TM Audio Exclusive: Eva Ybarra Has An Accordion Lesson for You—If You Can Keep Up

Transcript

J. B. Sauceda (voice-over): Hey, and welcome to another episode of Viva Tejano, a Texas Monthly podcast about tejano music, told by the people who make it and live it. I’m your host, J. B. Sauceda.

This week, I sat down with La Reina del Acordeón, the Queen of the Accordion, Eva Ybarra. Eva is a luminary in conjunto music, a self-taught multi-instrumental artist who’s been playing the accordion for seven decades. For all her talent, though, she’s had to fight to get her music published, for reasons she’ll get into, which include sexism, and her refusal to play the way anybody else wants her to play. She loves blues and jazz and salsa, and it comes through in her music. Her live performances are thrilling, dynamic experiences, and she was even kind enough to get her accordion and play a bit for us in the studio.

Alright, here’s Eva Ybarra.

J. B. Sauceda: Growing up in Houston, you know I’m 39 and—

Eva Ybarra: You’re still young.

J. B. Sauceda: When I was growing up, it felt like tejano stations were everywhere, and the music was all over the place. And as I got older I kinda lost touch and lost, what I describe as my relationship with the music. But it’s come back, but it’s taken some work, in part because it’s not on the radio as much.

Eva Ybarra: No.

J.B. Sauceda: At least outside of you know San Antonio, in my opinion, but. . .

Eva Ybarra: Tejano music is . . . I love it. But I think people are more interested in conjunto. Brass, they love it, I know there’s a lot of people that love—I don’t want to put down the tejanos, no, no, I love the tejanos, they’re good. But the sound of the accordion, they make a lot of difference, it’s not better than the brass, but it’s happier to dance, for people to dance.

J. B. Sauceda: And so you feel, because this is a question I’ve been asking a lot of different people is, when I say tejano, I think of it as an umbrella term, but it’s not really. And for you, are you referring to it as almost like more of the orchestra sound?

Eva Ybarra: Yes. Yeah, because the tejano have keyboards, two or three. And then they have brass. You know, sometimes a trumpet, two sax, altos, or tenor, and they sound beautiful. I like the way it sounds, they play beautiful. It sounds almost like jazz music.

J. B. Sauceda: And so what do you love about conjunto?

Eva Ybarra: The conjunto, the thing is I love more being progressive. I’m a progressive conjunto. I can play traditional, I can play that. But the conjunto, they play more traditional than I play a little bit different. It’s progressive, more chords, scales, a lot of scales or pentatonics and chromatic scales, they don’t do that. I do a lot of that, that’s a little bit more out of conjunto. But I love to play more inverted chords, I play a lot of those, and chromatic.

J.B. Sauceda: Do you feel like the style that you play was well received when you started playing that way? Or did you start out more traditionally?

Eva Ybarra: No, I think they . . . no, I started a little bit traditional, but when I was four, I was in the cradle, you know, sleeping in the cradle still, and my dad and my brothers, or my oldest brother and my dad, they were playing in the living room, and I was sleeping, but I heard music and I went to the living room and my dad said, “Go back, sleep in your cradle.” And I said, “No.” I said, “Okay.” I didn’t go to sleep, I was looking through that you know, back then, the knob was a little hole, you know, the old door knob. So I was looking through that little hole there, watching my dad and my brother playing. I love music, it’s in my blood. I’m musically inclined. I was like ten years old, I didn’t want to play traditional. I didn’t like simple polkas, I didn’t like that. When I was ten, I learned, I was watching other maestros, you know, from the forty-fives, that play difficult polka, not easy. I don’t like to play easy. I grew up like that, I don’t know, that’s me.

J. B. Sauceda: You just wanted it to be harder?

Eva Ybarra: Yeah. I love difficult things.

J. B. Sauceda: I mean, it’s a bit of a tangent, but I mean, was it hard being a female accordion player?

Eva Ybarra: You better believe it. Still it is the same and it’s getting a little bit better. But—

J.B. Sauceda: Is it the audiences or what is it?

Eva Ybarra: It’s not the audience, it’s the industry. Because we are ladies, they care more about men. I don’t want to put down all the industry here, but there’s a lot of, that they will hire more men than women. I had a hard time.

J. B. Sauceda: How did you navigate that?

Eva Ybarra: Oh well, the help of my parents and my dad. You know he said, “Don’t give up, daughter, you’re going to be. . .” Sometimes I cried because my dad said, “I want you to be with the people, connect with the people, not be afraid to play.” And I was very little and he took me and he asked the arranger, you know it was a tejano, like a tejano brass, but they could accompany me playing the accordion. And my dad said, “Can you let my daughter play the accordion, the one song?” He said, “No, because we have all the arrangements, and . . .” And I cried. I cried I said to my dad, “They don’t want me to play, don’t ask them anymore.” My dad said, “No, don’t give up, daughter, one of these days you’re going to be the Queen of the Accordion. La Reina del Acordeón. And you know what, daughter, that’s your key.” Because my mom didn’t want me to play the accordion.

