El Ciego Melquiades

Melquiades Rodriguez released his work under the recording alias El Ciego Melquiades, also identified as "the blind fiddler." In San Antonio during the late 1930s he cut both vocal pieces and instrumentals in a fiddle-dominated approach that Mexican-American listeners across south Texas had already started to set aside. Additional sessions occurred after World War II for several other Texas-based labels. Arhoolie later compiled many of the instrumental polkas, two-steps, and waltzes—supported by guitar, violoncello, and string bass and drawn mostly from the second half of the 1930s—onto the CD San Antonio House Party.