User:Jecarrales

Joe Ely El Mariachi Loco Carrales was born José Ely Carrales III, on July 5, 1976 in Falfurrias, Texas. He grew up in Premont, Texas in the 1980s and 1990s. It was during those years that he began a long career in music in South Texas.

Background
Carrales started off playing the trombone in the Premont Independent School District band programs, however it was in the Premont High School Mariachi Band that he began to be noticed. His grandfather, Elifalet M. Carrales, had taught him to play the violin and sing. By the mid-1990s, Carrales was a regular at Premont’s St. Teresa’s Catholic Church Spanish Choir and he joined the notable Mariachi Cascabel in 1994.

Mariachi Cascabel provided Carrales with a place to try new musical ideas. It was in this group that Carrales began dancing a musical number to the novelty mariachi song "El Mariachi Loco" and the popular song "Micaela". Carrales left Mariachi Cascabel in 1998 and joined Corpus Christi’s Mariachi Fuego. He remained there only a short time before joining Kingsville’s Mariachi Aguilas. In 1999, Mariachi Aguilas became Mariachi Kiñeno, but by the year 2000 Carrales was a Mariachi free agent.

Carrales made a brief return to Mariachi Cascabel in 2001, the same year he married Norma Yvette Mata (with whom a child, Micaela Rae, was born in July 2003). That year also saw the formation of the Carrales Show Band, which played many performances at Premont’s Main Street Café and private parties. In 2002, Carrales published his first two songs, "Amor De Mi Musica" and "La Polka Vanilla".

In 1998, Carrales joined the Civil Air Patrol, the auxiliary service of the United States Air Force, where he rose to the rank of Major, and briefly served as the Commander of the Corpus Christi Composite Squadron in Corpus Christi, Texas. Carrales became a certified teacher of Social Studies in 1999 and accepted a teaching job at Kingsville, Texas’ Memorial Middle School. He joined Kingsville's Mariachi Del Sol, to play, but also continued to compose new music.