‘It’s all part of who we are’: New institute aims to immortalize the sounds of Texas music

The sonic landscape of Texas music is as vast as the state itself.

Across these 254 counties you’ll find homegrown genres like Tejano and conjunto, as well as those that take on a particular flavor of the Lone Star State, like in Texas country and folk music.

Now, a new initiative is launching to archive and celebrate the state’s music history. Housed at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, the recently announced historic music preservation institute has already begun acquiring and preserving artifacts detailing that history.

The project is being spearheaded by Rudy Treviño, a familiar voice to many in South Texas as a veteran broadcaster and longtime host of “Domingo Live!” and “Tejano Gold Countdown.” He is also currently serving as professor of practice at A&M-Kingsville.

Treviño joined the Standard to talk about what brought him to take on this project, as well as where he hopes to see it go. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Rudy Treviño: I’ve always thought of something like this that was necessary, but it was the forward-thinking of the great staff at Texas A&M-Kingsville who said, you know what? What if we were to give you the opportunity to do this? What would you need?

And so I started rattling off something that it seemed I had practiced for many, many years about what I would want to make – something that would help preserve not only Tejano music, but original Texas music from Texas country, Texas red dirt, Texas jazz, you name it. Texas conjunto, regional Mexicano …

All of that is combined. I mean, it’s all part of who we are and what makes up the great state of Texas.

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

Texas Standard: I like the way you put that, “it’s all part of who we are.” Did the school approach you, or did you have this idea and drop it on them and they said “wow”?

It started when I was invited to emcee and host the inauguration of Dr. Robert Vela as the president of Texas A&M [Kingsville] and we got to know each other there and talked about him being president at San Antonio College, which has an incredible broadcasting program. And I was very familiar with many of the folks who were alum from San Antonio College.

And so we started talking about it and he says, “you know, I want to do something different here at this university. I want start something that is basically serving our back door, our neighbors.” And he says “what kind of idea can I bounce off of you that might strike a nerve?” And I said, “you know what? Tejano music, South Texas music, it’s so unique. And no one’s ever done anything to really preserve it. We’re losing a lot of that.”

Well, that started one conversation, but then we found out that George Strait had family that attended Texas A&M-Kingsville. We found out Al Dean had relatives, and he himself attended Texas A&M – Texas A&I at the time. And then we go on: Robert Ray, another Texas country artist. And so the list goes on.

We started doing more research and go “wait a minute.” There was a guy named Paulino Bernal, whose family was all from the Kingsville area, and they, too, became worldwide Tejano, conjunto people that even toured Vietnam with the Domingo Peña guy whose namesake is “Domingo Live!” that we have today. It kind of grew, and it took on a life of its own, if you will.

A couple of months later, I was approached by Dr. Vela, and he asked me, “hey, would you ever consider making a transition from television news” – which is what I’ve done for 47 years – “into academia?” And I said: “you know, it sounds like fun. I’ve done it before. I would love to do that. Why?” And he says, “how long do you have left on your contract?” I said: “funny you should ask. My contract is up in December, and we’re about to begin renegotiations with Tegna,” which is the company that I was working for at Channel 3 here in Corpus Christi.

And so one thing led to another, and he sat down and said, “we’d love you to come work for us.”

Sounds like it was meant to be. Now, where are we with the archive? Is it approved? Launched? Looks like you’re already acquiring materials. Where do you put the stuff? 

We’re putting the stuff, and so much of it, into what used to be the honors college on campus, temporarily. It is on hold.

So we’ve got so much that’s come in because there’s a lot of actual vinyl that is no longer available – original Texas music that is no longer available. You can’t find the masters, or the record companies that produce a lot of these vinyls are no longer around.

So we’re using my office, which is a suite of offices, and so we’ve turned each one of those offices into the different categories – Tejano in one, country in another, kind of a jazz in another, and some of the other genres in one of the smaller rooms.

And so it’s not just audio. The beauty of what we’re also doing is we’re looking for film and video of programs that were locally produced by some of smaller stations. Like for example, Domingo Peña, who produced a show, and is the longest-running show in the nation. It started in 1964. So what we’re doing is we’re looking at it for archives.

Here’s the biggest thing that we’ve run into – is that we’re having to find companies that will transfer and digitize old analog, two-inch videos on to digital and then color correct.

