Texas native Joe "King" Carrasco has devoted his career to re-creating the Tex-Mex, Farfisa organ rock & roll sound of such '60s groups as the Sir Douglas Quintet and Sam the Sham & the Pharoahs. After playing in a succession of bands around Texas in the late '60s and early '70s, Carrasco founded his band El Molino in 1976 and recorded Tex-Mex Rock-Roll in 1978. (The album was reissued by ROIR in 1989.) By 1979 he had formed the Crowns and was calling his music "nuevo wavo," playing especially in New York, where he appeared on stage in a cape and crown. He was signed to the U.K. Stiff label and Joe Boyd's Hannibal label in the U.S., and released Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns in 1980.