Seasons of the Ukulele

A weekly song challenge for ukulele players - all welcome. Find out more here

SOTU 704 Hey Baby Que Paso!

TCK

After losing the POD and Tom Lehrer, the world decided to take another favorite of mine, Flaco Jimenez. If you are not familiar, Flaco was a world class accordion player who specialized in Tex Mex Conjunto music.

For this week, I am going to really open it up. You can play:

Any song that Flaco played.

Any song by an artist Flaco worked with (that is a LOT).

Any song that fits the conjunto label.

And because Chris Strachwitz introduced me to Conjunto and the accordion (which I play as well), you can do any song on his Arhoolie label.

Regular rules apply, watch what others play, be nice and have fun!

Writers, bring us what you feel fits👍🏻

PLAYLIST

UkeCan1

How do we find out who Flaco played with? Is there a list? I don't have time for a lot of research this week, and I do want to play with y'all.

CanadaJim

UkeCan1 Google "Who did Flaco Jiménez play with?"

or put "flaco jimenez and" in the YouTube browzer.

Lots of answers will pop up.

TCK

UkeCan1 Kind of wanted discovery to be part of the season, as a tribute to a guy most are not going to know. That said, I would rather not post a list. I can drop a few…like Ry Cooder

Or these guys…

TCK

I have kids again Monday, so expect me to pop in in the evenings west coast time- I will be here, just limited to posting after work.

TCK

I don’t expect y’all to bring Spanish…but this video I just found blows my mind. Flaco’s brother Santiago is his equal, and he takes off his accordion. Man is a great player and a really cool person (I have met him), and he lays it down for his big brother…respect.

YorkSteve

UkeCan1 Linda Ronstadt, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Dwight Yoakam, The Mavericks….a few to be going on with

CanadaJim

Flaco and Ry Cooder included Woody Guthrie's DO, RAY, ME as part of a medley.

The only records I have with Flaco on 'em are Ry Cooder records. Great Seasons topic Dave!

LimousinLil

Hello, Dave … and thanks for hosting! I am ashamed to say that I had never heard of Flaco Jiménez until you made him the subject of this week's theme. He was featured in this song by The Mavericks. (I'm not very keen on Country music, but I DO like The Mavericks and Raul Malo.)

TCK

Couple of GREAT choices to kick things off! Thanks you two!

TCK

Well, let’s have some inspiration! Off to a slower start than I had hoped, but what we have is AWESOME. Admittedly the cross-roads between Tex-Mex and ukulele are crappy bile paths😂. This song was written by Peter Rowan (who played with Flaco). Probably made most famous by the Grateful Dead, and later Old and in the Way. This is my favorite version of it- totally counts. Hoping I was clear, you can play ANY song by anyone who played with Flaco. He does not have to be on the record.

And because I love Doug Sahm almost as much as I love the Byrds (thanks dad), just going to drop one Flaco is on for y’all. Auggie Meyer took keyboards and you can tell it is Flaco on the accordion because he does flourishes from traditional songs (mostly adapted German songs), and well, Doug yells “Flaco!”

Buddy Miller does as an amazing version of this one as well.

All right, see you folks tomorrow- TCK

Bystander

Barbablanca

Back in Season 698 I mentioned that I had a great song from my back catalogue for that week's theme. However, I couldn't find it and thought it gone forever. But last week I found a little notebook from my folk club days and there it was!

So, I gave it as near as I could get to a Zydeco treatment and here it is:

I hope you like it

YorkSteve

Thanks for inspiring us to dig deep this week Dave!

I was lucky enough to see Flaco way back when, with his band at the Cambridge Folk Festival. As well as all the big names he collaborated with, he sat in with a few lesser known acts, and I am pretty sure this one was at the same festival that year. Brendan Croker, a bit of a Leeds legend, played a mix of country blues and jug band classics, as well as writing some good songs himself. When I first moved to York he had a regular spot at a pub, which became my favourite night out of the month. He went on to be part of the Notting Hillbillies with Mark Knopfler.

Sometime in the mid 80s Flaco joined in on a couple of his songs. Annoyingly they don't appear to be on Spotify, and only appeared on a CD re-release of one of his albums, but they are on YouTube if you hunt for them. Here's one of those songs, which Brendan recorded several times over the years, and rightly so.

AlanDP

LOL! Season 194 deja vu! I was kinda hoping someone would do this kind of theme again.

TCK

Bystander wait- there was a video here this morning. Wha’appen?

TCK

AlanDP I had forgotten we had done that! When Flaco died I had to do a Flaco season. Deja vu indeed!

Pretty good list of songs if folks are stuck- thanks for the reminder👍🏻

AlanDP

As you can probably understand, Flaco's passing was big news here in the San Antonio area. This song was recorded by the Texas Tornados, of which Flaco was a member, and he played accordion on this song.

Threebird

Thanks for hosting, and for choosing a really nice theme! This is a great way to be introduced to an artist that I have undoubtedly heard on recordings, but had no idea who I was hearing. So thank-you!

You posted a Doug Sahm song above (the link didn't work for me fyi), so here is a different song of his that I first heard after buying an Uncle Tupelo record that had just come out while I was in Portland OR. For anyone who hasn't heard it, I highly recommend looking up Uncle Tupelo & Doug Sahm's version of 'Give back The Key To My Heart'!

In the meantime, here's mine (oh, and there is some info about the bumblebee in the cover photo in the YT description)…

TCK

Threebird you brought keys. Was a punk rock kid when Uncle Tupelo introduced me to Doug Sahm. I love this song. One I was gonna bash out on Friday if it did not make it here.

For the links that don’t work on Youtube, click them again. They are restricted to Youtube only.