He was born Baldemar Huerta and had his first measure of success as El Be-Bop Kid, doing Spanish covers of rock 'n' roll hits in the late 1950s. But it was as Freddy Fender, the name he took in 1959 to more easily cross over to Anglo audiences, that the bilingual crooner from San Benito will be forever known.
When Fender became a national sensation with 1975's "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" topping both the pop and country charts, the Rio Grande Valley rejoiced that one of its own could go so far from the migrant fields of his youth.
OnSaturday the Valley lost its voice, as Fender, 69, succumbed to cancer at his Corpus Christi home with his family at his bedside, said a family spokesman. Fender was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in January, when doctors found 11 tumors.
Fender's delayed rise to the top had strong ties to Austin. In the late '60s, after a three-year stint in prison for marijuana possession, Fender had returned to the Valley with his dreams of breakout success broken. He got a job as an auto mechanic and took classes at a community college. But then he heard his name in a song. When Doug Sahm recorded "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" on his 1971 roots project "The Return of Doug Saldana," the track opened with a salute to the man who wrote it. "And now a song by the great Freddy Fender," Sahm said, his voice drenched in echo. "Freddy, this is for you, wherever you are."
When word got back to Fender that his old records were hip in Austin, he got in touch with Sahm, his future co-star in the '90s Tex-Mex supergroup Texas Tornados, and got booked at the Soap Creek Saloon off Bee Cave Road. When Fender arrived to see a group of longhairs in cowboy hats outside passing joints, he was apprehensive. But the show was a raucous sellout, the crowd swaying to his swamp pop "triplets" and stomping to his Chicano R&B, and Fender's musical dreams were rejuvenated.
Fender also reconnected in the mid 1970s with Houston producer Huey P. Meaux, who signed him to his Crazy Cajun label. Although Fender and Meaux originally intended to make an R&B album, the producer had found a country song that was perfect for Fender's delicate, quavering vocal style.
"I don't want nothing to do with country," Fender said when he heard a demo of "Before the Next Teardrop Falls." But after about half an hour of arm-twisting, Meaux persuaded Fender to cut it.
The single was released in January '75 and shot up the country charts, staying at No. 1 for two weeks before crossing over to the pop charts. The follow-up, a re-recording of 1959's "Wasted Days," also landed at No. 1 on the Billboard country singles chart and reached No. 8 on the pop chart.
Suddenly, the Latino ex-con was the hottest "new" singer in the country. Billboard named him 1975's male vocalist of the year. "Teardrop" was also given single of the year honors by the Country Music Association.
His recasting as a country balladeer was one of several events in a career that has taken Fender from the cantinas to the casinos, county fairs to European festivals, from the slammer to the Grammys.
"He was a pretty humble guy considering he was such a singing legend," said Austin drummer Ernie Durawa, who backed the Texas Tornados, who also included Augie Meyer and Flaco Jimenez, from 1990 until Sahm's death in 1999. "He was always joking. Like when they gave him the key to the city in Fresno, he asked if it could open the jail."
He had won three Grammy Awards, but Fender told the American-Statesman in 2004 that his proudest achievement was being named in the book "Above and Beyond" as one of the Top 100 former Marines who've conquered civilian life. Fender said he was going to buy a copy for every drill sergeant who kicked his rear end. Fender was also honored when his likeness was painted on the water tower in San Benito, proudly proclaiming itself to be "The Home of Freddy Fender."
Fender performed a career retrospective show "Freddy Fender: 50 Years Of Music," at the Paramount Theatre in April 2004, just three months after undergoing a liver transplant. Two years earlier, he received a kidney from his daughter.
"I'm not one to think like 'poor me,' " Fender said in 2004. "I've always accepted the ups and downs. Maybe I've had to start all over again a few times, but at least I'm not an old cup of stale coffee. I've had a few refills."
He didn't become a national star until he was 38, but Fender grew up fast. As a child he labored beside his migrant worker parents in the cotton fields of Arkansas and the beet farms of Michigan. Back in San Benito during the winter months, he'd sit outside Pancho Dalvin's grocery store, plucking a backless, three-string guitar.
At age 10, he made his first radio appearance, singing "Paloma Querida" on KGBS in Harlingen. Figuring the barracks beat the barrio, Fender joined the Marines at age 16 and came out three years later with dreams of becoming the first Chicano rock 'n' roll star. His specialty was putting the big hits of the day to Spanish lyrics, and he had a hit in Mexico and South America in 1957 with "No Seas Cruel," his version of Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel."
When he signed to Imperial Records, the home of Fats Domino, in 1959, he became "Freddy Fender" after his favorite guitar. "Just think," he told an interviewer years later, "if I had been playing a Yamaha guitar, I'd be the No. 1 act in Tokyo."
While out on tour in May 1960, Fender was arrested for possession of a small amount of marijuana in Baton Rouge, La., and sentenced to five years at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. After serving three years, Fender spent a couple years singing R&B in the bars of New Orleans, often bumping into the similarly life-hardened balladeer Aaron Neville. Afraid his New Orleans partying would land him in prison again, Fender returned to San Benito in the late '60s and sang in bars on weekends.
The nightclub lifestyle continued to have its grip on Fender, and in 1985 his wife Vangie dropped him off at a substance abuse treatment facility. He had been sober the last 21 years of his life. The needles he shared while using heroin had a lasting effect, however. Fender was diagnosed with hepatitis C in the early '90s.
Fender also acted in several films, including the prison drama "Short Eyes" and the 1988 film "The Milagro Beanfield War." When he auditioned for "Milagro" director Robert Redford, he was asked his acting experience. "Man, I shoulda won the Academy Award for all the stories I told my wife when I'd come home late and drunk," Fender told Redford. "She believed them." Fender got the part as the town's mayor.
He also thrived in his new role as loyal, devoted husband. Vangie Huerta, whom he divorced after getting out of prison in 1963 but remarried a few years later, remained his rock until the end.
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