That’s quite a chore.

Yeah, it is a chore. But you know what? It is our history. We cannot lose any of that. If we do, it’s like it never ever happened – and yet these folks who produced these shows made an impact in our lives.

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Any highlight acquisitions so far?

There is one that is very close to being finalized, and that is the acquisition of the Falcon Record label.

Falcon was a record label based out of McAllen, Texas, that recorded many, many, many artists back in the ’50s and the ’60s that became pretty big stars. And so their recordings are key to this archive because their recordings also include a television program called “Fanfarria Falcón” that was produced in the late ’60s and ’70s.

And within those programs, those one-hour-long programs, are people or groups such as Los Dinos, the original Dinos that, as we all know, gave birth to, of course, Selena. And so many other big artists performed on that show, and we’re hoping and we’re just crossing our fingers that everything works out just as planned.

The family that own the rights to those videos are going to be working out an agreement with Texas A&M that will be kept in honor and in the name of the person, their father, who purchased the entire library. So that’s in the works. It’s looking very positive, and we hope to get this finalized here before the end of summer.

Now I know that you’re actually looking to the public for some assistance. What sort of material are you hoping people will donate? How can they go about doing that? Do you have a process formally set up?

We are working on the process itself, but let me give you the basics of what we’re looking for.

We know that there were television shows, such as “The Domingo Peña Show,” that featured … Depending on the area of Texas, some were hour-long educational programs that were produced by local TV stations, and nothing ever happened. Maybe they ran for two or three years, but they featured some legendary artists that were just beginning, maybe back in the late ’60s, early ’70s.

Courtesy of Rudy Treviño

We’re also looking for those tapes or films. We’re looking for vinyl or any audio masters that maybe are sitting around in somebody’s closet that they don’t know what to do with and will probably end up being lost or maybe degrading with the years.

So what we’re doing is we’re trying to find these people from all the different genres. And we’ve got folks that have come out of the woodwork already that are saying, “hey, my uncle played with Steve Jordan.” I don’t know if you remember him.

Yes, Esteban Jordan. Yes, absolutely. The Jimi Hendrix of the accordion, folks, if you haven’t heard of him.

That’s right! He made so many guest appearances on so many different movies, but that’s what we’re looking for. Something that will say: This is who we are in Texas. This is the talent that we’ve produced, and we can’t forget them. We need to immortalize them in our archives.

And beauty of it is these archives will be open to anyone and everyone. Our vision, if approved, I can see us opening up a museum-like archive where folks will be able to come in, we’ll have kiosks set up where they can come in and maybe look up an artist and there will be their biography, there you will be able to listen maybe in their own words, maybe on video, but you’ll be able to listen to music that you may have never heard of that launched them or propelled them into stardom.

One of the reasons that I say we may be able to hear them is because I am donating 30 years of interviews from my own nationally syndicated radio show, “Tejano Gold Countdown.” And we’ve got interviews with folks that are no longer with us like Jimmy Gonzalez, Tony De La Rosa, Selena … We’re talking interviews with Laura Canales – she was kind of like the queen of Tejano long, long before Selena – and just so many others.

Freddie Fender, when he sat down with me, we were backstage in Hollywood at the Hollywood Bowl. He was performing there. And I said, “Freddie, we need to sit down and do an interview.” He said, “let’s do that.”

And one of the questions that stands out, I said “how do you want to be remembered?” And he gave me such a touching story about how he wanted to be remembered. And it just affected me profoundly because of the fact that this man started with such humble roots, just a guy wanting to be a rock and roller, you know?

» RELATED: New Freddy Fender exhibit paints full picture of Tejano artist’s career and hurdles

So we’ve got his interview, and we’ve got so many others that we’re going to be adding to our collection in these archives. And so we’re looking forward to meeting up with all of these folks. We’re going to be getting together on June 8 in San Antonio to pay homage to the late great Johnny Rodriguez. And we understand, there are going to some pretty big names.

And so, we’re gonna use that opportunity to maybe talk to them about their own careers, their humble beginnings. Most of them are Texas artists who are just getting together to remember Johnny.

So there’s a lot of work to be done, but we’re going to need the public’s help.

If you have materials to donate, reach out to Adriana Garza-Flores, A&M-Kingsville’s chief marketing and communications officer, at adriana.garza@tamuk.edu.

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