First of all, Rancho Alegre Entertainment started Rancho Alegre Radio to preserve a lot of the old recordings that are no longer being produced, as well as to help promote new recordings that aren’t being played on the radio. Especially since we live in Austin, where Tejano radio stations are scarce and Conjunto stations are non-existent. More projects to come include Traders Village (in the final development phase), where you can trade music with no fees. And also, we’ve started Tejano-Conjuntopedia, which is already up and running.
But the main goal here at Rancho Alegre is to one day produce a Conjunto Festival, smack dab in the middle of Austin, at Waterloo Park. That is the prize we keep our eye on. Frank Cuellar Alvarez and his staff here realize that that’s going to be a tough sell. But if anyone knows Frank, he is up for the fight.
We had this idea for Waterloo as Frank started noticing that more caucasians are getting into Conjunto. Now, before any of you start throwing out words like “sell out,” you must understand that at Rancho Alegre, we are in the business of conserving our heritage and spreading the gospel of Texas-based music like Conjunto. Tony De La Rosa helped spread this to Japan, as proof with Los Gatos de Japon. And Mingo Saldivar had a hit in South Africa with his Conjunto cover of Rueda de Fuego. And many Conjunto bands continue to go to Europe and throughout the world.
And we keep tabs on who is listening to us, and we have gotten hits from Mexico, all over South America, France, Canada, Africa, New Zealand, Australia, all of Europe and everywhere else where they have internet access.
Now, if this event at Waterloo ever happens, yes, we may be pushing it towards the white community. But make no mistake, we want everyone there. Brown, Black, Red, Yellow, it doesn’t matter. We want everyone to enjoy this music, which has incredible lyrics and an upbeat sound.
Also on Rancho Alegre’s website, we plan on posting song lyrics along with pseudo-translation describing what the song is about, as we want to educate people as well.
Now, this festival may be pushing Conjunto artists, but it will have its share of Tejano. In other words, anyone who is willing to work with us on helping us cross over this music, this Texas music, everyone is welcome. And the philosophy behind this festival isn’t about raising money. It’s about educating.
We hope that all of you support this idea, as we know we are in an uphill battle, but we are going to prove that this can happen. We all need goals in life, and this one is ours.
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