Photo courtesy Texas Music Museum (1915-1986) Birthplace: Falfurrias Genre: Orquesta Influenced: All future development of the Texas Orquesta style, including the orchestras of Isidro Lopez, Balde Gonzalez, Chris Sandoval, and their successors Related Links:

During the thirties and forties the Hispanic population of South Texas began to share in the relative economic stability brought about by local oil and gas discoveries and the dramatic increases in agricultural production in the lower Rio Grande Valley. Among the upwardly mobile shopkeepers, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, musical tastes began to change as well. Surrounded by radio airplay of the big band sound of the Anglo culture, similar recordings with a latin flavor from Mexico and Cuba, and the local German and Czech dance bands' polkas and waltzes, they were primed for the rise of the orquesta tejano, a big band that could play Texas latino music in a grander way than the three-musician conjuntos that had traditionally provided the entertainment for Mexican American dances (bailes) and quinceanero parties. Beto Villa was the first to organize just such an orquesta and popularize what would come to be known as la onda tejano.

Born into a prosperous and musical family (his father Don Alberto Villa was a tailor and part-time musician who was known around Falfurrias as el Maestro), Beto Villa as a boy of ten received a saxophone and some special instructions from his father: "Cuando toques, toca con gusto." Apparently, the advice was taken to heart, for two years later he was playing in school bands and by 1932 had joined a group called the Sonny Boys, which specialized in high school dances. The music didn't bring in enough money to support his family, however, so Villa worked as a butcher in a meat market.

Villa had to wait until the end of World War II to invent the kind of music that he wanted to play. In 1946 he approached the Alice, Texas, founders of the new Hispanic music label, Ideal, to propose a new kind of music that would combine elements of the Texas conjunto sound known as ranchero--which country people loved--with elements of the jaiton (hightone) orchestra music that appealed to city folk. Although skeptical, the entrepreneurs (Armando Marroquin and Paco Betancourt) finally agreed when Villa brought with him a more professional group of musicians than he had assembled at the time.

In the fall of 1947 the Beto Villa Orquesta recorded its first release, "Las Delicias" and "Porque te Ries." Both were instant successes, and Ideal demanded that they record more immediately. Among the classics of Tejano music that followed was the "Rosita Vals."

By 1949 Villa had upgraded his orchestra again with more and better players--all twelve had to be able to read music--and he took this excellent touring band across the Southwestern U.S. Due to his recordings for Ideal and the radio exposure they brought, Villa became famous not only in South Texas, but wherever Hispanic music was appreciated. Many of the standard repertory pieces of Tejano big bands originated with the Villa Orquesta, including the polkas "Monterrey" and "Victoria." In 1954 Villa recorded with RCA, the first Tejano orquesta to achieve that national distinction.

Villa dominated the orquesta scene in Texas into the late fifties, gradually extending the range of music played to include the more exotic mambos and sambas of Latin America. It is significant that he remarked in his last years that his "musical peak" was in the sixties, when Perez Prado asked him to tour with his big band.

Ill health forced Villa into early retirement, but by the time of his death in 1986, he had long been recognized as "the father of Tejano Orquesta." Many of his most typical recordings are still available on re-releases from Arhoolie Productions.