The initial combination of
Flaco Jiménez,
Augie Meyers, and
Doug Sahm performed in front of a San Francisco audience. After they initially performed as the Tex-Mex Revue, they took the title Texas Tornados, after Sahm's song "Texas Tornado", from the album of the same name. Another account of the group's birth says they formed when record company executives looking to cash in on regional music sales approached Sahm and Meyers around 1990, and they brought in longtime friends and collaborators Fender and Jiménez. Sahm had released albums under the name Texas Tornados as early as the 1970s, some featuring Fender or Meyers. Jiménez and Meyers played on Sahm's
Atlantic Records debut in 1971. As Fender once said, "You've heard of
New Kids on the Block? We're the Old Guys in the Street." Individually, this quartet has had major success: • Freddy Fender was a cross-over success story around the world, with hits like "
Before the Next Teardrop Falls" and "
Wasted Days and Wasted Nights". • Flaco Jiménez has played with acts such as The
Rolling Stones and
Dwight Yoakam. He also is known as the "Father of
Conjunto Music" (he played the Conjunto accordion). • Augie Meyers has shared the stage with the likes of
the Allman Brothers Band and
Bob Dylan. He is also a member of the Texas Music Hall of Fame. • Doug Sahm and Augie Meyers were both members of the 1960s pop-rock band the
Sir Douglas Quintet, with hits such as "She's About a Mover" and "Mendocino" to their credit. Meyers's signature sound on the Vox organ was a prominent feature of the band's sound. Sahm, Meyers, and Jiménez are from the
San Antonio area. The band's 1990 debut was recorded in both English and Spanish versions. The Texas Tornados were asked to perform all over the world, such as at the presidential inauguration of
Bill Clinton and the
Montreux Jazz Festival, and made regular appearances at
Farm Aid and the Houston Livestock and Rodeo Show. They won a Grammy award in 1990 for
Best Mexican/American Performance. Their 1996 single "A Little Bit Is Better Than Nada" accompanied the opening credits of the golf movie
Tin Cup, which was released the same year, and is included in the official soundtrack. Among their other albums is
Live From the Limo, the last album to be recorded with the original lineup, as Sahm died in 1999, the year of its release. Fender, who had health problems in later years, died in 2006. Their 2005
Live from Austin album was a recording of a 1990 performance on the TV series
Austin City Limits. People sometimes refer to their lyrics as
Spanglish because of the mixture of English and Spanish in the same song, in addition to pronouncing the Spanish lyrics in an
American accent, which is evident in their hit, "(Hey Baby) Que Pasó?". An example is the lyric "''Don't you know I love you / and my
corazón is real?''", in which the word corazón (Spanish for "heart") is improperly pronounced , with an obvious American accent, instead of . The band's self-titled debut album was offered in Spanish and English-language versions. In 2022, the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus proposed "Hey Baby (Que Pasó)?" among the songs to be nominated for their inclusion on the
National Recording Registry. ==2010 - Está Bueno!==