Paco Betancourt (January 15, 1903 – September 5, 1971) was an American businessperson, record producer and mayor of

San Benito, Texas San Benito is a city in Cameron County, Texas, United States. Its population was 24,250 at the 2010 census. On April 3, 2007, San Benito celebrated the 100th anniversary of its naming. The post office was named "Diaz" from April to May 1907. The ...

Biography

Paco Betancourt owned and operated the Rio Grande Music Co. in

, which also housed the

Ideal Records Ideal Records was a record label from Texas specializing in Tejano music. It became the most important record label of the genre in the 1940s and 1950s, recording tejano's most prominent artists. It declined in the early 1960s, but not before le ...

recording studio. The Rio Grande Music Co. was primarily a coin-operated vending company that owned and serviced

jukebox A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons, with letters and numbers on them, which are used to selec ...

es and

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

machines. In the 1920s, Paco Betancourt owned and operated the Queen Theatre in

Brownsville, Texas Brownsville () is a city in Cameron County in the U.S. state of Texas. It is on the western Gulf Coast in South Texas, adjacent to the border with Matamoros, Mexico. The city covers , and has a population of 186,738 as of the 2020 census. It ...

, which was the first theatre in the

Rio Grande Valley The Lower Rio Grande Valley ( es, Valle del Río Grande), commonly known as the Rio Grande Valley or locally as the Valley or RGV, is a region spanning the border of Texas and Mexico located in a floodplain of the Rio Grande near its mouth. The ...

to show talking movies. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, local music of the day—the early

Tejano Tejanos (, ; singular: ''Tejano/a''; Spanish for "Texan", originally borrowed from the Caddo ''tayshas'') are the residents of the state of Texas who are culturally descended from the Mexican population of Tejas and Coahuila that lived in the ...

and

conjunto The term ''conjunto'' (, literally 'group', 'ensemble') refers to several types of small musical ensembles present in different Latin American musical traditions, mainly in Mexico and Cuba. While Mexican conjuntos play styles such as '' norteño' ...

music of South Texas—had become a popular genre and good business for record producers and jukebox operators. The local nightclubs, ballrooms, and bars clamored to capitalize on the popularity of the music as well as the singers, musicians, and orchestras of the day. Paco Betancourt's Rio Grande Music Co. opened a studio where many of the recordings of the day were recorded and distributed to the local jukeboxes. Some of the engineering chores were by a gifted young local singer and musician recording for the label named Baldemar Huerta, who would soon be known to the music world as

Freddy Fender Freddy Fender (born Baldemar Garza Huerta; June 4, 1937 – October 14, 2006) was an American Tejano, country and rock and roll musician, known for his work as a solo artist and in the groups Los Super Seven and the Texas Tornados. He was bes ...

. Throughout his career of 50 years, Freddy—or Balde, as he was known locally—was always public about his humble beginnings and his early history in the small South Texas town of San Benito. Mr. Betancourt later entered politics and was elected mayor of San Benito, Texas. He died on September 5, 1971. Paco is considered to be a pioneer in the history of South Texas recorded music. He is inducted into the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum in San Benito.

External links

The Roots of Tejano and Conjunto Music
{{DEFAULTSORT:Betancourt, Paco 1903 births 1971 deaths Record producers from Texas People from San Benito, Texas 20th-century American businesspeople