Flac Attack

If there's such a thing as an accordion legend, Flaco Jimenez qualifies on almost every count. Over four decades, the five-times Grammy Award winner has played with artists as diverse as Ry Cooder, Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris, Bryan Ferry, The Rolling Stones and The Mavericks (he features on their recent hit 'All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down').
His first visit to Ireland was in the late seventies as a member of Ry Cooder's Chicken Skin Band while the last time he appeared here was as part of the legendary Texas Tornadoes supergroup which featured the recently departed Doug Sahm and keyboardist Augie Meyers.
"I've been very fortunate to have had had invitations to record with these people," he says, on the line from his home in San Antoine, Texas. "Everyday was like a new experience for me, meeting Bob Dylan with Doug Sahm in the late sixties and recording with Mick and Keith on the Stones Voodoo Lounge album a couple of years ago. It was always important to me because I never played solo, I've got to be with a band. The type of music I play always requires a guitar and bass and drums which is why I've got my own band now."
His live show today is he says "a mixture of everything including Tex Mex, Spanish, country, rock 'n roll.
"Everything but rap" he laughs. "I've got nothing against it, it's just the one kind of music we don't do. I've got my son on drums and we've a great lead singer, Nunio Rubio. I feel young when I'm with those guys, I'm 61 now but I enjoy playing live and being around young kids. We just finished a new album too which comes out soon. Dwight Yoakam is on one track, Buck Owens is on another."
Of the long list of musicians he's played with down the years which ones stands out as particulalry memorable?
"Doug Sahm was very special, the creative things he did with the music in the sixties are still being felt today. His death was a real heavy blow to me. But Ry Cooder was the one that introduced my music to the outside world and I'll always be grateful to him for that. We still do He'll Have To Go from the Chicken Skin album. If we don't play that one there's no show! People wouldn't let us out the door".