Monthly Archives: January 2025

Happy Birthday, José Alfredo Jiménez

Mexican Music, Musica Ranchera, Uncategorized, , ,

José Alfredo Jiménez was born on January 19, 1926 in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Mexico and died on November 23, 1973 in Mexico City, Mexico.

He was Mexico’s most beloved composer of la cancion ranchera. He wrote and sang hundreds and hundreds of songs, appeared in many movies and recorded albums and singles for both Columbia Records and the RCA label.

I will be adding more information about his music and life in the coming weeks. I have scores of albums and cds as well as books, sheet music and other materials that I’ll share on this post as soon as I can get everything organized and uploaded. For now, here is what I’d like to share with you:

In 2020, in celebration of his birthday, I produced a radio show featuring his music. All the songs are composed by him, and are sung by both him and other artists. You can find the link to the show by clicking part one or part two. Each part is an hour long. Part one begins at the 3:15 minute mark, right after the closing of the Petey Mesquitey show. The set list follows below.

Part One

Part Two

Jose Alfredo visited Tucson at least three times in the Sixties and Seventies. These are from the local newspapers.

Tucson_Citizen_October 10, 1962

Arizona_Daily_Star_Thu__Oct_15__1964_
Tucson_Citizen_1971_04_07

Websites that include information about Jose Alfredo Jimenez and his work

Second Hand Songs entry for Jose Alfredo Jimenez (SecondHandSongs is building the most comprehensive source of cover song information, by means of a database of originals, cover songs, sampled songs and sampling songs). This advanced database stores the data in a reusable and maintainable way, and which is interconnected to many other online databases.

Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Music Biography of Jose Alfredo Jimenez

Here is a live version of the song, Gracias, from a 1973 television program. Jose Alfredo died the following year.

Jose Alfredo with some of his contemporaries–Lola Beltran, Javier Solis, Tomas Mendez and Amalia Mendoza. Beltran, Solis and Mendoza all recorded his songs at one point or another.
With Amalia Mendoza, Miguel Aceves Mejia, Queta Jimenez, La Prieta Linda and Maria De Lourdes. Jose Alfredo recorded an entire album of duets with Mendoza and Miguel Aceves Mejia helped Jose Alfredo get started in the music business.

Here is Lucha Villa singing the song “Que Se Me Acabe La Vida” with Jose Alfredo. They never recorded together, but performed several duets live. Both also starred in the movie, Me Canse’ De Rogarle, a great comedy filled with Jose Alfredo’s music.

Photos of Jose Alfredo and Lucha Villa. They made great singing partners.

Here is a popurri of songs written by Jose Alfredo Jimenez and sung by Lucha Villa.

I’m including here material in my personal library.

Very rare Jose Alfredo Jimenez sheet music from the mid-20th Century.
Songbooks in my collection. These works are different from the above songbooks, in that they include just the lyrics of his songs, not the music.
Biographies of Jose Alfredo Jimenez in my collection.

Jose Alfredo Jimenez recordings: The Columbia Years ca. 1950-1960

The first album is likely Jimenez’s second recording for Columbia records and was issued in the early 1950s The next two are also original lp recordings. The last one was issued after Jimenez had made the switch to RCA records.
The fist item is a three disc set of Jimenez’s best known Columbia recordings. The second album was issued in the 1970s and includes some of Jimenez’s lesser known recordings. The final item is an lp from the 1980s that includes many popular Jimenez recordings, including “Maldicion Ranchera,” one of my favorites.
These three cds were issued in the early 1990s under the Sony label, which now owns the entire Columbia catalog. He re-recorded many of these songs when he moved to RCA in 1960.

THE RCA YEARS

The following lps were all issued on the RCA label in the 1960s.