By OMAR E. ZAPATA
San Benito hometown legend Freddy Fender, born Baldemar Huerta has been through it all, from a brief stint in prison to having multiple No.1 hit songs and winning many accolades in his career, but the one thing he strived to get before his death in 2006 was to get inducted into “Hillybilly Heaven,” the Country Music Hall of Fame as the first Mexican-American.
In an interview with the Associated Press in 2004, Fender said, “Hopefully, I’ll be the first Mexican-American going into Hillybilly Heaven.” But to no avail: two decades later, an online petition is working to achieve Fender’s wish and get the recognition and acknowledgement of his impact on country music all while being Latino in a genre dominated by Anglos.
Veronique Medrano, A Tejano and Country artist, archivist and historian from Brownsville launched a Change.org petition on June 7, days after what would have been Fender’s 85th birthday but told the Brownsville Herald this petition and push to get Fender into the Hall of Fame started back in 2017.
At 25, Medrano said she would do a cover of “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” in a bilingual version called “Wasted Days” and would get people to ask her to release her version. Eventually releasing the song, it led her down a rabbit hole of bilingual country, the artists and the lack of acknowledgement.
“At first, you know, you think okay, just Freddy Fender, but then you look at Linda Ronstadt and you look at Johnny Rodrigues then you look at Ricky Trevino,” she said. “And you start to see a pattern within the country music industry.”
Medrano, a graduate student, said she has been researching and debating back and forth on making the petition. She finally did so on June 7 and it currently has about 650 signatures, with the goal of having half a million to present to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
“My goal is to really get a large impact, like showing people look, there’s half a million people that want this to happen,” Medrano said. “And that’s pretty impactful when you start having these conversations with these bigger organizations.”
Some of his accolades include winning Song of the Year at the 1975 Country Music Association Awards, 21 songs charted on Billboard, four of which reached No.1, and being a three-time Grammy award winner.
“You would think somebody like Freddy fender with such a vast catalogue, and with all the accolades that he’s gotten with over 20 plus … Billboard charting records, and, and then having many of them hit number one, many of them in the top 10. But yet, you don’t see him anywhere, you don’t see an acknowledgement of his history,” Medrano said.
Getting him into the Hall of Fame acknowledges his impact and sets a precedent of acknowledging Latinos in the genre she said.
Jose Luis Mendez, Fender’s half-brother, said it would be something very special if his brother were to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, especially when considering his music catalog and his journey from his early days of playing at San Benito’s La Villita, signing in Spanish as El Bepop Kid to selling millions of records as Freddy Fender
Asked what it would mean to see his brother’s wish fulfilled, he said “We would be really happy for him. I’m sure he’d be smiling up in heaven. … It would make the family proud and also its’ like guidance for other Mexican-American musicians to say ‘Hey if he can do it, we can do it’ and based on that, I’m pretty sure it will be an inspiration for younger people.”
Mendez said Fender’s influence started even back when he was El Bepop Kid with many of the local bands covering his music and especially an original song he called “Mean Woman.”
“Most of the garage bands back then would play that song, ‘Mean Woman.’ It was almost like mandatory or something,” Mendez said laughing. “Everybody would start singing that song in their garage bands, everybody knew that song.”
With older generations knowing and seeing Fender’s rise to the top of Country music, Aleida Garcia, director of the San Benito Cultural Arts Department and the San Benito Cultural Heritage Museum, said she has noticed the younger generation discovering and acknowledging Fender and his impact.
“I think that it’s exciting to see that there’s a younger generation that is acknowledging this is what was going on earlier,” Garcia said. “And this is something that we should look into or discover. … And there’s even like, some of the local bands, they’re, like, younger and they do like Freddy fender covers, and there’s even like a punk band that was doing like a Freddie fender cover. So, you know, there’s still that relevance there and I think it’s because it’s that kind of hometown hero kind of a thing.”
Garcia said the online petition is a good step into acknowledging and celebrating Fender, especially with him being Mexican American and breaking into the mainstream during his time.
“We do have a very big goal,” Medrano said. “But I think, you know, working together as a community, you know, we can get him more than just a museum and a water tower. We can get him to the highest levels of acknowledgment in an industry that is really not from here. It’s you know, in Nashville, and so to bring a little bit of Nashville back through, that would be great.”
To sign the petition, visit www.change.org/p/induct-mexican-american-freddy-fender-into-the-country-music-hall-of-fame
