Puro Conjunto: An Album in Words and Pictures

From the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas to East L.A. to the barrios of Chicago, people are listening to the heartfelt, accordion-driven sounds of conjunto. Born in South Texas in the 1920s, conjunto has become popular throughout the United States, Mexico, and, of late, Europe and Japan. But Texas remains the heart of conjunto music making. Indeed, the largest conjunto festival in the world is the Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio, founded in 1982.

¡Puro Conjunto!is a wide-ranging collection of writings taken from the festival's program magazine,Tonantzin.These writings include scholarly essays, articles by journalists and music critics, interviews with legendary performers, autobiographical accounts, short stories, and poetry. Their subjects include the history of conjunto music, its signature instruments, the social context and functions of conjunto, and personal histories of conjunto music giants. Most of these pieces have never been published elsewhere. Photos and full-color reproductions of the festival posters accompany the text.

This collection should interest conjunto and folk-music fans, as well as students and scholars. Like the music, this book can be used in a variety of ways: as an entertaining survey of the genre, a valuable supplement to college textbooks, or a handy resource for research.