Cancioneros | Tejano Music Song Books
Cancioneros are song books produced by record companies or other businesses to promote and advertise their product. As well as offering lyrics to current and classic songs, the books often contain photographs, biographies and articles about the artists, composers, and the music.
These cancioneros are in the Chris Strachwitz Collection at the Arhoolie Foundation.
A note by Chris Strachwitz on the Ideal and El Fronterizo cancioneros.
I was lucky to get these from the office of the Ramirez brothers, sons of Arnaldo Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez had been the owner of Falcon Records and had recently passed away when I met the brothers. I made a deal to buy some of the Falcon master tapes, the log books, contracts, photos (unfortunately not of the earlier artists that appear in these cancioneros), original 78s, catalogs, and these cancineros.
In regard to the cancioneros I just like to point out that in the case of songs written by Tomas Ortiz where you might find some corrections inserted in pencil, I believe Tomas made those himself. Sr. Ortiz was also the A&R person in charge of supervising many local musicians when they recorded for Falcon. I believe the texts were written down by unknown scribes by listening to the records or from hand written sheets given to them by the composers. So, you may find discrepancies if you listen to some of the songs. Also note that many corridos in mid 20th century were still about very regional figures.
— Chris Strachwitz, May 28, 2020
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Cancionero Ideal
Produced by Discos Ideal to feature their recording artists and songs.
Cancionero El Fronterizo
Published by Basilio Villareal in Reynosa Mexcio.
Featuring almost exclusively artists and songs from Discos Falcon. The exception is Pedro Infante who was on Discos Peerless.
“CANCIONERO “EL FRONTERIZO” Is the only book of songs written in the Spanish language that made a hit and was published exclusively for the Spanish speaking people living in the United States and Northern part of Mexico. Every issue of Cancionero Fronterizo Contains: – Most popular songs of the month. – Favorite songs of yesterday. – Short biography of famous composer or artist. – Plus other features of general interest. “ – from Numero Especial