J. B. Sauceda: Oh, so your mom didn’t even really want you playing?

Eva Ybarra: No, sir.

J. B. Sauceda: Was she fearful that this would happen?

Eva Ybarra: Well, this is what she told me, but I don’t know if she meant that—“You’re going to hurt your lungs, you’re going to hurt your . . .” but I don’t know if my mom thought it was a man’s instrument. But my mom said, “I’m going to take you for piano lessons, Eva, and I don’t want you to play the accordion. Not anymore.” And she told me, “I want you to learn the right way to play the music, not just play it here, here. Just read it and you play the right way.” And my dad secretly, he told me, “Come here, Eva, you know what? The piano’s beautiful, but you’re not going to make money with that. The accordion is your key.” So when I play, I record, I record sometimes the piano together or by itself, I combine it with the accordion, I remember my mom. And then when I play the accordion, I remember my dad. I play the guitar also, and I play bajo sexto and I play guitarrón, the mariachi, the big one, and piano. And even I play the drums. I play a lot of instruments here and there. You know I love my instruments, they are my children.

J. B. Sauceda: But why do you go back to the accordion? You watch someone play this instrument and you’re constantly filling the bellows. I mean it is a lot of work to play, right?

Eva Ybarra: It’s . . . Yeah. The accordion performing, and the drums, we are the one that sweat more. And the accordion, because of pushing and pulling, and I sweat a lot. When I had my group, when I started it, I was a teenager and I had my group.

J. B. Sauceda: And how old were you?

Eva Ybarra: Like I was 14, 15.

J. B. Sauceda: Oh, wow.

Eva Ybarra: I was a teenager. I appreciated my parents supporting me, they took me everywhere, we played around Texas a lot.

J. B. Sauceda: How were you, you know, kind of being picked for shows? Was it a novelty that you were this fourteen-year-old that was playing? Or were your parents actively just—

Eva Ybarra: My dad, he was my manager. So we play all over Texas, here and there, we make a lot of money. I mean back then it was a lot of money, it was not expensive things.

J. B. Sauceda: How big were the venues and the types of audiences?

Eva Ybarra: It was pretty big. Yeah, pretty big, like five hundred people.

J. B. Sauceda: Was there a specific moment that you felt like you knew that this was how you were going to be able to make a living?

Eva Ybarra: Yeah. We were performing at the Conjunto Festival, back 1996, ’94. And Cathy Ragland saw me playing, and Mike Stone, from Austin. And Cathy’s from here, but she moved to Austin, and she said, “What’s your name?” And I said, “It’s Eva Ybarra.“ “Okay,” she said, “I want your phone number.” And I gave it to her. She’s a lady, she helped me a lot, and Mike Stone too, but more Cathy. Yeah, she got me to record with Rounder Records International. She took me to New York, to visiting artist you know, to teaching there, and I teach a lot of conjunto. We make a conjunto, but there was no Tejanos, no Mexicans. Yeah and then I started recording with several companies. But I had a hard time because I was taking my material to studios, I was taking it. And they say, “Just leave it here and we’ll call you.” And never call me, never call me.

J. B. Sauceda: Did you just make more money touring and playing on the road?

Eva Ybarra: Yeah, we make money, yeah, touring, yes, a lot, more out of town. Not here, they don’t want to pay here. Well, some big companies, they pay the tejanos, yeah, yeah. But the conjunto, they don’t pay as much as tejanos did.

J. B. Sauceda: How much of that do you think is a function of like, you know, you were doing something different? Was it because you were doing the more progressive conjunto, or is that just conjunto in general?

Eva Ybarra: Yeah, because some people, they don’t like progressive music.

J. B. Sauceda: How do you feel like that has changed over time? Like do you feel that the music has become more accepting of that progressive sound? Or do you think it’s still very traditional in that way?

Eva Ybarra: It’s more . . . I think they like more traditional.

J. B. Sauceda: It’s almost returned to being more—

Eva Ybarra: Because I’ve heard people that, “Hey, you play . . . Hey, nobody . . . you know, your style, nobody can copy your style.” Sometimes when I play difficult things, and, “only you can play it.” I don’t know if they can’t play it, they can’t copy me, or is it because they don’t like it.

