About Maria The Mexican

Hometown - Topeka
Genre - Mexican American Indie Blues Rock

“BEING ABLE TO PUT THIS MEXICAN MARIACHI FLARE ON THE SONG ACTUALLY DOES MAKE SENSE.”

While Maria the Mexican is headlined by sisters Maria Elena Cuevas and Teresa (Tess) Cuevas, the band is named after their grandmother, Maria Teresa Alonzo Cuevas, a pioneer in Mariachi who, in the ’70s, founded Mariachi Estrella, one of the first all-female Mariachi bands in the U.S. Today, the band’s sound has morphed into a self-described Mexicana/Americana/indie blues rock/funk/soul fusion. With songs in English and Spanish, the band mixes rock instrumentation with traditional Mexican stringed instruments: drums, bass, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, pedal steel guitar, congas and percussion, trumpet, and keyboards. The group is at work on a new album to follow “Moon Colored Jade” (2013) and “South of the Border Moonlight” (2016).