José L. Hernández (born 27 August 1958) is a Mexican mariachi musician.

Hernández is the youngest of eight children (Esteban and Maria Eva Hernández, parents). He is the founder of Mariachi Sol de Mexico and Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles, America’s first all-female professional mariachi ensemble.

He is a mariachi leader in the United States and is recognized internationally as an innovative force behind mariachi music in the last thirty years, both musically as well as in mariachi education.

José immigrated to the United States when he was four years old and spent his youth growing up in Pico Rivera, California. He began to sing at four and play trumpet in his school’s music program at age ten. His interest in music eventually led him to study arranging and composition at the Grove School of Music in Hollywood 1979 to 1982.