MIDLAND, Texas — A star can be born anywhere.
One may have been born right in West Texas.
Leon Carrasco is only 17 years old and attends Legacy High School in Midland. When he isn't working on his homework or playing baseball for the Rebels, he is jamming out to the blues.
He got his start at a young age and learned how to play at the Hispanic Cultural Center of Midland with his teacher, Adrian Revilla.
“He was a little young, I want to say just ten years old," Revilla said. "He came in and the guitar was bigger than him. He played La Bamba and I was like, ok that’s cool.”
Revilla is a music teacher and helped Carrasco fine tune his musical prowess.
Fast forward seven years, and the two are practically equals.
“The chemistry we have, it’s special. It’s something that you can only get when you’re playing with somebody for a long time," Carrasco said. "Me and Adrian have been playing together for a while… it’s something that, you just look at each other and he goes off on a solo and you give that look back."
The chemistry pays off when they play gigs together, and it helped them out when the Greater West Texas Blues Society were looking for groups to send to the International Blues Challenge in the Home of the Blues: Memphis, Tenn.
Every year they pick two groups to go to the International Blues Challenge and, in 2022, Carrasco and Revilla got the call.
"Oh man, standing on Beal Street, seeing all those signs, the BB King Bar, Alfred's, it was something," Carrasco said. "You can't that same feeling looking at pictures or videos. Standing on that street...we signed a pole right there. We put our sticker on it, it was surreal.”
Now, they've been selected to go again.
They'll get a 20 minute set where they'll get to show off their own style of West Texas blues, which Carrasco says is inspired by legends like Carlos Santana and Jimi Hendrix.
“It’s a duo set, so I’ll be playing a bass drum with my right foot and my left foot will have a tambourine tape, so it’ll sound a little different," Carrasco said. "Adrian will be on the piano, he’s an amazing piano player. During on of the songs, he’s going to bust out an accordion and there will be some blue accordion.”
They were the runners-up in last years competition, but Revilla believes they can go beyond that. He attributes that to the talent of Carrasco and the passion he puts into his music.
“The originality, that’s all I can say about him," Revilla said. "He’s very true to himself, very outspoken and he let’s the music speak for itself."
For more information about Carrasco or to see some of his work, you can check out his website here.