J. B. Sauceda: Do you think you played a role in helping the genre become more accepting of women in this kind of style?

Eva Ybarra: A little bit more. Yeah, A little bit more than before. Because seeing . . . I am going to say that I’m not embarrassed to say that I played in bars, but I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t do drugs, clubs.

J. B. Sauceda: Was it just not acceptable for women to play in a bar?

Eva Ybarra: Well, people talk bad. You know a friend of mine one time told me that, “Let me tell you something, Eva.” He said, “How come there’s some guys that they hate you?” “What? They . . . Who?” I said, “Did I do something wrong to them? I don’t remember, I did nothing wrong to them.” But they hate me, some guys I don’t know who. People talk bad.

J. B. Sauceda: They just prefer that—

Eva Ybarra: Men.

J. B. Sauceda: You play, men play there.

Eva Ybarra: They are men, they wanted more men. Saying it’s ugly, a lady, a young lady playing in bars. But I had to because I wanted to make a little bit money.

Eva Ybarra: I’m proud of playing there because I was strong and I never gave up.

J. B. Sauceda: How have the dynamics changed? Do you think that there are . . . are there more women playing the accordion and playing—

Eva Ybarra: Well nowadays, yes. Young, young, and they play good. I can see myself in them when I was young. Yeah, they are capable like men, the same thing.

J. B. Sauceda: What influenced you to play that progressive style? Like, were you listening to other genres of Latin music?

Eva Ybarra: Yeah. Yeah, I listened to Aldo Rizzardi, he plays [mimics accordion sound], that’s the one I like. And that’s me, that’s me.

J. B. Sauceda: Do you want to show me an example on the accordion of what you mean when you talk about progressive style of playing?

Eva Ybarra: Yeah, yeah. And here I’m going to play traditional, the people that love it . . . I think that some people love progressive, I wouldn’t say not all of them, but there’s more that like traditional music and they dance more. Yeah, so I’ll say . . .

[Eva Ybarra playing accordion]

Eva Ybarra: Okay. They play . . . well, they’re traditional. Like “Viva Seguin,” they play a lot. And it’s traditional.

[Eva Ybarra playing “Viva Seguin” on accordion]

Eva Ybarra: That’s traditional, or my style, this is my style.

[Eva Ybarra playing a progressive version of the song]

Eva Ybarra: That’s my style.

J. B. Sauceda: And so it’s just a fuller . . . I mean there’s just a lot more going on, is the—

Eva Ybarra: Yeah, and that’s why people love it, like this.

[Eva Ybarra playing accordion]

Eva Ybarra: They . . . [laughs] But I make a lot of . . .

[Eva Ybarra playing accordion]

J. B. Sauceda: And do you teach other people to play, at all?

Eva Ybarra: Yeah, I teach them, but the traditional.

J. B. Sauceda: Oh really?

Eva Ybarra: Sometimes they wanted . . . I say, “Well, you want to play like . . .”

[Eva Ybarra playing accordion rapidly]

Eva Ybarra: The students didn’t know how to do it. So I tell them, “You do this, you go, like that, and then like that. You have to pick up, do it like that, and then move.” See? But they have to pick it up, so it would sound and do this . . . not the bellow. And pick up the head. So I did this a little bit. This is “El Eco de Mi Voz,” it’s mine.

[Eva Ybarra playing “El Eco de Mi Voz” on accordion]

J. B. Sauceda: That’s awesome. And I mean that song, where did the inspiration for that come from?

Eva Ybarra: I was feeling like sad. Well, it’s not sad, but—

J. B. Sauceda: Melancholy?

Eva Ybarra: Yeah, something like that. Yeah, melancholy, something I feel like. So it all depends the way I feel. And when I was young, like I say, I played difficult, too. I was like nine and I played Monterrey polka, it has a lot of changes. I don’t know who I got it off, my dad played traditional, the guitar, my mom sang and wrote some songs. I don’t know, maybe third generation because I have a lot of . . . my great, great-people or parents, whatever, one of them played the violin, the other one played the saxophone and the guitar.

J. B. Sauceda: But in your house, you know I mean there was a lot of support for you playing this type of music. Obviously, your dad was very, very supportive of it. Do you feel like you breaking the gender norm had anything to do with you not being asked to be on Johnny Canales? Because he had female performers that—

Eva Ybarra: I know. I know. That’s what I was a little bit upset, because maybe I didn’t have that much name before, or I don’t know what . . . it makes me upset that I never went to that, he never called me.

J. B. Sauceda: Did you like the show?

Eva Ybarra: I did. I saw it all the time, I watched it. And all the groups, I say, “Why come he never call me?” But I said, “I don’t know, because maybe I’m not that famous or maybe they don’t like my style.” It made me think a lot of things. I still feel bad because he never called me, but I appreciate his music, the way he talked. Yeah, he was a good DJ.

