San Benito’s conjunto museum traces the genre’s past as a new generation takes root

They call San Benito “the Resaca City.” It’s known for the river-shaped lakes that used to be tributaries of the Rio Grande. There are parks built around a few of them, and any given day you’ll see families fishing in the resacas.

The Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum is right next to a resaca. It found a home in an almost 100-year-old historical building that was once a hotel.

For Patricia Avila, a retired teacher and daughter of the museum founder, it’s the perfect place her dad envisioned. 

“ It’s almost like he manifested this building for his layout for his museum. And my mom even says he also wanted to be next to a resaca. Well, we got that, too,” she says.

An almost 100-year-old building is home to the Texas Conjunto Hall of Fame and Museum. Kristen Cabrera / Texas Standard

Reynaldo Avila Sr. is the founder of the hall of fame and museum. He died in 2019 before it got its new home and opened those doors to the public in 2023. Patricia is the president and executive director of the museum. She says that running it has become a family affair.

“I run pretty much all the daily activities here at the museum,” she says. “And my brother, Peter, he’s like our curator. My brother, Joe, he does like the marketing and [is] in charge of the archiving. And it’s a family business-oriented museum. My mom even comes to volunteer on Thursdays or Fridays.”

Patricia’s brother, Pedro “Pete” Avila, is the  vice president of the museum.

“It’s been fun. There’s five of us,” he says. “There’s five siblings and then I think if you put all five of us together, we don’t even add up to what my dad would do in the efforts to keep this going.”

Pete and the rest of his siblings work full time jobs elsewhere. Patricia recently retired from working 26 years in education. And with all the museum has going on, Pete couldn’t be more grateful. 

“Thank God for my sister Patty,” he said. “She retired about two years ago and now she’s here full time even though it’s supposed to be a part time job. But she says it’s just so much.”

“I mean it feels like a full time job, I was just telling him today,” Patricia says.

Founding fathers of Texas conjunto

The museum’s different rooms showcase the various aspects and milestones that make up conjunto music history.

One area is dedicated to the founders of conjunto music – Narciso Martínez, known as “El Huracán del Valle” (The Hurricane of the Valley) – and  Santiago Almeida Sr., whose strumming bass lines on the bajo sexto kicked off the modern day conjunto sound.

“ As teenagers, they were working the fields. They were migrant workers and you can see that if you’re young and the day’s over, you want to go somewhere where there’s fun,” Pete explains. 

“And I’m thinking they would always ask, like,’ where are the pachangas at? Where are the parties at?’ And they would go find the downtown and they were playing oom-pah music. They’re playing German music.”

He says after hearing that sound and teaming up with Almeida, Martinez was inspired.

“He decided, ‘I’m going to try to plug in the accordion, because it’s got all the music that it needs on the melody side,'” Pete said. “Now, when he learned the bass side, then he put together the bajo sexto. And so he put it to the ear and said, ‘you know what? I think if I can blend this sound, it’s going to make a unique kind of contribution.’ And it did.”

“ That sound came together in 1934,” Patricia said. “The first recording was under the Bluebird label, under the RCA label. And after that, well the majority of the music was recorded under the Ideal Records.”

Ideal Records

Ideal Records – with ‘Ideal’ pronounced the Spanish way – was started by sound engineer and studio owner Armando Marroquín of Alice, TX. He brought in local Rio Grande Music store owner and distributor Paco Betancourt out of San Benito.

Marroquín was upset that, partly due to war-time rationing, the major labels were refusing to record regional music. Seeing an opportunity to right this, he began to record local artists and press them into records. That’s when Betancourt came in and would distribute them.

By cornering the market at the time, Ideal Records became very successful.

“It’s a great partnership,” Patricia said. “So musicians from all over Texas and Mexico would come to record their music here. And I even heard that Narciso Martínez was almost like a house band. He would accompany the other musicians, as well, at the recording studio.” 

» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters

Ideal Records became a historic jewel in the crown of South Texas music.

Reynaldo Avila Sr., the history buff that he was, knew this long before he got 501(c)(3) status in the 2000s. Everyone around Reynaldo Sr. knew that, as well. He built a reputation for loving the story of conjunto and collecting artifacts to preserve it. 

After Paco Betancourt and Armando Marroquín passed away, the Ideal Records building was set to close. Patricia says her father’s reputation preceded him.

“Their family actually came up to my father and talked to my dad or wrote a letter to my dad and stated that everything that was inside the building, that ‘we’re going to gift it to him and donate it to him so he can tell you the story of the conjunto industry that was happening here in San Benito, the recording studio,'” Patricia said. “So we have all that.”

The legacy of the Ideal Recording studio is one of the first things you see on display at the museum. In what used to be the hotel reception booth, the museum has replicated how bands would record together in the live room. Recording machines and even master prints are on display at the museum. The faces of many of the voices heard in its catalog are seen are on the walls.

Musicians in the Hall of Fame

“ Lydia Mendoza, who sang ranchera music, Isidro López, who performed Tejano orquesta music, and Beto Villa… These are all original Ideal Recording artists,” Patricia said.

Around the corner is another room with Hall of Fame portraits and performance outfits on display. Many of these artists are still with us – alive and kicking enough to make some outfit changes.

“Ruben Garza is one of our inductees. He comes to the museum a few times during the year, Patricia said. “He’s a barber in Harlingen during the day and then a musician at night. He has a band called Ruben Garza y Conjunto. And, well, that’s his suit right there.”

Patricia points to the three-piece black suit on the mannequin in the corner of the room. Garza’s portrait and several newspaper articles of him hang next to it.

“This is a funny story,” Patricia said. “He walks in and there’s some brown shoes with the suit. And he tells me, ‘hey.” He tells his wife, ‘Those are those brown shoes I’ve been looking for’ and I said, ‘well, you donated them to us,’ and he goes ‘I’ll be back.’

And sure enough he came back, brought me some black shoes, and he took his brown shoes with him. He’s so funny.”

Because the legacy of these artists are so closely tied with the community, the museum has a donation or a loan program.

“So the family, you know, they don’t want to let go of the artifact yet, which we understand because it’s sentimental to the family,” Patricia says.

Conjunto legacy

It’s not uncommon for inductees or their family members to visit the museum. Sometimes they’ll be inspired to add something to the exhibit, Pete Avila says. Other times they just enjoy seeing their loved ones’ accomplishments honored.

“When their children come in, they get to see the displays and the artifacts that were left from their father, their mother, or their grandfather. It really gets them in the heart,” Pete said.

Reynaldo Avila Sr., founder of the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum. His portrait hangs at the entrance of the museum. Kristen Cabrera / Texas Standard

And oftentimes they get to see the next generation of conjunto artists walk through the door.

“What we’re seeing now is that those siblings are now in bands. They’re playing in groups,” Pete said. “I would say shaking the bushes to conjunto again. It started all over again. We’ve been seeing a spike of the music through high school, now even through college, and it’s been amazing.”

These artists have the love and appreciation for conjunto music in their blood. And so does Patricia, Pete and all their siblings, passed down through their father’s work.

“Now that I see what it took [to run the museum], I told my sister we need to get more of our cousins in here, more of our nephews in here because it’s a lot of work to keep this going,” Pete said. “But again, the stories and the history is something that does need to be preserved, archived and promoted, and that’s what we’re here for.”

Reynaldo Avila Sr. was inducted into the Texas Conjunto Hall of Fame in 2023 as recognition for all his efforts to preserve conjunto history. His portrait greets visitors as they walk through the front door, watching over the work his family is inspired to continue for generations to come.

If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.