Flaco Jimenez is recipient of Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award

Conjunto great Flaco Jimenez, already a five-time Grammy winner, has been named a recipient of the Recording Academy’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award.

Jimenez was on a list of lifetime Grammy recipients announced Thursday that included George Harrison, the Bee Gees, Buddy Guy, the Louvin Brothers, Pierre Boulez and Wayne Shorter.

He’s come a long way since the days when he was simply Leonardo to his family and friends. Jimenez was born March 1939 on Pastores Street in San Antonio, in the Mexican American colonia known as La Piedrera, not far from the zoo.

“We could hear the growls of the lions and hyenas late at night,” Jimenez recalled.

He achieved worldwide fame bringing his alegre, or happy, accordion style to a broad audience. A member of the Texas Tornados, he’s also played with musicians such as Doug Sahm, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Ry Cooder and Willie Nelson.

Jimenez, 75, took the news with characteristic humor and humility.

“I’m shivering, I’m trembling, man,” he said. “I’m flattered. I have to say thank you to all my fellow musicians who helped me along the way, and fans and friends from around the world and here in my hometown. I want to thank everybody that’s helped me out along my long road. But I’ve enjoyed every mile of it.”

The music community applauded the recognition.

Record producer Michael Morales said the Recording Academy was honoring “a great American story.”

“He’s royalty, man,” Morales said.

Recording engineer Marius Perron recorded Jimenez at Joey Records’ Zaz Studios in the early 1970s.

“He never acted like a star,” Perron said. “He was just always hanging out there, always real nice.”

Former KEDA disc jockey Ricky “Güero Polkas” Davila credits Jimenez with “launching San Antonio music all over the world.”

Renowned rock critic and author Dave Marsh agreed.

“Flaco and Freddy (Fender) were the two guys that made that music accessible to me,” Marsh said. “He comes from that working-class background but always conducted himself with such magnificent dignity and gravity, even. Flaco is, with his instrument, one of the great lyrical and poetic voices of American music.”

Former Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong-Torres echoed the sentiment.

“He’s one of the artists who broadened the palette of music beyond its American mainstream borders. He was a joy to hear, whether with Sir Doug or with any other ensemble,” Fong-Torres said in an email.

In recent years, Joe Treviño at Blue Cat Studio in Southtown has been Jimenez’s go-to producer. Treviño recounted the words a major label record executive once used to describe the Tex-Mex accordionist: “Flaco took the most un-hip instrument possible and made it cool.”

“It’s really backyard music,” Treviño said.

Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz first got to know Jimenez during the filming of Les Blank’s documentary “Chulas Fronteras” in the mid-’70s and has issued a handful of his albums. He called him “a magical musician.”

“He was able to play gringo music,” Strachwitz said of Jimenez’s ability to work with mainstream acts such as the Rolling Stones and Buck Owens.

Juan Tejeda, who has presented Jimenez many times at the Tejano Conjunto Festival, said it’s overdue for a Chicano musician to receive this kind of honor. Fewer than a handful of the award’s more than 180 recipients have been Latinos.

“Flaco is a very special person. He transcends the reasons why a lot of these Latinos have been excluded for this award,” Tejeda said. “This is a well-deserved honor. Flaco is one of a kind. His contribution to the American musical landscape has been significant. It is American music, absolutely. Conjunto music is an original American art form and style of music that can be compared to jazz or Cajun-zydeco.”

Augie Meyers of the Texas Tornados is still not completely convinced that the world gets Jimenez.

“They’re getting there,” he said. “It’s about time. Generally, they only send people flowers when they’re dead. They’d rather have them when they’re alive, so they can smell ’em.”

Also announced on Thursday were recipients of the Recording Academy’s Trustee Awards: Richard Perry, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil and George Wein. Ray Kurzweil will receive a Technical Grammy Award.

hsaldana@express-news.net