Re: [bomp] "And now a song by the great Freddy Fender. Freddy, this is for you, wherever you are."

[Michael Snider <lasciviumdei@xxxxxxxxx>]

Freddy was a legend and should be far more appreciated than he is. 

John Strodtman <johnstrodtman@gmail.com> wrote:  
While a lot of us have mourned the passing of CBGB's and lament the demise
that after the club does indeed move to Las Vegas and puts it self in danger
of being franchised into another Hard Rock Cafe or House of Blues, we [the
Bomp-list] have ignored the passing of a great musician and rock & roller (a
major faux pas on our part), the late great Baldemar Huerta aka Freddy
Fender.
Freddy Fender (1937-2006) died Saturday October 14 of lung cancer at the age
of 69. Freddy was best known for his hit song Before the Next Tear Drop
Falls that which hit number 1 on both the country and Billboard charts in
April of 1975. This was the first time in music history that an artist's
first release single hit #1 on both charts simultaneously. His 1975 first
major release album went Platinum and he was named Billboards best male
vocalist of the year.

Though remembered primarily as a 70s country icon and South Texas regional
Tejano/Conjunto star and member of super group Texas Tornadoes, Freddy's
musical origin is steeped in Mexican folk music and later as a migrant
worker influenced by blues he heard in the northern states working along
side black field workers. After a two year stint in Korea Freddy Fender
began recording rock & roll in the late 1950s under the moniker "The Bebop
Kid" covering popular artists like Elvis and Harry Belafonte in Spanish. His
early recordings, on Falcon Records, were chart busters in Mexico and S.
America so in 1959 the Bebop Kid signed a deal with Imperial Records (Fats
Domino was on this label) and changed his name to Freddy Fender to reach a
wider Anglo audience. His rock and roll spotlight was short lived, after
releasing his hit single Wasted Days and Wasted Nights (perhaps one of the
best blues style shuffles in rock and roll history to stroll to and an
anthem among the lowrider crowd) in 1960, Freddy was found in possession of
two marijuana joints and was given a harsh three year sentence in
Louisiana's Angola Prison. This was a death blow to Freddy's early career
and also reflects  the early attitudes and bias not just towards Mexican
Americans, but to rock & roll as well.

After Fender's prison stint, he laid low in New Orleans for a while steeped
in the sounds of Cajun music and then moved back to Texas where he lived and
worked in Corpus Christi. The terms of  Fender's probation did not allow him
to enter any bars or dance halls which inadvertently banned him from playing
or touring, another blow to his musical career and livelihood. For more than
a decade Freddy worked as an auto mechanic in a small Corpus Christi garage
occasionally playing a set at unassuming Mexican cantinas and ice houses.
Fender was the one hit rock & roll has-been doomed to a life of obscurity,
but his songs were not unsung.

Somewhere in sunny California a group of transplanted Texans were
singing Wasted
Days and Wasted Nights to throngs of grooving hippies. The Sir Douglas
Quintet, lead by Doug Sahm, kept Fender's long forgotten songs in their set
list rotation and in 1971 included Wasted Days and Wasted Nights their 1971
album *The Return of Doug Saldaqa, *Texas inspired album expressing Sahm's
home sickness for the Lone Star State. After returning to Texas from
California the Sir Douglas Quintet played as the house band for the Soap
Creek Saloon in Austin, Texas- a mecca for the Texas redneck hippie and
often viewed as the birthplace of cosmic country. Fender's Wasted Days and
Wasted Nights was a house favorite where each time before Sahm played it he
would say, "And now a song by the great Freddy Fender. Freddy, this is for
you, wherever you are."

Freddy was 200 miles away clueless that anyone even remembered his songs,
and Doug Sahm wanted to find him. In 1974 with help of Sir Douglas Quintet
producer Huey P. Meaux (The Crazy Cajun), Doug set out to find Freddy Fender
who was back to living as Baldemar Huerta, the blue collar Corpus Christi
mechanic. After finding him Doug convinced Freddy Fender to headline a show
with him at the Soap Creek in Austin. Fender reluctantly excepted to the
play the show that would change his life. Less than a year later Fender was
crooning on the Johnny Carson show riding high on the hog.

I dug up this gem of an article from the Austin Chronicle that was published
in 1999 at the time of Doug Sahm's death that tells the story of Freddy
Fender's  first headline act at the Soap Creek.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A74808

I've read other versions of the story of how Sahm rescued Fender from
obscurity and I have to say that it is one of the more touching stories of
rock & roll lore. Fender's influence does not just extend to Third Coast
country rollers and regional Tejano enthusiast, but resonates with bands
such as Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, ? and the Mysterians, Sunny and the
Sunliners, Los Lobos and California Mexican American punk bands such as Los
Illegals, The Plugz, The Zeros (lead singer Robert Lopez of El Vez fame),
The Cruzados, and more.

Living in the San Antonio and Austin areas where cow punk is king you can
always be certain of one thing, a local band will always cover a Johnny Cash
tune eventually followed by Freddy Fender's Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.
It's
a clichi, but a good clichi to ensure that Freddy Fender will never go
unsung. Freddy will long be remembered for his crooning voice, poofy hair,
laid back persona, and having life that would make a slightly more
interesting movie than Walk the Line.

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