little more modern. Lorenzo was the sidekick of my papa. My dad’s first recordings were in 1936, for Decca Records. From then on, there was airplay, just local airplay. There was not a big explosion of the music itself. But then came some of the major-label companies RCA, Imperial, Globe so it expanded more. It was heard not just here in San Antonio it went to Corpus Christie, Dallas or whatever. So that is why it expanded. Your dad played public dances can you talk about that? My dad started in house dances. There are so many stories he told me about just playing, birthday parties and celebrations of anniversaries or wh
