Flaco Jimenez may have been the greatest conjunto musician of all time, as a video tribute proclaimed, but he also was a man of the people, several speakers stressed at his official memorial service on Thursday night.
Accolades came in from far and wide for the San Antonio music icon, who died July 31 at age 86 following a long illness. But it was the ones from closest to home that really hit home.
“We have lost one of the greats in the history of Tejano music,” said Juan Tejeda, the founder of the Guadalupe Cultural Center’s Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio. Jimenez, his father, Santiago Jimenez Sr., and his brother, Santiago Jimenez Jr., played the first festival more than 40 years ago, and Flaco Jimenez’s final public performance was at the 2024 festival…