Freddy Fender | Courtesy photo
A petition has been created in an attempt to get Tex-Mex legend Freddy Fender into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The career of Fender, born Baldemar Garza Huerta, spanned 60 years including chart-topping songs as a solo artist and part of groups Los Super Seven and the Texas Tornados
The signature sound of the singer-songwriter from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas fused Country, Rock, and Tex-Mex styles.
Another RGV singer-songwriter and Tejano music archivist Veronique Medrano is on a mission to make Freddy Fender the first Hispanic inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
“We put a petition out and it’s gotten a lot of following and a lot of backing but we still need more. It never ends,” Medrano tells Tejano Nation. “We really need that support now more than ever because we’re coming up on the 50th anniversary of the album Before The Nex Teardrop Falls and to make these things happen, we need the community to back what we’re doing. All they have to do is sign a petition. They don’t have to give us money, they don’t have to do nothin’ they just have to sign the petition. That is what we need.”
Medrano launched the Change.org petition last June with a goal of 5,000 signatures.
Fender was a Mexican-American singer who rose from the depths of poverty, breaking free from a life spent picking cotton and rising to a life spent picking guitar. In his youth, in 1956, he was the first to record and sing Spanish rock and roll; he was known as the “Mexican Elvis” and called “El Bebop Kid.” In the mid-1970s, Fender would become famous literally overnight as a rock ‘n’ country megastar with his first two monster hits “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” and “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.”
Instantaneously, his records crossed over the Billboard Country charts into the Rock and Pop charts, each rising to No. 1. He was given a Country Music Association award for “Single of the Year” and an Academy of Country Music award for “Most Promising Male Artist” in 1975. His voice and charismatic personality also made him a nationwide television celebrity in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Fender passed away in 2006 from lung cancer at the age of 69. He received global recognition for his contributions to music along with many honors and Grammy nominations.
In 2005, a $1.4 million water tower was dedicated to the music legend in San Benito. The tower displays an image of Fender along with the words “San Benito Hometown of Freddy Fender.” A Freddy Fender Museum and The Conjunto Music Museum opened on November 17, 2007, in San Benito. They share a building with the San Benito Historical Museum. His family maintains the Freddy Fender Scholarship Fund and donates to philanthropic causes that Fender supported. Fender’s childhood home received a Texas State Historical Marker in April.
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