Jose Alfredo Jimenez was a legendary Mexican singer-songwriter in the ranchera style. His songs are considered part of the Mexican musical heritage and comparable, for instance, to what Woody Guthrie meant to American folk music. The restaurant where he worked as a young man, “La Sirena” was visited by Andres Huesca, who heard some of his compositions of the then young singer, among which was “Cuando el Destino” and “Yo”. Huesca immediately decided to record this and following this in 1948 for the first time on the radio station XEX-AM and months fter the XEW-AM, which was catapulted to fame. He married Paloma Galvez and had two children, Jose Alfredo and Paloma.
He had no musical training—according to the singer Miguel Aceves Mejia, Jimenez didn’t play an instrument and didn’t even know the Spanish terms for “waltz” and “key”. Nonetheless he composed more than 1000 songs. Among the most famous are “Ella”, “Media Vuelta”, “El Rey”, “El Jinete”, “Si Nos Dejan”, “Amaneci Entre Tus Brazos”, “Cuando el Destino”, “El Caballo Blanco”, “Llego Borracho el Borracho” and “Que Te Vaya Bonito”, as well as “Camino de Guanajuato”, where he sang about his ome State of Guanajuato as well as his home town of Dolores Hidalgo Guanajuato.
In addition to his own hit recordings, many of his songs have been recorded successfully by recording artists around the Spanish-speaking world, most notably by Pedro Infante, Rocio Durcal, Javier Solis, Pedro Fernandez, Jorge Negrete, Vikka Carr, Luis Miguel, Lola Beltran, Lucha Villa, Vicente Fernandez and by Spaniards Julio Iglesias, Joaquin Sabina and Manolo Garcia.
Jimenez passed at a young age, like others of his contemporaries: Negrete, Infante nd Solis, the so-called “Three Mexican Roosters”, or Tres Gallos Mexicanos all died young. He was struck-down by hepatitis at age 47 and is regarded, along with Lara and Juan Gabriel, as one of the best songwriters that Mexico has ever produced. He was certainly one of the most prolific composers in the history of popular music, world- wide. Shortly before his death, he wrote and recorded his last song, “Gracias”, thanking the public for all of the affection they had shown him. His tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for serious music fans from around the Spanish-speaking world.
