LOCAL

Tejano music pioneer Manuel ‘Cowboy’ Donley dies

Nancy Flores

Manuel "Cowboy" Donley performs at the 2014 National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowships Concert. The "Godfather of Tejano music" died at 92 on Sunday.

Austin-based Tejano music pioneer Manuel “Cowboy” Donley died early Sunday at 92 years old. Donley earned the title “Godfather of Tejano music” after a decadeslong career as a singer, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer.

Over the years, he battled several health issues including macular degeneration, which clouded his vision, and he quietly endured more than a decade of dialysis. Still, Donley kept performing.

Donley’s influential career heated up in the 1940s as he played for tips in East Sixth Street cantinas and continued blazing for decades as he took on a seminal role in the development of orquesta music. The distinctly Texan musical style inspired by Big Band music combined elements of both Mexican and American popular music and had lyrics in English and Spanish. Donley modernized the orquesta sound by infusing it with louder contemporary rhythms like rock ‘n’ roll.

In 1955, he started playing with his band Las Estrellas (the Stars). And, as Donley once said, they were “hotter than a firecracker.”

Donley’s trailblazing musical contributions also included elevating the trio romantico style, which he primarily performed in recent decades. The self-taught musician played the requinto guitar lead in this format and his virtuosity led to performances before dignitaries such as former Mexican President Vicente Fox and then-first lady Hillary Clinton.

Donley was born under a musical star in Durango, Mexico, during one of his family’s periodic trips to Mexico from Austin. His father, Ramón Donley, of Mexican and Irish descent, was a violinist with the Durango municipal symphony, and his mother, Dolores Quiñones, loved opera. The family, which had nine children, settled in East Austin when Manuel was 7.

Ramón made his living as a barber and musician. Manuel made do with one pair of overalls for summer and one for winter. “If you had a pot of beans every day, you were lucky,” he told the American-Statesman years ago. “But we never asked for help.”

Despite all odds, Manuel Donley climbed to the top.

By the time he was 18, he had assembled his first band, Los Heartbreakers, a group that generally played only instrumentals. In 1949, at a memorable gig at Parque Zaragoza — the community gathering spot for Mexican Americans in East Austin — the band was stumped when the large crowd unrelentingly called out for “La Múcura,” a traditional cumbia. No one knew the lyrics. Or so they thought. Then Donley, who had shunned the spotlight to that point, admitted that he did. Reluctantly, he sang.

Donley would later say that that was the moment he became famous.

“It is musicians like Mr. Donley who have been instrumental in building Austin’s reputation as a music city with a diverse musical heritage that allow us to call ourselves the Live Music Capital of the World,” wrote Rose Reyes, former director of music marketing for the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, in a letter of support nominating Donley for the National Endowment for the Arts’ lifetime achievement award for folk and traditional arts.

Donley received an outpouring of support from Austin’s music community, many of whom also wrote nomination letters for the Tejano Music Hall of Famer, including Grammy Award-winning artist Little Joe Hernandez and late former Austin Mayor Gus Garcia.

Donley accepted the national award, which included a $25,000 prize, in Washington, D.C., in 2014. He was among 13 master artists to receive the prestigious honor. At the NEA National Heritage Fellowships Concert, Donley and his band, which included his daughter, Sylvia Donley, performed many of his hits from the 1950s.

Donley and his daughter were also fixtures at the former South Austin restaurant El Gallo with their weekly residencies. On the week of the eatery’s closure in 2017, the Donleys serenaded a full house at the dining institution that shuttered after 60 years.

“I can’t believe it,” the music legend said at the time of the closure. “I guess everything has to come to an end.”

Music was often a family affair with several of his eight children involved in the band such as his son Lupe Donley, who sang in Las Estrellas and also helped his father’s career in the later years.

Manuel Donley’s contributions to Austin’s music scene have been recognized in various ways throughout the years. In 2010, he was featured in a groundbreaking Austin History Center exhibit “Mexican American Firsts: Trailblazers of Austin and Travis County,” which celebrated the lives of Mexican Americans who were the first to make advancements in their fields.

Visitors of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center can find his name engraved on a wall sculpture there after the artist received the center’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. And hikers on the Trail of Tejano Legends can find a community park dedicated to Donley and his brother Robert near the former Holly Power Plant on Cesar Chavez Street.

“Through it all, he always remained humble and never forgot where he came from,” said Sylvia Donley. The music savant, she said, without a formal education taught himself music theory and mastered complex musical works. “Now heaven will get to enjoy his beautiful voice, guitar picking and his music – just as we did.”

Music kept Donley, whose memorial services are pending, going into his later years. During his last days, his wife of 50 years Herminia Donley said her husband would still request his guitar to be near him and he’d often sing “Llorarás” by Trío Los Panchos over and over.

“He wanted to play so bad until the end,” she said.

Manuel "Cowboy" Donley performed with his daughter, Sylvia Donley, at El Gallo in 2017 on the week the longtime restaurant closed its doors after 60 years.