Today’s post features some classic brown-eyed soul born and brewed here in our beloved Lone Star State. Little Joe, born Joe Martinez in Houston, TX, started his first band with The Embers in early 1961. Throughout the 60’s and early 70’s, there were two Little Joe’s of Texas and they were often billed together at events, concerts and shows as the “Two Little Joe’s of Texas”. The Little Joe featured in today’s post is Little Joe Martinez, cousin to the late great Tejano music legend, Rocky Gil of Rocky Gil and The Bishops fame. The other ‘Little Joe’ is Joe Hernandez, notable for his recordings with Little Joe and The Latinaires and Little Joe Y La Familia, some of which may be heard on Jazzman Gerald’s illustrious Texas Funk compilation, which can be found and purchased here. Released by Discos Jesna in Houston, Little Joe’s rendition of The Bar-Kays classic “Soul Finger” skews lightly on the vibrato horn work of the original and misses the children’s screaming of the title name, but still holds strong as a bonafied Texas soul burner.
Recorded and distributed by Discos Jesna of Houston, TX, Soul Finger was one of the first records produced by Natcho and Jesse (hence “Jesna”) Garza, two brothers who opened their small-time record label from their two-car garage in North Houston in the early 60’s. Little Joe and The Ember’s first recording of “Me Piden” topped the Texas Chicano music charts at # 1 for six straight weeks, it was also their first #1 record produced in their studio.
Little Joe was also a vital character in the Houston Chicano music scene, he was friend to legendary producer & label owner Huey Mueax, and was involved with the distribution of spanish/country crossover hit, “Before The next Teardrop Falls”, recorded and produced by Huey’s Tear Drop Records, considered to be their biggest selling record by Texas music legend Freddie Fender. Little Joe continued to perform throughout the 80’s and 90’s under various band names and is widely recognized for his enormous contributions to Tejano music, playing with everyone from Selena’s father’s band Los Dinos to Sunny Ozuna to Selena herself, amongst a host of Chicano Texan music icons. Without a doubt, Little Joe Martinez is an integral part of Texas music and heritage. You can check out more of Little Joe’s resplendent music catalog here, and find out more on the formative years of the Tejano music culture on PBS’s wonderful Latin Music USA documentary series here.
Lastly, I would like to personally thank Little Joe Martinez for all his help and guidance on the information and photos for this week’s post, gracias por todo hermano!
Comments (11) »
Great find! Thanks for all the background information.
thanks Jan! All the information came straight from Little Joe himself, so it’s as accurate as can be!
Don’t forget about Little Joe Washington.
That makes three Little Joe’s.
Ignore that last apostrophe.
Keep on trucking A L/R
Indeed Tex! I left him out to avoid further confusion, but you are right, three and counting. Maybe you should change your stage name to Little Tex and The Jewelers.
I had to priviledge and the honor to work with Little Joe Martinez back in the Early 80’s. He thought me so much about “la onda” and helped me out in my career tremendously. I will be forever grateful to this true Tejano icon!
Gracias Joe…you’re the best!
Fernando Silva
Hi Alex and Fernando, It was always my self appointed mission in my Tejano music career to teach our culture and music to the young musicians who were coming up and dedicated to their music. Since 1961 I was hiring young musicians starting with my two younger brothers Ernie and Armando. I introduced my cousin The Fantastic “Rocky Gil” and other great vocalists such as “Luis Ramirez”, “Adam Garcia”, “Joe Fuentes” of Josepha fame, “Mike Maldonado” of Brown Sugar fame, “Sal Ledesma”, “Eva Mireles” and brothers “Manuel and Teodoso “Fu” Almendarez” to the Tejano Music industry, just to mention a few. I once started a list of all the names of the musicians that ever played with any of my three bands, “Little Joe & The Embers”, “The Jamie Band” and “Phantacy Band” but quit counting after I reached 120 and worked up a migraine headache.
In closing I just want to say that I am very proud of all my former musicians that went on to succeeded with other bands. Just knowing that I had a small part in influencing their careers is very satisfying and meaningful to me. I hope that in some small way I was able to make a difference in who they are today, God bless you all.
Joe Martinez “A Real Tejano”
WOW, A REAL TEJANO LEGEND. SENOR, I AM A TRUE FAN OF YOUR MUSICAL CAREER. I OWN SOME OF YOUR MUSIC ON VINYL AND I AM ALWAYS LOOKING FOR MORE. I SEE YOU RELEASED A CD OF YOUR MUSICALE CAREER WITH ALL 3 BANDS AND PLAN ON GETTING THIS VERY SOON. BUT I DO HAVE TO ASK YOU A QUESTION. DID ROCKY GIL RECORD FOR YOU AS A MEMBER WITH YOUR BAND THE EMBERS.REASON I ASK IS BECAUSE WELL, NOT TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE FOR SURE. NOT EVEN ROCKY GIL’S SON WHO HAS A WEBSITE IN HIS HONORY. I AM A TRUE FAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL TEJANO SOUNDS OF THE 60′S AND 70′S AND HAVE AMASSED QUITE A LARGE COLLECTION. CAN YOU ANSWER THIS QUESTIONFOR ME? IF HE DID, DO YOU HAVE ANY OF THOSE RECORDINGS? ANY HELP WILL BE GREATFUL.
THANK YOU FOR ANY HELP YOU CAN PROVIDE AND GOD BLESS YOU,
FRANK DIAZ
Hi Frank, Indeed we did record an album by Little Joe & The Embers featuring my cousin Rocky Gil (real name Fidencio Garza) way back in 1962. The album cover was going to incorperate the picture you see above on this page. The problem is that it was never released (what a blunder by that record company). The record company kept stalling us with excuses and more excuses why it was being delayed. I was later told that air plane carrying the master tapes to California for pressing the records had crashed and the tapes were destroyed. We (the band)
were devestated that there would be no album, after all the announcements we had made everywhere we performed.
As for your question about any of our recordings I do have a few singles on vinyl with the other singers that once sang for me, but only two with Rocky that I’m sorry to say can’t part with.
Rocky recorded one single 45 rpm record with my band “The Embers” after The Bishops broke up and later a remake of it with the Jamie Band in the mid 1970s when he rejoined my bands. You can however buy both as MP3 downloads under my Musical History CD at Amazon.com, iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, Napster and other internet stores. Or, if you’d like to have hard copies complete with covers and insert booklets please contact me at
joefmartinez9506@hotmail.com
Hey Little Joe,
I think my dad played w/you back in the day…Adam Garcia. It was awesome finding out some history on him. Thank you.
Hi Michelle, Indeed your father was a big part of “Little Joe and The Embers” and “The Jamie Band”. In 1965-1983. In 1965 I switched over to keyboards when my cousin Rocky Gil left the band I hired your father to come in and sing and play guitar. Your father turned out to be the best guitar player I ever had. In 1972 he recorded an album (Chicano Power) with us the rest of the story as they say “is history”. Later that year I decided to drop the horn section and rename the band to “The Jamie Band”. The Jamie Band recorded several singles and was eventually made into an album CD available as down loads on Amazon,
Napster, I-tunes, and just about all down load stores on the internet. You can also
buy the actual CD through my company Star Tree records at the very special family members price of $5.00 each plus $2.50 for shipping and handling. For more information contact me at joefmartinez9506@hotmail.com
Thank You