Tex-Mex

Tex-Mex music is the border music of Texas and northern Mexico, formed from the encounter of Mexican traditions with German, Czech and Anglo-American instruments and dances. Its core is conjunto: button accordion, led by figures such as *Narciso Martínez*, paired with bajo sexto, playing polkas, rancheras, corridos and boleros for working-class Tejano audiences. From the 1950s the same ingredients fed rock and roll and country through *Freddy Fender*, the *Sir Douglas Quintet* and *Los Lobos*, whose accordion-and-guitar fusions carried the border sound to international audiences while its Tejano dancehall tradition continued at home.