During that time behind bars, Tammy was born. He would eventually get a pardon and early release from the governor, who loved Freddy’s music. His career was put on hold because of an arrest for possession of marijuana and a stint in a Louisiana prison.

His career began in the 1950s, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that Huerta, known as Freddy Fender, started earning number one records. So he learned not only to pick cotton but he learned to pick the guitar.”Īfter his time in the Marines, Fender performed under the name the Bebop Kid. “He started joining the talent contests and he would win a lot. “He only went to the ninth grade, as a child migrant worker, because his father passed away,” she says. She says her father was the oldest of his siblings and he wasn’t able to finish high school. “Ritchie Valens was maybe the most successful, but I just wanted to give Freddy what he deserved.” “Something lit up the fire in me that I wanted to give my father these accolades and show people with documentation that he was actually the first to sing Spanish rock and roll,” Tammy Fender says. The title of the book borrows from the name of a song a lot of Americans of a certain age can sing by heart – “ Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.”

Twelve years after his death from lung cancer, his daughter, Tammy Fender, has published the first of two biographies about her father. Baldemar Huerta, known as Freddy Fender, was in his day, a Mexican-American Elvis.

Wasted days and wasted nights notes