The EZ Band from Texas specialise in playing familiar pop hits in the traditional Norteño style – including this one by The Smiths.

I was introduced to conjunto music – aka Norteño, and its Tex-Mex hybrid Tejano – by my old friend Steve England after he moved to Austin, Texas in the late Eighties.

A few years after that I enjoyed a wonderful night in San Antonio watching a live conjunto band play in an ice house in a Mexican neighbourhood.

They had the traditional set-up: accordion, electric bass, drums and 12-string bass (bajo sexto), and played for about three hours (with breaks).

Everyone bought us free beers and thanked us to coming; we had a strong feeling we were the only non-Mexicans they had ever had through the doors.

One fellow told us he had crossed the border illegally when he was a young man and was now proudly a US citizen with an American wife and children, adding – disconcertingly – that he would willingly go down to the border with his gun to stop any more “wetbacks” crossing the border to get into his country.

At one point a rather grand-looking Mexican fellow dressed not in the plaid shirt and cowboy hat that most patrons sported but in tweeds came over and introduced himself.

He was Ruben (about the sixth Ruben we had met so far) and he wanted to welcome us officially, telling us he was the owner, and to ensure us that the drinks were on the house.

When we told him we were on holiday from London, England, he added, much to our surprise: “I’m just back from playing golf at St Andrew’s.”

Anyway, I love Norteño / Tejano music, which consists essentially of lively polkas and slower waltzes, but I have only just discovered the EZ Band, who seem to specialise in tackling rock songs in that style.

Their repertoire includes The Cure (Just Like Heaven), A-ha (Take On Me), The Cranberries (Linger), ABBA (Dancing Queen) and Rick Astley (Never Gonna Give You Up). But this take on The Smiths works best of all.