AGARRATE, ABUELITA! FOURTH GOMEZ CONCERT A HIT

By Juan Montoya
It might have been promoted as a memorial concert for the late great Freddie Gomez, but for all appearances the annual concert held Satuday has transformed into a community gathering of the Conjunto Family.
Here and there groups of old friends and comadres bunched up to catch up on the latest family news, ask of how things are going in the old barrio where they grew up and how people are doing since they last saw each other here a year ago.
The men sport hair a little grayer and thinner, or none at all. And the ladies are now accompanied by granddaughters and nephews and nieces. Batos sport tanditas and Florsheim's y las baby dolls wear black playeras with chicano art or pictures of Zapata.
This was the fourth year that the Timo Ruedas, a member of the South Texas Conjunto Association, George Ramirez, of the Brownsville Society for the Performing Art and the City of Brownsville have collaborated on the staging of the annual tribute to Brownsville's own Freddie Gomez, known here and throughout the United States and Mexico as "El Cyclon del Valle."
Looming behind the stage is an old hotel where Gomez once stayed in a third-floor apartment, and some of his relatives mentioned that it was fitting that the concert was held there in the shadows of the building he called home
Gomez's grandchildren from San Antonio performed some modern favorites with a rock beat, but it became evident when the students from Canales Elementary under the guidance of accordion teacher Santiago Castillo began to play conjunto that this was what the crowd had come to hear.
This year, Conjunto music legend Pepe Maldonado, was the featured artist for the memorial conjunto venue. Pepe was born in Rio Grande City in 1941and his family relocated to Edinburg in 1945. While he plays a variety of instruments, including the accordion, bass and bajo-sexto, he especially enjoys singing. Pepe first performed in front of a live audience during the 1950’s at a theater in Alamo that hosted weekly amateur events for local musicians.
He and accordionist, Juan Antonio Tapia, participated in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C. in 1998. In 2002 he opened La Lomita, a Western aesthetic park, to host weekly dances and promote local area Conjunto groups.
Today, after the demise of several such locales, La Lomita continues to enjoy widesperad popularity
Maldonado y Su Conjunto were  followed by the versatile accordionist/vocalist, Arturo Nino y Su Khromaticos and Brownsville’s popular group, “La Farra” de los Hermanos Lozano.

The Concert venue included a 25-minute marathon dance competition with seven styles and rhythms of Conjunto dance music that starts with a slow Vals (waltz) then progresses to a Bolero, a Redova, a Shotiz, a Cumbia, a Polka and ends with the rapid beat of a Huapango.
Top prizes were $60, $40 and $20 to the top three couples chosen by the judges.
Cobblehead's Joe Kinney was on hand – as he has for the last four years – to serve the thirsty dancers and conjunto fans his cold libations.
"Are they cold, Joe?," he was asked.
"They're dead," is the stock reply.
It is obvious that the allure of conjunto music is alive and well in Brownsville residents. As we said, the mood at the event resembled more a block party than a memorial concert. Perhaps that's what keeps drawing local residents back to it year after year.