Tex-Mex: Music of the Texas Mexican Borderlands

Along the 1000 miles of the Rio Grande, Mexican and American cultures have mingled to produce Tex-Mex music, an exuberant style with a Mexican soul and a rock 'n' roll heart (with a twist of German polka!). Like most border regions, the Tex-Mex area is a cultural stewpot marked by violence, illegal immigrants, drug running and shady business dealings. Tex-Mex is a street-level tour of this border world, through cantinas, prisons, festivals, even brothels, where Tex-Mex music grows. Caught in performance and intimate conversation are Lydia Mendoza, one of the last great corrido singers whose career stretches back to the 1930's, Flaco Jimenez, the old style button accordion player who injected Tex-Mex flavor into the music of Ry Cooder and Paul Simon, political firebrand Little Joe Hernandez and many other great performers of norteno, corrida and other Tex-Mex styles.