Congratulations to SAAHJ member Hector Saldaña, who has been named the first curator of the Texas Music Collection at The Wittliff Collections on the campus of Texas State University.
A Sept. 18 press release about his selection quotes Wittliff director David Coleman calling Saldaña “our front man for Texas Music.”
He starts his new post Oct. 2.
Saldaña will build the newly created music collection to span the full range of Texas music, including classic, progressive, country, Tejano, conjunto, folk, rock, roll, blues, hip-hop, zydeco and Western Swing, and to include materials such as handwritten lyrics, historical documents, audio and video recordings and photographs.
A senior writer and music columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, Saldaña has won numerous national journalism awards, including the Best of the West’s 2017 Award for arts and entertainment writing. In 2016, he won two awards from the Society for Features Journalism. He has worked for the Express-News for more than 20 years.
He’s an expert on conjunto, Tex-Mex, Chicano rock ’n’ soul and West Side sound and is founder singer-songwriter for The Krayolas, a band he started as a teen with his brother David Saldaña. It has been featured in Texas Monthly, Pollstar, Billboard, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” among other media outlets.
