Flaco Jimenez born 11 March 1939

Leonardo “Flaco” Jiminez (March 11, 1939 – July 31, 2025) was an American singer-songwriter and  accordionist  from  San Antonio,  Texas. He is known for having played  conjunto, norteño  and  tejano. Jiménez was a solo performer and  session musician, as well as a member of the Texas Tornados  and Los Super Seven. Over the course of his seven-decade career, he received numerous awards and honors, including Lifetime Achievement Awards from the  Grammys,  Americana Music Awards, Tejano Music Awards, and  Billboard  magazine.

Born Leonardo Jiménez in San Antonio, he was known since childhood as Flaco (Spanish for skinny). He was the son of Santiago Jiménez, a successful accordion player, and his wife, Luisa (known as Mena), who ran a home filled with music. His grandfather, Patricio, had played conjunto, as did his father, who recorded several regional hits. Flaco started out playing bajo sexto guitar, a 12-stringed Mexican instrument, then switched to the accordion when he was seven. At 15 he started a band, Los Caporales, and began playing on local radio stations at the start of a career that would transform Texan music.

                                

Flaco's first instrument was the bajo sexto (a Mexican variation on the 12-string guitar), which he started to play at age seven, but after he became proficient enough to join his father on-stage, Flaco's interest turned to the accordion, and he developed a joyous, expressive style that was influenced by zydeco master Clifton Chenier  as well as his father and his Tex-Mex peers. 

Los Caporales 1957

At 15, Jimenéz formed his first band, Los Caporales, and the group soon won a sizable following in San Antonio, cutting records for a local label and earning a weekly spot on a local television variety show. By the early '60s, Jimenéz was already a Texas legend, playing clubs across the Lone Star State and regularly filling dancehalls in San Antonio with music that fused the classic Tejano sound with elements of blues and country.

Jiménez’s profile continued to rise, and in 1973 he was asked by the renowned Tex-Mex musician Doug Sahm to contribute accordion to his debut album, which included appearances from musical mainstays like Bob Dylan and Dr. John. These collaborations helped to establish Jiménez’s national reputation as a master of conjunto, and in 1976, Ry Cooder invited him to contribute to Chicken Skin Music, Cooder’s first exploration of Tex-Mex traditions. Following his appearance on Cooder’s album, Jiménez was invited to join the roster of Arhoolie Records, and in 1977 he recorded Flaco Jiménez y Su Conjunto, his first album to be distributed outside of the American Southwest. Through the 1980s and ’90s Jiménez continued releasing new recordings and reissuing earlier works with Arhoolie Records.

Jiménez continued to tour and record extensively, winning his first GRAMMY in 1987 and appearing on Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens’ chart-topping country single “Streets of Bakersfield” in 1988. He joined forces with Doug Sahm once again in 1989, forming the supergroup known as The Texas Tornados with fellow Tejano stars Freddie Fender and Augie Myers. In 1992, Jiménez made his debut on Warner Bros. Records with the hit album Partners, which included appearances from Stephen Stills, Emmylou Harris, and Los Lobos.

In 1994, he made a guest appearance on The Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge, and in 1999, he won his fourth GRAMMY, making him the most awarded artist in the history of the GRAMMY’s “Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album” category—this time for his contributions to Los Super Seven’s debut album. Jiménez was a mentor to Max Baca, the leader of the GRAMMY Award-winning group Los Texmaniacs, and in 2014 the pair released the collaborative album Flaco & Max: Legends & Legacies on Smithsonian Folkways, capturing the essential sounds of the conjunto tradition.

Jiménez went on to receive lifetime achievement awards from both Billboard and the GRAMMYs, as well as a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He continued to tour and record into his seventies, and in 2017 a photo of Jiménez was hung in the National Portrait Gallery. In 2022 he was awarded a prestigious National Medal of Arts by the United States government, “for harnessing heritage to enrich American music.”

Jiménez died following a long illness on July 31, 2025, at the age of 86.  He had been living at the home of one of his sons. His legacy as a conjunto pioneer and master of the accordion will live on through his groundbreaking recordings and the countless artists he continues to inspire.

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & The Guardian)