“TALK TO ME”: THE STORY OF SAN ANTONIO'S WEST SIDE SOUND THESIS Presented to the ...

110 Pages·2013·0.83 MB·English

“TALK TO ME”: THE STORY OF SAN ANTONIO’S WEST SIDE SOUND

THESIS

Presented to the Graduate Council of
Texas State University-San Marcos
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements

for the Degree
Master of ARTS
by
Alex La Rotta, B.A.

San Marcos, Texas
August 2013
“TALK TO ME”: THE STORY OF SAN ANTONIO’S WEST SIDE SOUND

Committee Members Approved:

Gary Hartman, Chair

Jason Mellard

Paul Hart

Approved:

J. Michael Willoughby
Dean of the Graduate College
COPYRIGHT

by

Alex La Rotta

2013
FAIR USE AND AUTHOR’S PERMISSION STATEMENT

Fair Use

This work is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553,
section 107). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations
from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgment. Use of this material for
financial gain without the author’s express written permission is not allowed.

Duplication Permission

As the copyright holder of this work I, Alex La Rotta, authorize duplication of this
work, in whole or in part, for educational or scholarly purposes only.
DEDICATION

To Gaga & Pacho
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The professors in the Department of History at Texas State University-San
Marcos are among the world’s top-tier educators, and I am truly privileged to have
studied under their tutelage. I am grateful for my friends, colleagues, and professors in
the Department who have guided and constructively criticized my scholarship with such
intellectual vigor and who have, above all, taught me so much in what now seems such
little time.
I want to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Gary Hartman, thesis chair and
mentor, who steered my academic interest in Texas music with a special care and
learned wisdom that only the greatest scholars possess. I am especially grateful for his
seemingly endless supply of patience, guidance, and editorial acumen in the making of
this thesis. None of this is possible without him. I also owe Dr. Jason Mellard my
gratitude for his shaping and guiding of my varied interests in popular music
scholarship, as both a member of this thesis committee and professor. Dr. Paul Hart’s
honest critiques, humor, and counsel kept me steadily sharp in the pursuit of my
master’s degree in more ways than many. I also owe Department chair Dr. Mary
Brennan, Dr. James McWilliams, and Dr. Anadelia Romo my everlasting appreciation
for their informed direction and moral support. I am indebted to the excellent music

vi
archivists and staff at Texas State University’s Wittliff Collections, the University of
Texas at Austin’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, and the University of
Texas at San Antonio’s Institute of Texan Cultures for their expertise and assistance. A
very special ‘thank you’ goes out to Allen Olsen, whose unpublished manuscript,
“Overlooked Americana: San Antonio’s West Side Sound,” was vital to this thesis.
Furthermore, I would like to thank all of the musicians, deejays, producers,
record collectors, archivists, local historians, journalists, and the many friends in music I
have made in the great city of San Antonio, Texas, to which this study is devoted. My
thanks to Ramón Hernández—and his essential Hispanic Entertainment Archives—for
his reliable counsel and willingness to humor my seemingly endless queries on the West
Side Sound, and for his all-around good nature. He is truly indispensable to San
Antonio’s musical memory.
Lastly, I am thankful for my family, who are the cornerstone of my constitution.
My mother, Alegria, and my father, Felipe, have always encouraged my intellectual
interests and varied pursuits in life. For that, and so much more, I am eternally grateful
for everything they have provided me. My brother, sister-in-law, sister, and nephew are
my rock and have kept me grounded throughout my graduate career. Finally,
importantly, I would like to thank my fiancé, D’Arcy Kerschen—best friend, soul mate,
recurrent proofreader. Without her patience, support, love, and unfaltering belief in me
as a scholar and writer on a daily basis, none of this would be possible. Thank you, all.
This manuscript was submitted on May 22nd, 2013.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................vi
CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................1

II. THE EARLY YEARS OF THE WEST SIDE SOUND, 1944-1954.....................11

III. THE GOLDEN YEARS OF THE WEST SIDE SOUND, 1955-1969.................35

IV. “THE WEST SIDE SOUND ROLLS AGAIN”: 1970-1999................................62

V. CONCLUSION......................................................................................................87

BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................................................................92

viii
CHAPTER I:

INTRODUCTION

Contrary to its name, the “West Side Sound” did not actually originate on the
West Side of San Antonio. Nor, for that matter, is it a singular “sound” that can be easily
defined or categorized. In fact, the term “West Side Sound” was not widely used until
San Antonio musician Doug Sahm applied it to his band, the West Side Horns, on his
1983 album, The West Side Sound Rolls Again. Since then, journalists, music fans, and
even Sahm himself have retrofitted the term to describe a particular style that emerged
from San Antonio and the greater South Texas region beginning in the 1950s and
continuing into the early twenty-first century.
So what, then, is the West Side Sound? To quote historian Allen Olsen, the West
Side Sound is “a remarkable amalgamation of different ethnic musical influences found
in and around San Antonio and South-Central Texas. It includes blues, conjunto, country,
rhythm and blues, polka, swamp pop, rock and roll, and other seemingly disparate
styles.”1 To others, the West Side Sound is more of a feeling than a specific musical
genre. In the words of Texas Tornados drummer Ernie Durawa, “it’s just that San
Antonio thing…nowhere else in the world has it.”2 Both descriptions of the West Side

1 Allen Olsen, “San Antonio’s West Side Sound,” Journal of Texas Music History 5, no. 1, Spring 2005,
27.
2 Ernie Durawa, interview by the author, Austin, TX, February 3, 2013.
1
2

Sound are accurate, but they really only tell part of the story of this remarkable musical
hybrid.
In order to fully understand the origins, evolution, and long-term impact of the
West Side Sound, it is necessary to examine the social, cultural, and historical roots of
this phenomenon, as well as the ways in which it helped redefine the larger musical
landscape of the American Southwest and the entire nation. In an effort to provide a more
complete understanding of this uniquely Texan musical idiom, this thesis examines the
history of the West Side Sound throughout three distinct periods: its origins, its “golden
years,” and its long-term impact on mainstream popular music. In addition to analyzing
the origins and evolution of the West Side Sound, this study examines other related
genres, such as Chicano Soul of the 1960s and Texas-Mexican music (or música tejana)
of the 1970s, and how they influenced the West Side Sound.3
This thesis also looks at the impact of the so-called “Chitlin’ Circuit” on the
development of the West Side Sound. The Chitlin’ Circuit was a loosely-knit network of
black-friendly, and often black-owned, music venues that stretched across the racially-
segregated South and Southwest during the Jim Crow era. The Chitlin’ Circuit was vital
to the emergence of the West Side Sound, because it provided an arena in which African-
American musicians, club owners, and audiences could share in a constantly evolving
exchange of musical innovations and experiences with Anglo and Hispanic artists and
music fans in San Antonio.4

3 Perhaps the best source for additional information on Chicano Soul is Ruben Molina’s Chicano Soul:
Recordings and History of an American Culture (Los Angeles: Mictlan Publishing, 2007); The most
comprehensive examination of Texas-Mexican music, or Música Tejana, is Manuel Peña’s Música Tejana:
The Cultural Economy of Artistic Transformation (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999).

4 For more on the Chitlin’ Circuit, see Alan Govenar, Texas Blues: The Rise of a Contemporary Sound,
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008).