Crossing Borders: My Journey in Music by Max Baca and Craig Harris

Abstract

Reviewed by: Crossing Borders: My Journey in Music by Max Baca and Craig Harris Jason Mellard Crossing Borders: My Journey in Music. By Max Baca with Craig Harris. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2021. Pp. 184. Illustrations, notes, references, index.) Crossing Borders: My Journey in Music delivers much more than a memoir of a working musician, employing Max Baca’s experience to sketch an [End Page 334] entire history of the Mexican American musical traditions he has done so much to further during his time with storied groups the Texas Tornados, Los Super Seven, and Los Texmaniacs. It makes sense that Baca could thread this needle of the personal and historical. As Daniel Sheehy of Smithsonian Folkways states in the foreword, “Max doesn’t just typify tradition: he is tradition” (xi). It is a simplifying claim, surely, but one that rings true throughout the book. Southwestern music’s syncretism comes through from the outset, as the Grammy-winning Baca reveals that the first two songs he learned were Bill Boyd’s “Monterrey Polka”—a country artist invoking Mexican culture through a German genre—and the swing standard “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller. By age twelve, he was in the recording studio with a band led by his father, Max Baca Sr., and he grew into his own in Los Hermanos Baca with brother Jimmy on accordion. Through these family bands in 1970s New Mexico, Baca charted his path to becoming one of the modern masters of the bajo sexto, a twelve-string guitar that is the traditional accompaniment to the accordion in conjunto. Crossing Borders interweaves many themes well, and the way the book becomes a biography of the bajo sexto as much as Max Baca is one of its best turns. Baca and Harris recount the history of this instrument that is little known outside the southwestern borderlands, tracing its links to related string instruments such as the Middle Eastern oud and the mariachi guitarrón. In other words, there is a great deal going on in this short, rollicking account. The authors succeed in balancing historical breadth and biographical focus partially through the deployment of the Texas Tornados, the band that took Baca from the New Mexico scene to the global stage when he stepped in for his mentor Oscar Tellez on a 1991 tour. Complementing Baca’s own story, the middle chapters sketch the careers of Tornados Doug Sahm, Augie Meyers, Freddy Fender, and, especially, legendary accordionist Flaco Jiménez. The Tornados chapters open up brief but essential discussions of the independent record labels and nightclubs of mid-twentieth century San Antonio, Freddy Fender’s dealings with the notorious producer Huey Meaux, and the origins of conjunto recording with Flaco’s father Santiago Jiménez Sr. The Tornados’ crossover success also takes this regional account into the wider arena of popular music, featuring episodes with artists such as Peter Rowan, Lyle Lovett, Los Lobos, and the Rolling Stones. Shortly after the passing of Doug Sahm and Freddy Fender, the remaining Tornados stopped performing as a unit. Baca picked up the preservationist torch as a member of Los Super Seven and bandleader of Los Tex-maniacs, whose mission is to keep traditional conjunto alive and on stage. Nevertheless, his art is about looking forward as much as it is reflecting on what has come before. At one point, bluegrass artist Peter Rowan reflects on “heading towards the ultimate Tex-Mex twang music” in collaboration [End Page 335] with Baca (147), and at the book’s end the reader is inclined to believe that Baca will reach it. More than just music, though, the arc of his career recounted here also aims at a broader understanding of the crossings and hybridity of modern southwestern culture. This readable, poignant, and rich memoir is an essential building block in that larger project. Jason Mellard Texas State University Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association