Valerio Longoria, Sr.

The Longoria family dynasty in Tex-Mex music begins in the 1920s in a Mississippi cotton field, with no one in the large family of Valerio Longoria Sr. aware that a master musician was growing up in their midst. He spent his childhood in the small towns of Ramondsville and Kenedy, TX, heading off as a child to work in the fields, grinding toil whether it be an Arkansas cotton field or a Texas orange grove. He first learned to play guitar and harmonica before picking up the accordion at the age of seven. He was largely influenced by the early-Tejano styles of Narciso Martinez b...