If you grew up in El Paso during the 1960s or 1970s, Steve Crosno was a part of your life. From his perch behind the microphone at KELP in El Paso, the Rio Grande Valley’s hottest Top 40 transmitter, Crosno orchestrated the teenage culture of Tejano (Tex-Mex) music and gave life to the distinctive Crosno Sound . The music he played was woven into the fabric of every high school romance, and Steve himself was along for hundreds of Friday night dates, performing live on the stages of high schools from Ysleta High on the east side to Anthony High on the west, with his Crosno’s Discoteko mobile deejay machine.
Awe, hell… that was forty-odd years ago, you say. Why do we care about that old deejay now? Maybe because he was more than just an entertainer, local celebrity and Texas broadcast legend. He was also a sage. Want to learn how to increase sales and customer loyalty in your business? Listen and learn from Crosno. Want to learn how to relax tensions on the border? Listen and learn from Crosno. Or, maybe you’re just like me, and you just want to take a trip back to a better place in time.
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El Paso was a great place to be a teenager in the sixties. I haven’t been back there in a lot of years but I’d like to cruise down Alameda again on a Friday night. Who could forget Crosno? We all had those little transistor radios with a 1-inch speaker that would fit in your shirt pocket and they were all tuned to KELP. I’m sorry to hear that Crosno died. He couldn’t have been that old could he?
I did a Google search and it looks like he had cancer or something and died at home in Las Cruces. Terrible thing and a big loss for his fans.
Is it safe for anybody to live in El Paso anymore?