Los Texmaniacs Release New Album

“San Antonio Rose” has been a staple of Texas music since 1940, but Los Texmaniacs add new color to that and other country-western classics on their album Texas Towns and Tex-Mex Sounds, released July 31 on Smithsonian Folkways. Los Texmaniacs, a quartet founded in 1997, are rooted in conjunto, the jalapeño-spiced polka music featuring the 12-string bajo sexto and the button accordion (a legacy of 19th-century German immigrants to the Lone Star State). On Texas Towns, however, the band tours the region’s broad musical canon and draws on classic rock, blues and Chicano dance music along the way. Even “The Eyes of Texas,” written in 1903, sounds new.

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Aviva Shen is a reporter/blogger for ThinkProgress. Before joining CAP, Aviva interned and wrote for Smithsonian magazine, Salon, and New York.