![]() ![]() They had five children one son died in a car accident. The couple divorced after he got out of jail in 1963 and remarried two years later. In 1957, he had married Evangelina Muniz, who survives him. Two years later, he had a liver transplant. He underwent a kidney transplant in 2002 using a kidney donated by his 21-year-old daughter. Open about his battles with drug and alcohol abuse, Fender also struggled with diabetes and hepatitis C. In 1998, he played with Flaco Jimenez in Los Super Seven. Branded the "Tex-Mex equivalent of the Traveling Wilburys and Grateful Dead", the group performed through much of the 1990s. In 1989, Fender was "playing bookings for peanuts" when he was asked to co-found the Texas Tornados. Three years later Robert Redford gave him a part The Milagro Beanfield War. After persuasion from his wife and friends, he spent time in drug rehabilitation in 1985. The late 1970s were, artistically, the best years of his life, Fender later observed, but drugs and alcohol took a toll. In 1977 he appeared in the movie Short Eyes and two years later played Pancho Villa in a western, She Came to the Valley. Fender then reached number 20 in the US charts covering Doris Day's 1950s hit Secret Love and got to number eight with a remake of his late 1950s Wasted Days and Wasted Nights. Recorded for a Texas label, Before the Next Teardrop Falls, which includes a verse in Spanish, became a number one pop and country hit. ![]() National fame came in 1975 when producer Huey Meaux convinced Fender to bring his soulful tenor to country music. After almost three years in the Angola state prison he then spent several years playing gigs on weekends, working as a car mechanic and studying sociology. That early career ended when he was arrested in 1960 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for possession of marijuana. He renamed himself Freddy Fender after his guitar. He then decided to pursue a career as a rocker and was advised to change his name to soften his ethnicity. Fender dropped out of school aged 14 and, inspired by John Wayne's Sands of Iwo Jima, and lying about his age - he was 16 - served in the US marines from 1954 to 1956. The son of migrant workers, he dropped out of high school at age 16, joining the military. (written by Baldemar Huerta and Wayne Duncan) Freddy Fender (1 country, 8 pop, 1975) Born in San Benito, Texas in 1937, Freddy Fender grew up in a poor Hispanic community. His father, who sang casually, died of tuberculosis. The Story Behind The Song: Wasted Days And Wasted Nights. Born in San Benito, southern Texas, he was raised around traditional, polka-influenced conjunto music. ![]()
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