24 Facts About Freddy Fender

1.

Freddy Fender was best known for his 1975 hits "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" and the subsequent remake of his own "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights".

2.

Freddy Fender dropped out of high school at age 16 in 1953, and when he turned 17, he enlisted for three years in the US Marine Corps.

3.

Freddy Fender served time in the brig on several occasions because of his drinking, and he was court-martialed in August 1956 and discharged with rank of private.

4.

Freddy Fender returned to Texas and played nightclubs, bars, and honky-tonks throughout the south, mostly to Latino audiences.

5.

Freddy Fender became known for his rockabilly music and his cool persona as Eddie con los Shades.

6.

Davis requested that Freddy Fender stay away from music while on probation as a condition of his release.

7.

However, in a 1990 NPR interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Freddy Fender said that the condition for parole was to stay away from places that served alcohol.

8.

Freddy Fender was heavily influenced by the swamp pop sound from southern Louisiana and southeast Texas as is shown by his recording swamp pop standards on his 1978 album Swamp Gold.

9.

Records, Freddy Fender did not think that the group was strong enough, so he brought his own band.

10.

Freddy Fender was persuaded to play some vintage rock and blues numbers, which was what the executives were looking for, and was given a record contract.

11.

In 2001, Freddy Fender made his final studio recording, a collection of classic Mexican boleros titled La Musica de Baldemar Huerta that brought him a third Grammy award, this time in the category of Latin Pop Album.

12.

On March 13,2001, Freddy Fender was erroneously reported to be dead by Billboard.

13.

Freddy Fender underwent a kidney transplant in 2002 with a kidney donated by his daughter and underwent a liver transplant in 2004.

14.

Freddy Fender was suffering from an "incurable cancer" in which he had tumors on his lungs.

15.

On June 5,2005, Freddy Fender was present for the dedication of a $1.4 million water tower in San Benito.

16.

The tower bears an image of Fender along with the words "San Benito Hometown of Freddy Fender," and is visible when driving east on US Route 83 through San Benito.

17.

On December 31,2005, Freddy Fender performed his last concert and resumed chemotherapy.

18.

Freddy Fender died on October 14,2006, at the age of 69 of lung cancer at his home in Corpus Christi, Texas, with his family at his bedside.

19.

Freddy Fender was buried in his hometown of San Benito.

20.

Freddy Fender had said in a 2004 interview with the Associated Press that he wished to become the first Mexican American inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

21.

Freddy Fender's family maintains the Freddy Fender Scholarship Fund and donates to philanthropic causes that Fender supported.

22.

Freddy Fender appeared as Tony in the prison movie, Short Eyes, a 1977 film adaptation, directed by Robert M Young, of the Miguel Pinero play.

23.

Freddy Fender played the role of Pancho Villa in 1979's She Came to the Valley.

24.

Freddy Fender appeared as himself in an episode of the television series, The Dukes of Hazzard.