Bruno Villareal

Bruno Villareal (1901–1976), accordionist. According to stories told by Narciso Martínez, "father" of Texas-Mexican conjunto music, during the 1930s Villareal lived on a ranchito three miles from Santa Rosa, at the north end of the lower Rio Grande valley. Although he was half blind, he walked every day into town to play his accordion for whatever money was offered. At times, he was also hired out to play at bailes de negocio or other kinds of celebrations. Villareal was nicknamed "El Azote del Valle" (the Scourge from the Valley) and is today still remembered by people as far north as Amarillo, where he once played in the streets with a tin cup attached to his piano accordion, an instrument he used from the late 1930s onward. He originally played a two-row button accordion, but switched to a piano accordion later in his career. In the early 1930s, conjunto players such as he used the left-hand bass and right-hand treble chord elements of the accordion.

Villareal was among the first accordionists to become popular in South Texas through phonograph records, and he made the first recording of the accordion in 1928. By the 1930s, often backed by a bajo sexto (twelve-string bass guitar), he was an acknowledged master.