Austin Tejano legend Ruben Ramos has been bringing families together for generations
Maybe it’s the purist in bandleader Ruben Ramos that has kept him so tied to Tejano Orquesta.
Or maybe it’s the genre that has made him a purist.
For the past five decades, Ramos has stood as arguably the biggest local name in Orquesta, Mexican American-style big band. Though the honor can appear insignificant to the new Austinite, the city, particularly the East Side, carries a rich tradition in the style. Since the start of the 20th century, generations of musicians have fed off the confluence of American and Latin brass, producing a style equal parts Count Basie, Pérez Prado and José Alfredo Jímenez.
Ramos’ reputation starts with his tight bands and his comforting croon. It builds around his dashing stage presence and dedication to dance music. But it’s his loyalty to Tejano horns that has formed his career, endearing him to his fanbase and deciding his opportunities. One or another decade has offered trends and seeming distortions, and Ramos has batted them away. He is Orquesta’s son, playing "the music (that) has been instilled in me since I was a child ... and that was love."
"There is nothing that I like better," he said.
On Tuesday, when his act, Ruben Ramos and the Mexican Revolution, walks onto the stage for the annual free Hillside Concert Series at Pan Am Park, Ramos, 84, will have his customary swagger. Or he'll wear a fedora. Or his Chicano hair, white and hairsprayed, will stand perfectly. He will flash a smile. Then, he will belt a cumbia, a ranchera and an oldie. The trumpets and saxophone behind him will blare. And a sense of moment we often refer to, endearingly, as timelessness, will rush in.
Music of aspiration for Mexican Americans
Ramos’ current music career began in 1969 when he quit his job as a state worker to sing for what was then his brothers’ band, The Mexican Revolution. His turn to music, in part, reflected his distaste for his initial career. But there was something stronger at play.
Ramos was born to a fiddle-playing father and a guitar-strumming mother in 1940. The family worked as migrant cotton pickers until they settled in East Austin when Ruben was 9. Here, the Ramos kids were close to their maternal uncles in Manor. The uncles worked as bandleaders and musicians, traversing the state with 14-man ensembles to play Jimmy Dorsey or La Sonora Santanera. They taught the older Ramos siblings how to sing or play the saxophone and trumpet. One of Ruben Ramos’ older brothers, Alfonso, gave the teenager his first shot — a chance to play drums, and later, to sing English-language Rock songs — as part of his band.
It was, as the academic Manuel Pe?a has said, music of aspiration for Mexican Americans intent on claiming their place in the United States.
Through a career of varied influences, Ramos' convictions derive from this foundation. The horn-heavy postwar sounds of Cuba, Mexico, and Black and white America root his tastes. They solidify his preference for non-electronic music and for formality. For most of its history, Ramos and his band have arrived in suits. It’s what makes Ramos proud.
El Gato Negro is not a cowboy
There’s a picture of Ruben that is kind of not Ruben. It was likely taken in the late 1970s as a promotional image for Joey Records. It has him in half-expression, with his teeth sticking out. He wears a chestnut cowboy hat, a leather vest over a popped-out collared shirt, a shiny belt buckle and ocean blue jeans.
The sun, or something else, is hitting him straight on.
On a Sunday in July, Ramos looked at this cowboy over his plate of huevos rancheros and raised his hands in resignation.
“What am I wearing in that (expletive) picture?” he said.
Then, he shook his head.
“No soy.” That’s not me.
For many years, Puerto Rican and Mexican executives told him to change his appearance and “drop my metal,” Ramos said, using the Mexican Spanish term for brass. As much as he could, he demurred.
University of North Texas ethnomusicologist Catherine Ragland said that the large labels that signed artists like Ramos in the 1970s and onwards commonly encouraged Tejano artists to compete head on with successful Mexican genres like norte?o to increase their appeal. Some artists, she said, adopted and found varying levels of success. But Ramos’ career, she said, is defined by his resolve to stay true to the music that inspired him.
His legacy, she said, will be as a musician who stuck to his style and sought to provide the best quality dance band around.
“He was really dedicated to his community (of fans), to families that had been with him for generations.”
From most accounts, this paid off.
“There was a time, I’d say for ten years straight (beginning in the 90s) where we’d play every weekend straight. The only weekend we’d take off all year was the weekend after New Year’s Eve. … He drew people,” said Rick Fuentes, former accordionist and producer for the Mexican Revolution.
Pan-Am concert series is 'our place to get together'
Ramos told the American-Statesman he’s excited to showcase a new variation of his band on Tuesday night. A 2017 heart surgery saved his life but took him off from performance circuit. The pandemic kept him away.
Pan-Am, which used to be yearly occasion, has become much too infrequent, he said.
But that's not how it should be. For a long time, “it’s been our place to get together, ” he said of the concert series’ importance to Austin’s Mexican American community.
It only makes sense he’ll be there.
Pan Am Hillside Concert Series
When: Tuesday, July 30 from 6 to 9 p.m.
Where: Oswaldo A.B. Cantu Pan American Recreation Center and Neighborhood Park, 2100 East Third St.
Info: The event is free and open to all. In addition to Ruben Ramos and the Revolution, other entertainment includes the Tiarras and Fuzion. Families are invited to bring blankets, chairs and coolers. Food and drink is available to purchase. The series continues on Aug. 6 with David Marez and more.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Ruben Ramos to perform at Austin's free Pan Am Hillside Concert series
