McALLEN — Juan Carlos Peña leads something of a double life.
By day, he’s a music teacher at Thigpen-Zavala Elementary, teaching youngsters the ABCs of musical theory in a classroom adorned with multicolored posters of the musical scale and cutouts of notes.
By night, he transforms into a Tejano star. Peña will let down his long mane of lustrous black hair, slip into some tastefully ripped black denim jeans and croon out love ballads to a crowd or into a microphone, his gaze often hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses.
That second identity even has its own name — “Yeisi,” an hispanicized pronunciation of Peña’s first two initials.
Yeisi is on the verge of receiving a major recognition. He’s a finalist for the 41st Tejano Music Awards Best New Artist. He’ll find out Sunday whether he takes the title after the close of a round of voting open to the public.
“It is the biggest Tejano award ceremony that we have in Texas — Texas being the capital of Tejano music,” he said Tuesday.
For a man whose career in music seems to be going far, Peña hasn’t gone anywhere at all in a physical sense.
In fact he’s right where he started: in a McAllen ISD music room.
It was there, decades ago, that Peña picked up his first instrument — a cello — and began his career in music.
“I actually was pushed into music by my elementary music teacher,” the 37-year-old said. “She was the first one to tell me that I should try music in middle school, that I could be good at it.”
Other teachers told Peña the same thing and he took it to heart. Peña studied music in college and joined McAllen ISD in his early 20s.
Peña also began touring, playing gigs in Monterrey and Mexico City. Early in his career his stage name was thrust upon him.
Peña had always gone by “J.C.,” his first initials. A promoter at a club he was supposed to perform at spoke no English, and wrote it down phonetically — “Yeisi.”
When Peña arrived for the show the club had printed out a banner that spelled his name that very way.
“I thought it was very clever, I had never seen it before, I had never thought about it, but I’ve been using it ever since,” he said.
Though he recorded three non-Tejano albums earlier in his career, Peña felt a pull towards something else. He grew up on The Beatles and the Bee Gees and “Bad, Bad Leeroy Brown,” songs from the 60s and 70s from artists who were writing their own music.
“I am first and foremost a songwriter,” Peña said. “That was my first passion — being able to write my own songs. And because I use mostly piano and guitar, they mostly dabble in the love-song style.”
Tired of playing covers, Peña looked to Tejano music. It seemed like the perfect place for the balladeer to turn poetry he’d come up into music. He’d grown up listening to Tejano, at weddings and school dances and just about everywhere else, after all.
Peña went to well known Tejano producer Gilbert Velasquez with 22 songs he’d written.
“Do you think some of my love songs could translate to Tejano?” he asked.
The pair listened to the songs in the studio. Finally Velasquez said it was enough for an album. In fact, it turned out to be enough for Peña’s first Tejano album and a good deal of his second one.
Peña’s music has, evidently, resonated with listeners. Winning Sunday’s award would put him in the company of Tejano legends.
“The past recipients of this have been people like Selena, Grupo Mas; the who’s who of the Tejano industry,” he said.
For Peña, there’s a way to feel rewarded closer to home, in that McAllen music room where he tries to be the same kind of teacher he had three decades ago.
“In a way I feel like I was fortunate to have those teachers, and if I can maybe do that for somebody it’s the best way that I can repay those people that helped me,” he said. “If I can start a few students here and there that might want to pursue music, not only as a high school, but maybe even further.
“If I can be to someone what my teachers were to me, that’s the most full-circle satisfaction that I can think of.”
HOW TO VOTE:
Tejano Music Awards nominee for “Best New Artist:” Voting is open to the public at https://tejanomusicawards.com/public-ballot
Voting ends Nov 7.