J. B. Sauceda: It was a staple in our house, I mean it was every Sunday morning and then we watched it—

Eva Ybarra: Yeah, me, too. Yeah, Johnny Canales, “Take it away.” Yep.

J. B. Sauceda: Yeah. Do you think that his show really did accurately cover everything?

Eva Ybarra: Yeah, he—

J. B. Sauceda: Did it miss parts of the music? Did it miss anything?

Eva Ybarra: I don’t think so, conjunto, he did very good. He did very . . . I don’t think . . . He missed me, but the other conjuntos, they were there. So I feel proud of that, he did good, yeah.

J. B. Sauceda: One thing that I noticed, is that a lot of bands call themselves like, “J. B. and His Band,” or “Lyle Lovett and His Band.” But your band, you call it “Conjunto Siempre para Ustedes,” and it’s very directly and deliberately for the audience. But the “para ustedes,” is what sticks out.

Eva Ybarra: We are, Eva Ybarra y Su Conjunto Siempre, Siempre para Ustedes. Yeah. We belong to the people, without the people we’re nobody.

J. B. Sauceda: So is the name intended to say, it’s not for the musicians, it really is for the audience, you’re going to do what they love?

Eva Ybarra: I do what people love. Sometimes I say, “They like this song. They like this cumbia, they like this, I’m going to learn it and play for them.” I want to you know . . . play for the people, not for me. Sometimes I play for me, I want to show off and I play for me.

J. B. Sauceda: I was going to ask, when you’re not playing music, what do you listen to?

Eva Ybarra: Every day, I practice. Every day, the accordion, the bajo sexto, the bass, the guitarrón, the drums. Every day—

J. B. Sauceda: You’re just always playing music.

Eva Ybarra: Every day.

J. B. Sauceda: Is there any point in when you’re cooking or hanging out in the back patio, that you’re listening to something else?

Eva Ybarra: Yes.

J. B. Sauceda: What do you listen to?

Eva Ybarra: You ain’t going to like it, but maybe you’re going to like it—jazz and blues and salsa. I hear polkas also, I learned polkas also. Waltzes sometimes. Yeah. And I like this polka, and I say, “I’m going to learn it.” But I like, you know, creative . . . I’m more creative, I make my polkas, my jazz, my whatever, I make them.

J. B. Sauceda: When you, when you think about your career, have you had more of a desire to go and reimagine older kind of classics, in your style? Or do you prefer writing new stuff yourself?

Eva Ybarra: I prefer writing. I prefer that. I prefer creating things, to make my style to, people would know my style, leave my legacy. I don’t want to copy. I can, I can copy. Well, when we started we copied a little bit our maestros’, our teachers’ records, I copied them. I started like that. But I said, “I ain’t going to—”

J. B. Sauceda: So much of what I feel like is conjunto and tejano, is like, there are these standards that keep getting reimagined every ten to fifteen years.

Eva Ybarra: Yeah.

J. B. Sauceda: And you’re saying you’ve always made a point to just stay away from that and really just do your own thing?

Eva Ybarra: Yeah, but I still play somebody else’s songs like, “Mi Golondrina,” but I do in my arrangement, I don’t like to copy. I do my arrangement. But that’s me, that’s me, I want people to know my style, that not to copy because you’re making them more famous. They’re already out there, you want to be you. I want to be me.

[Eva Ybarra plays “Cuatro Caminos”]

J. B. Sauceda (voice-over): Alright, that was my conversation with Eva Ybarra. Thanks so much to Eva for joining me in the studio, thanks to Harter Music in San Antonio for the recording, and thanks to all of y’all for listening.

I’ll be back next week with an interview with the Conjunto Music Hall of Famer Max Baca, who’ll talk about replacing his idol in the tejano supergroup the Texas Tornados, and who’ll share an origin story of conjunto music you might not have heard.

Viva Tejano is a Texas Monthly podcast hosted by me, J. B. Sauceda. Our executive producer is Megan Creydt. The show is produced by Ella Kopeikin and Patrick Michels, and produced and engineered by Brian Standefer. Additional production by Aisling Ayers. Consulting producer is Adrian Arredondo.

A huge thanks to our partners, Myrna Perez and Adrian Arredondo, for access to The Johnny Canales Show archives; keep an eye out for the upcoming documentary Take It Away, which chronicles the rise and fall of Tejano Hollywood. Artwork is by Jenn Hair Tompkins and Victoria Millner.

Thank y’all for listening. Adios.