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This Week in Texas Music History: Randy Garibay


by Stephen Becker 23 Nov 2011 2:01 PM

This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll celebrate one of the pioneers of Chicano blues.

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Art&Seek presents This Week in Texas Music History. Every week, we’ll spotlight a different moment and the musician who made it. This week, Texas music scholar Gary Hartman celebrate one of the pioneers of Chicano blues.

You can also hear This Week in Texas Music History on Sunday at precisely 6:04 p.m. on KERA radio. But subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss an episode. And our thanks to KUT public radio in Austin for helping us bring this segment to you. And if you’re a music lover, be sure to check out Track by Track, the bi-weekly podcast from Paul Slavens, host of KXT’s The Paul Slavens Show, heard Sunday night’s at 8.

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Randy Garibay was born in San Antonio on Dec. 3, 1939. His parents were Mexican immigrants, and his family traveled throughout the Southwest as migrant farm workers. During high school, Garibay played in such local bands as the Velvets and the Pharaohs, and he recorded with another young San Antonio native named Doug Sahm. Although Garibay went on to perform with such mainstream celebrities as Sammy Davis Jr. and Judy Garland, he became best-known for mixing traditional Mexican folk music with blues and R&B.

Randy Garibay’s signature song, “Barbacoa Blues,” reflected the rich blending of ethnic cultures he had grown up with in San Antonio and helped win him awards from both blues and Tejano music associations for his pioneering work in combining blues, R&B, and traditional Mexican music.

Next time on This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll meet the first Tejano country superstar.

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