![]() A migrant farm worker alongside his parents, he joined the Marines at 16 but too often landed in the brig and was discharged. Baldemar Huerta grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, southernmost Texas, just across the border from Mexico. Featuring 12 digitally remastered selections, the album brings together 11 country Top 20 singles, eight of them Top 10, including such signature songs as “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” and “Wasted Days And Wasted Nights,” both of which were also pop Top 10. All of his biggest hits are heard on The Best Of Freddy Fender (MCA Nashville/UME) edition of 20th Century Masters/The Millennium Collection, released April 24, 2001. But it is his music of the ‘70s, often sung in both English and Spanish, which inspired succeeding generations and will forever have a place in music history. His induction into the Tejano Music Hall Of Fame in 1987 and a 1990 Grammy for Best Mexican/American Performance with the Texas Tornados are among the recent highlights in Freddy’s career. He had been in hospital up until a few days before he passed away and had been allowed home to be with his family where he passed away on Octoat his home in Corpus Christi, Texas.With the rise of Latino music, the greatest Tex-Mex country and pop star in history is again gaining well-deserved attention-Freddy Fender. He had to cut down his workload to weekends only when he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 2000 and had had a liver transplant from his daughter. He also shared in two Grammys: with the Texas Tornados, which won in 1990 for best Mexican-American performance for Soy de San Luis, and with Los Super Seven in the same category in 1998 for LOS SUPER SEVEN. He won a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album in 2002 for LA MUSICA DE BALDEMAR HUERTA. Throughout the 1990s he split his time pretty evenly between The Tornados, the star-studded Los Super Seven and his own solo career. This rekindled interest in Fender’s older recordings and led to a new solo contract with Warner Bros. ![]() The band enjoyed considerable success, both as a live act and on record. Two years later he became a member of the all-star Texas Tornados, with long-time friends Doug Sahm, Augie Meyers and Flaco Jimenez. In 1988 he appeared in the highly acclaimed Robert Redford-directed The Milagro Beanfield War. He found a new interest in filmmaking, appearing in the movie She Came To The Valley. He was still indulging in drugs and also hitting the bottle, when in 1985 he entered a drug clinic and recovered. He signed with Meaux’s Starflite Records in 1979, then moved on to Warner Brothers three years later, but was unable to regain the enormous success he had enjoyed between 1975-78. By the end of the 1970s, Freddy’s chart successes had dwindled drastically. All of that success led to a proliferation of reissues of Fender’s earlier independent label releases, although the quality of many were pretty poor. The new version of Wasted Days And Wasted Nights also hit number one, followed by such pop-country crossover hits as Secret Love, You’ll Lose A Good Thing, Vaya Con Dios, The Rains Came and Living It Down. Performed partly in English and partly in Spanish, the latter was picked up by ABC-Dot and became a huge pop and country hit, becoming the CMA Single of the Year in 1975. They experimented in the studio, re-recording Wasted Days And Wasted Nights and reviving Before The Next Teardrop Falls, a minor 1968 country hit for Duane Dee. ![]() Meaux, who placed Freddy’s distinctive voice in a country setting. In 1974 he was introduced to noted Louisiana record producer Huey P. After three years in Louisiana’s Angola State Prison and a regular gig in New Orleans, in 1969 he returned to San Benito to attend community college, work as a mechanic and play weekend gigs. That year he was arrested for possession of marijuana. A local club owner, Wayne Duncan formed Duncan Records, and using the name Freddy Fender (Fender came from the neck of his guitar), he scored a local pop hit with the self-penned Wasted Days And Wasted Nights in 1960. A Spanish version of Elvis’ Don’t Be Cruel, went to number one in Latin America. Gradually he turned to the more commercial fields of rock’n’roll and country. By 1958 his records, sung entirely in Spanish, were doing well in Texas and Mexico. In the late 1950s, he was back in San Benito, billing himself as ‘El Be Bop Kid’ playing rockabilly in local honky-tonks and dance halls. He dropped out of high school and joined the Marines at 16, but too often landed in the brig and was discharged. Born Baldermar Huerta on Jin San Benito, a South Texas border town, he grew up in abject poverty, a migrant farm worker alongside his parents. A maverick country artist, Freddy Fender, the King of Tex-Mex, is the only Hispanic entertainer to win both Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association awards, and two Grammy Awards collectively.
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