Carlos y José

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Carlos y José were a Mexican norteño music duo. The two members were Carlos Tierranegra Salazar, the lead singer and accordion player, and José Rodríguez, who sang backup and played the bajo sexto. Tierranegra was born in General Terán, Nuevo León, and Rodríguez was born in Los Ramones, Nuevo León. They met in 1963 and officially formed Carlos y José in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, in 1968. They made their first recording in 1969 and had their first big hit, “La cosecha,” after joining the label Discos de Larga Vida in 1970.

In 1981 they released “El chubasco” and in 1982 “Flor de capomo,” both of which broke sales records in Norteño music in Mexico and the United States. They recorded more than 80 songs together from 1968 to 2008, when Rodríguez left to work on his own project. The duo was very popular during their career. Rodríguez died on September 29, 2009, at age 59 from diabetes, and Tierranegra died on November 15, 2015, from cardiac arrest.

Shortly before Tierranegra’s death, a film about the duo, La vida de Carlos y José, premiered in the United States. In 2015, the grandsons of the two musicians formed a new group called Carlos y José Jr., with the younger Tierranegra and Rodríguez playing the same instruments as their grandfathers.