Tucson is a good music town. Well, maybe better than good.
Lots of talented musicians are born and raised here or relocate to the valley, inspired by some good olβ desert juju.
I could make out a lengthy list of musicians and groups who have made their mark or are currently carving out well-deserved acclaim.
Instead, Iβll add one more name to that long scroll: Louie Marinez.
Marinez is a longtime local trumpeter and singer in various Tucson Chicano bands and spent seven years with Tucson-born Mariachi Cobre at Epcot Center in Florida. He also was the lead singer for a Texas-based dance group before returning home five years ago to resume his music work and care for his ailing dad. Now heβs been rewarded based on his musical rΓ©sumΓ©.
In January, the 51-year-old Marinez will be inducted into the Tejano R.O.O.T.S. Hall of Fame. And to make that recognition even more special, Marinez is the first Arizonan to join the elite Texan group as a soloist, according to the groupβs president, Ruben Lopez. (Tucson Tejano singer Adalberto Gallegos was inducted previously but as part of a group.)
Knowing how proud and exclusive Tejanos can be β R.O.O.T.S. means βRemembering Our Own Tejano Starsβ β this is a big thang for Marinez.
βIt means the world to me. I still think itβs a dream,β said Marinez, in the kitchen of his Summit home, off of Old Nogales Highway south of Tucson International Airport. βItβs a high honor, being a Tucson boy, born and raised here. Went to school here, went to catechism here, my whole familyβs here. Biggest honor I can think of right now.β
Tejano music is rooted in the culture and lore of south and central Texas. It draws from Central European waltzes and polkas, and Mexican corridos, mariachi and norteΓ±o, and American blues, rock, country-western and R&B. The various strands are joined together by the bouncy accordion, a nod to Tejanoβs European influence.
If youβve heard the late Selena sing, youβve heard a modern variant of Tejano music or sometimes called Tex-Mex. If youβve heard the wizardry of accordionist Flaco Jimenez, youβve heard the old-school style of conjunto music.
In Tucson and Southern Arizona, Tejano has long been a popular dance music as Tejano bands rolled through here, traveling between South Texas and Southern California along Interstate 10. The bands would take the stage at El Casino Ballroom in South Tucson or the old Sky Villa nightclub on South 12th Avenue and the Del Rio Ballroom at the northeast corner of the freeway and West Speedway. Those popular Tejano bands like Sunny and the Sunliners, Little Joe y La Familia and Latin Breed performed alongside Tucson favorites Love LTD, Orquesta Vida and Ritmo Suave, and many others.
Marinez and his family grew up with those bands. Itβs personal to him. His mother and tΓas would sing along to the popular songs. He reminisced that his nana, Angelita Torres, would cry when she heard Little Joe because he sang with deep emotion.
βThat kind of hits it for me. It touches me,β he said.
Marinez first took up the trumpet when he was 9 years old, while attending the now-closed Roberts Elementary School near East 29th Street and South Columbus Avenue.
βI started playing trumpet because all my friends started playing trumpet.β
He recalled there were about 20 trumpet players at Roberts β and he was number 20. After that first year, during the summer, one of his buddies in a mariachi group invited him to join. Marinez could barely play his instrument, much less knew any mariachi songs.
But when his friend told Marinez that the youth mariachi was headed that summer to So Cal to visit Disneyland and other amusement parks, Marinez was in and motivated to learn a few mariachi songs.
After that summer he moved up in the pecking order and in the fifth grade he was the No. 1 trumpet player, he said.
He started with Mariachi San Xavier at the 12:30 Mass at Mission Del Bac. In high school he performed with Tierra de Sol and Mariachi America with Gilbert Velez and then joined the venerable Mariachi Cobre in 1989. He left Cobre to return to Tucson and in 1996 he formed the band Myzterio, with Rey Baltazar on guitar and Joe Sanchez on bass.
A year later, when Marinez was performing in San Antonio, the leader of the Tejano group Liberty Band heard him sing and offered him the lead vocalist spot in the band. Marinez said βsΓ.β In 1999, Marinez returned home and reunited with Myzterio Band and to care for his father, Louis Moreno Marinez, who died in 2016, two years after he recorded his debut album, βSin Fronteras.β
Marinez is confident that Tejano will continue to cross borders, reaching new audiences. While the music has long been considered to have limited regional appeal, Marinez said new fans are calling from Florida and Michigan, and from southern Mexico.
βThatβs OK if they want the music,β he said. βI donβt care if theyβre from China.β
Tejano in China. That has a nice ring to it.
