Las Super Tejanas
Paramount Theater, Austin, TX
January 29, 2000
Offering music that was both tribute and exploration, the seven women comprising Las Super Tejanas presented an evening of music that allowed the performers to showcase their own diverse styles of music, as well as join each other for some intriguing combinations. Las Madrugadoras, the most traditional and perhaps least widely known players of the evening, gave historical perspective with their traditional trio romantico style. Pioneer accordionista Eva Ybarra, a tiny woman stationed to the opposite side of the stage from the trio, wowed the audience and the other performers with her powerful playing on solos and added tasteful licks to songs by the three solo vocalists, Shelley Lares, Tish Hinojosa, and Rosie Flores. Pop tejano star Lares roused the audience with several of her hit songs, and, as the evening progressed, songs she sang in tribute to Lydia Mendoza and Selena. Hinojosa offered a moving version of the traditional ballad "Estrellita" and a Spanish/English recounting of her own family history in the song "West Side of Town," then swung into several of her tejano-style originals. Rockabilly queen Flores was a bit under the weather for the evening, but she didn't let that slow her down on renditions of her own upbeat tunes, an Elvis ballad partially translated into Spanish, and the quiet ballad "Bandera Road," to which Hinojosa added delicate harmony. Because each of these women has her own lively career in music, they had only a brief time to rehearse for this performance, but the energy of their collaborations made up for many of the rough edges in sound mixing and pacing, and drew them a sustained standing ovation from the sold-out house at the end of the show. There's talk that Las Super Tejanas may reunite for other shows or a recording project.
— Kerry Dexter (Tallahassee FL)