Today we’d like to introduce you to Baldomero Cuellar.
Hi Baldomero, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was born in 1971, the youngest of nine kids and I was the last one at home. For this reason, my parents had stopped going to dances, which was something they really loved to do. Then I told them that I wanted to go and that I would behave myself. The first show I went to was Ruben Naranjo y Los Gamblers with Los Cuatitos Cantu at the Rockin M dancehall south of Austin. It was then that I fell in love with music.
As I grew older, I didn’t limit myself to one genre. I followed everything from Mickey Gilley to Frank Sinatra to The Stylistics to The Rolling Stones to Buckwheat Zydeco. It all made sense to me.
I co-founded Rancho Alegre with my partner Piper LeMoine in 2008, which morphed from a website to promote my DJ business into a full-blown legitimate, award-winning 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization six years later. It is my life’s work and I’m proud of the work that we do to preserve and promote the music that grabbed me all those years ago.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
I have struggled with my health for over a decade. Diabetes attacked my eyes, kidneys and circulation. In 2010, I suffered six strokes and lost a large part of my vision. I really tried my best to go back to work, but my balance was off and my vision was bad. I just never recovered and I reluctantly went on disability. In June 2020, I was fortunate to receive a kidney transplant thanks to my partner (and kidney donor) Piper LeMoine. I still struggle and will still need to remain on disability permanently, but my issues are no longer life-threatening.
What has gotten me through was music – especially Conjunto music. It reminded me of my parents who were both deceased by that time. It was always a dream of mine to start a festival to bring Conjunto music to downtown Austin.
The reason for that dream was that my mother had a lot of health problems when I was a kid. And that was during the time that young children weren’t allowed into certain hospital rooms. So we’d stand on the corner outside of Brackenridge Hospital and my mom would stand up and go to the window and we’d see each other.
I recall telling her that I was going to go to the Johnny Degollado Conjunto Festival and asked if maybe they could let her out for a little while. She said she couldn’t because she was too sick. And I was so young, I didn’t realize what I was saying, but I told her, “what if I brought the festival to you?” My mom would remind me of that as I grew into an adult every once in a while.
And that was the motivation behind bringing our festival to downtown. Unfortunately, neither she nor my father lived to see me make this dream a reality.
Rancho Alegre, the organization I founded, has faced its own challenges. Funding was a big one. We literally started with nothing. The first year, we somehow convinced the bands to take a chance on us, and we were able to build on that. We even promised some of them parts of our tax refunds. We eventually became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and were eligible for state and city grants, along with other funding opportunities.
Another challenge has been finding appropriate and affordable venues in Austin. While Conjunto music can technically be performed and enjoyed anywhere, as we grew after those first three years at the Moose Lodge, we needed a venue large enough with enough infrastructure to accommodate a growing festival. The city parks and other city facilities were out of our price range or unwilling to work with us. Many venues didn’t answer us. Several wasted weeks of our time before saying no. But we lucked out.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Rancho Alegre (RA) began as a website for my DJ business in 2008. My partner Piper LeMoine created a website for me that focused on marketing my catalog to potential customers. Instead of attracting customers, this online catalog became a reference tool for Tejano and Conjunto music fans who had been unable to find this information anywhere else online. The site then added a blog. Then a calendar of Tejano and Conjunto events. Then a playlist.
Around this time, October 2010, I got very sick. Over the next few months, while I recovered, I conceived the next project for RA: long-form, intimate, in-depth recorded audio interviews with artists in their own words. These interviews were then produced with selections from the artists’ recordings and posted online for all to hear – it was essentially an early podcast.
Since the first interview in April 2011, we traveled all over Texas, recording hundreds of hours of interviews with dozens of different artists. These travels led to our next big project: the Rancho Alegre Conjunto Music Festival, which began in February 2012 and brought a mix of Conjunto legends, veterans, and future stars to Austin, where the genre had struggled.
After a successful run at the Austin Moose Lodge from 2012 to 2014, we regrouped in 2015 and 2016 and looked for a larger venue. Since 2017, the Rancho Alegre Conjunto Music Festival has been held at the iconic Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater in downtown Austin. Before the coronavirus pandemic forced cancellations in 2020 and 2021, the event had grown each year, and the venue has invited us back for future Cinco de Mayo celebrations.
In the past, we also produced a tardeada series showcasing Tejano and Conjunto music at Austin’s One-2-One Bar conducted an official South by Southwest panel discussion on the visibility of Tejano music in mainstream media and music communities in 2018 and launched a mobile app.
In 2019, we re-focused our mission on Conjunto music, although we continue to interview Tejano music legends as part of our contribution to the historical record since it’s so underdocumented. We work year-round and regularly speak to college classes and elementary school assemblies, support fellow non-profit organizations, run a tiny non-profit record label, continue to conduct interviews, connect musicians to business resources, and advocate for Conjunto music. In 2021, in coordination with the Texas Music Office, we presented an online Tejano and Conjunto music showcase at Folk Alliance International’s annual conference.
In 2019, we produced our very first studio album on Rancho Alegre Records: Favoritas de Mis Padres by San Antonio accordionist Brenda Martinez.
As an organization, RA became a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in October 2014 and has enjoyed great support from fans all over Texas and beyond, the Austin music community, and was given a WeWork Creator Award in 2017 for our efforts to preserve and promote Conjunto music.
How do you think about luck?
It was instilled to me that you make your own luck. And I kind of believe that because, from being a kid and seeing my relatives, we were always taught no matter what field you go into, it will be work. That’s just how it is. I was the type who always had a job, and if I needed extra money, I’d get another job.
I will admit that luck has played a role in where I’m at today. I’m lucky to have met my partner Piper LeMoine and lucky to have met the Rancho Alegre crew. I was lucky when I called Stubbs the very first time (it was a long shot) and general manager Ryan Garrett answered the phone. He loved the idea and told me to come in to discuss the event. To this day, a lot of people do not believe that story, but he will verify.
I do believe in luck sometimes, but I still believe you make your own luck. That’s no knock on someone who still believes in luck, of course.
Pricing:
- The Rancho Alegre Conjunto Music Festival – free admission
Contact Info:
- Email: info@ranchoalegre.org
- Website: https://www.ranchoalegre.org
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/ranchoalegretx
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ranchoalegretx
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ratexas
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8gmg-nHkazq6GBtZzIa6lg
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/ranchoalegreradio
Image Credits
Jana Birchum/Austin Chronicle (photo of me in Red Jersey with my partner Piper LeMoine) Rudy Ancira LaLa Garza Mariaelena Villarreal
