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Born in Marion, Texas, near San Antonio, Domingo Saldivar took up the guitar in 1948 because his parents liked to sing around the house. A year later, he started playing the accordion, learning conjunto (group) music, also known as la musica norte&entilde;a, the regional music of South Texas that highlights the accordion and features dance rhythms such as the ranchera, polka, huapango, and waltz, in addition to storytelling songs called corridos. Saldivar started his professional career with the legendary group, Los Guadalupanos. After time in the military and in Alaska, where his relatives ran a restaurant, he returned to San Antonio in 1970. By 1975, he had formed his own group, Los Tremendos Cuatro Espadas, and was performing throughout the Southwest. His blend of tejano sounds and popular country tunes, such as Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire, gained him a large audience, while his animated stage performances earned him the title The Dancing Cowboy. His artistic reputation has spread outside the Southwest through performances at Carnegie Hall, the Folk Masters series at Wolf Trap Farm Park in Virginia, the Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and on a tour of Africa and the Middle East for the U.S. Information Agency. From 1994 to 1997, he performed extensively in Monterrey, Mexico where his fans developed a novelty dance in his honor, called Mingo Mania. In addition, he was recently featured on the widely acclaimed PBS television series American Roots Music. National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal
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