Rubén Fuentes is undoubtedly the most important musical figure in the history of mariachi music. More than any other individual, he is responsible for shaping mariachi music into what it is today.
In 1944, at age 17, Fuentes joined Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán as a violinist, and was soon promoted to musical director of the group. From the late 1940s on, his arrangements for Miguel Aceves Mejía, Pedro Infante, José Alfredo Jiménez, Lola Beltrán, Charro Avitia, Amalia Mendoza, Lucha Villa and other artists revolutionized mariachi music and set a standard that remains unsurpassed. It was under Fuentes’ direction that Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán became known as “El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo” (“The World’s Greatest Mariachi”).
Although he retired from Mariachi Vargas as a violinist in the late fifties, Fuentes remains the group’s general director. Over 200 of his songs have been recorded by well-known artists, and three times he won Mexico’s coveted Songwriter of the Year award. His songs are featured in over 300 films, over 50 of which he scored. Four of these won awards for best film score of the year. His productions for both Vikki Carr and Linda Ronstadt won Grammy awards, and three of his CDs for Lucero went platinum.
This year, Mariachi Spectacular of Albuquerque proudly inducts Maestro Rubén Fuentes — the most important musical figure in the history of mariachi music — into its illustrious Hall of Fame.
José Martínez Barajas, better known as “Pepe Martínez,” was born in 1941 in Tecalitlán, Jalisco, the birthplace of Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán. His father, Blas Martínez, was a harpist who played for a period with Mariachi Vargas. When Pepe was eight years old, the Martínez family moved to Guadalajara, where he began an informal study of all the mariachi instruments. By the age of 10 he was playing for tips on city buses, and at 12 he was playing alongside his father in an official mariachi group of the Mexican Army. The talented boy soon caught the attention of General Bonifacio Salinas, who awarded him a three-year scholarship to study with concert violinist Ignacio Camarena. Before the three years were up, however, the virtuoso terminated their apprenticeship, insisting that young Pepe was already a full-fledged professional violinist and needed no further lessons.
Gustavo A. Santiago is one of the most important arrangers in mariachi music. “I was born listening to mariachi music,” says the musician whose father was a long time member of the legendary Mariachi Tapatío de José Marmolejo. Gustavo began his mariachi career playing nights in Plaza Garibaldi while studying during the daytime at schools like the Conservatorio Nacional and the Escuela Nacional de Música. In the mid-1950s, Silvestre Vargas invited Santiago to his second-string Mariachi Guadalajara. A few years later, he became a member of the famous Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán.
