Maya Y CantU – El Primero Conjunto Norteno Famoso / Lydia Mendoza – Vida Mia
Norteno is country music of la frontera, the border, though it pertains less to geography and more to fluid movements, a long history of exchange, all the cultural comings-and-goings between the U.S. and Northern Mexico. Identifiable by the presence of the accordion (which probably first entered Mexican folk music in the late 19th century) and, most frequently, the bajo sexto, a fat, 12-string rhythm instrument tuned an octave lower than a standard guitar, norteno remains the most popular musical style among Mexican immigrants in the United States. Albeit now generally augmented by electric bass, percussion and drums, the norteno sound is still distinguished by trilling accordion breaks and the gripping duet harmonies that give life to narrative corridos and sentimental canciones.
Jesus Maya and Timoteo Cantu were significant contributors to norteno’s emergence from Southern Texas dances and cantinas and its growth into a commercial form. In the mid ’40s they hosted an early, daily radio program on Nuevo Laredo’s XEDF, and it was there, after the station powered down for the evening, that the duet cut these sides for Ideal, a small regional label.
Maya sang and played bajo sexto and Cantu harmonized, adding deft and surprisingly delicate accordion fills. Their rhythms were highly danceable, but their mood and material tended to be elegiac and sorrowful, their harmonies as tight and emotionally rich as the brother duets of country music. The sound they made is as close to the heart and soul of norteno as a listener will ever get. Along with Arhoolie’s Norteno And Tejano Accordion Pioneers, these beautifully sung, zestfully played recordings form an essential starting point for anyone interested in the roots of Tex-Mex music.
Although she retired from performing 10 years ago, Lydia Mendoza is, at 83, one of the living giants of American music, arguably the single most important singer and stylist in Mexican-American music. Her family first came to the U.S. during the Mexican Revolution, bringing with them songs that stretch back into the late 18th and early 19th century. Those songs came to dominate Mendoza’s repertoire, and would become as integral to the Tejano ballad tradition as the Carter Family’s song cache has been to country music.
As a singer, Mendoza’s range is terrific, but it’s her phrasing — earthy and colloquial — that cuts most deeply. She places a premium on clarity; her diction is relentlessly exact. Each word of a bitter ballad such as “Dime Mal Hombre” — in which Mendoza vows to drown her pain in a lover’s blood — is sharpened against the martial precision of her guitar’s tango rhythm.
In the late ’30s, her intensely spare approach would have been striking. She shed the usual highly orchestrated trappings (though here and there La Familia Mendoza accompany Lydia with understated mandolin, fiddle, and harmony vocals), reconceiving each song as an individual drama. Mendoza was also one of the first female Mexican singers to accompany herself on the 12-string, and her playing is a case study in Tejano fusion of melody and rhythm.