Description
This unique compilation presents the very best of Freddy Fender's English language recordings between 1959-1961, the first time that this body of work has been thus compiled. Much of this material is notoriously hard to find elsewhere on CD.
Long before he became a Country Crossover superstar in the 1970s, Freddy Fender was a teenage rock & roll star in his native Mexico, under his real name, Baldemar Huerta. The very first Hispanic rock & roller, nicknamed "El Bebop Kid", he initially sang Spanish language cover versions of contemporaneous American rock & roll hits, before starting to write his own songs (see JASCD1066).
He changed his stage name to "Freddy Fender" in 1959 in order to appeal to the US market - as he famously said, "To sell better with Gringos!" - and began to record in English.
After being busted in 1960 for a marijuana offence, he was incarcerated in Angola State Prison, Louisiana; while inside he had records released as both Freddy Fender and Scotty Wayne, while he also recorded an LP, "Inside Louisiana State Prison", backed by other prison inmates.