Chencho Flores

June 2, 1929 - January 10, 2021

Chencho Flores, who began playing music in Austin in the 1940s and remained active in the local community with Conjunto Los Pinkys and others through the 2010s, died of complications from COVID-19. He was 91.

Born on June 2, 1929, “between the Bastrop and Travis County line” by his own account, Chencho Flores enjoyed an eight-decade career playing guitar alongside Manuel “Cowboy” Donleyand Domingo Villarreal in the trio Conjunto Cielito Lindo. The group put out a 78rpm record on San Antonio’s Corona label, which featured Flores-led bolero “Te Amare.” Their earliest performances consisted of shyly entering cafes and bars on Sixth Street and going from table to table playing for tips.

In 2015, Flores enjoyed induction into the Austin Music Hall of Fame with Conjunto Los Pinkys and the Tejano R.O.O.T.S. Hall of Fame with Chencho Flores y Su Conjunto in 2020.

As a young musician, he noticed accordions made people dance. After trying unsuccessfully to learn the instrument himself, he received instruction from the godfather of Texas accordion players, Camilo Cantú. Previously, the former would sneak into bars as a teenager to watch the maestro perform.

Later, he performed in Ben Garza y Los Alegres Gavilanes, which began by playing Austin’s cantina row and went on to become staples in the dancehall circuit. He served as one of the group’s three vocalists and originally played accordion, but transitioned into an emcee/singer role as the orquesta style trended over conjunto in popularity.

“He was a very good announcer,” attested a fellow ATX accordion king, Sonny Trujillo, who played with the Garza outfit in the early Sixties. “He would dedicate songs, sing, and just carry the show – really get it going. People loved him, he was a great person. He could talk to anybody and make friends with a snap of his fingers.”

Married to the late Josephine Flores, to whom he was wed for 65 years, the squeezebox master told the Rancho Alegre folks that family obligations kept him from touring widely with the group. Nevertheless, locally he frequently performed alongside his brother Frank Flores. Each led conjunto groups their sibling helped populate.

Funny and magnetic, Chencho continued to amass local fans this side of the millennium with the near decade he spent in Conjunto Los Pinkys, a group anchored by bajo quinto player Bradley Jaye Williams and another legacy accordionist, Isidro Samilpa. The group’s popular Sunday residency at the White Horse brought out a multi-generational crowd rife with dancers one-third Flores’ age.

-- From the January 2021 article written by Peter Blackstock for the Austin American Statesman