ARHOOLIE FOUNDATION COLLECTIONS:Manuel Peña Collection

In his research late Dr. Manuel Peña (1942 – 2019) conducted many interviews with musicians and others involved in the Tejano music industry. The interviews on this website were originally recorded for research purposes only, and are presented here in their raw state, unedited except to remove some irrelevant sections and blank spaces. They were often recorded in conditions adverse to obtaining good audio quality and often using very basic recording equipment.

All rights to the interviews are reserved by Manuel Peña. Please do not use anything from this website without permission.

Sort by: A-Z Most recent

Isidro Lopez Interview

Isidro López, “El Indio,” was born in Bishop, Texas, in 1933. He began playing tenor saxophone when he entered Miller High School in nearby Corpus Christi, an instrument he also played during the one year he attended A & I College in Kingsville.

Balde Gonzalez Interview

Baldemar (Balde) González was born on May 30, 1928, in Beeville, Texas. Sightless since birth, he attended the school for the blind in Austin, Texas, where he learned to play piano, clarinet and saxophone.

Tony “Ham” Guerrero Interview

Trumpet player for Little Joe y la Familia and one of the founding members of Tortilla Factory talks with Manuel Peña about “what happened to the orquesta tejana.”

Cameron Randle Interview – Tejano

Former Vice-President and General Manager of the Texas branch of Arista Records talks with Manuel Peña about the Tejano Music Industry.

Little Joe Hernandez Interview 1991

Little Joe Hernández, from Temple, Texas, was born in 1940 and began his career as a musician in the late fifties, trying to break into the surging rock-and-roll market.

Don Tosti Interview

Edmundo Martínez Tostado, whose stage name became Don Tosti, was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1923. He exhibited musical talent at an early age, and by his twelfth birthday he was playing violin with a local group, La Orquesta Muro.

Lalo Guerrero Interview 1989

Lalo Guerrero was without a doubt the most prolific musician-composer that Mexican America has ever produced. In his long and illustrious career, which spanned from the 1930s to the 2000s, Guerrero visited almost every musical genre circulating in the Hispanic Southwest.