From: "Dik de Heer" Date: Tue Jun 4, 2002 1:13 am Subject: Born To Be With You : Freddy Fender FREDDY FENDER (By Shaun Mather) Born Baldemar G. Huerta, 4 June 1937, San Benito, Texas One of the few and probably the best country singer to come from an Hispanic background, Baldemar Huerta was born to a family of migrant labourers. He joined the Marine Corps straight from school and on his release in 1958 cut his first single, in Spanish using his given name. By the next year he'd adopted his stage name and in 1960 he released Wasted Days And Wasted Nights, his biggest seller to date. Before he was able to capitalise on it, he was sentenced to five years in Angola Prison for marijuana possession. Following his release he drifted around, playing infrequent gigs, doing session work in New Orleans, working as a mechanic and returning to education for a degree in sociology. In 1974 he teamed up with Huey Meaux who owned the Crazy Cajun label in Houston and merged his natural hispanic feel with a country sound. He scored immediately with Before The Next Teardrop Falls which climbed to the top of the charts (country and pop), as did the follow-ups, a re-recording of Wasted Days And Wasted Nights (# 1 country, # 8 pop) and Secret Love (# 1 country, # 20 pop). He enjoyed a run of hits with the likes of You'll Lose A Good Thing, Living It Down and The Rains Came, but by the mid- 80's, the hits had dried up. He returned to the limelight in 1990 with the formation of the Tex-Mex superband the Texas Tornados with Doug Sahm, Flaco Jimenez and Augie Meyers. Recommended listening: Collection - Reprise Best of Texas Tornados - Reprise Official website: http://www.freddyfender.com