Freddy Fender - The Story of an "Overnight Sensation"

This is one of the albums I saved from a box of rather suspect records my mother in law found in the crawl space. It seems that no one was entirely sure of the origins of the box, but it was an eclectic mess of audible bric-a-brac. Mixed in with a very beat up Supremes double album (that couldn't be salvaged) were a few things that looked like fun. None more so than this Freddy Fender record.

"Wasted Days & Wasted Nights" was a song I remembered, but the version on this collection likely dates back to the original 1959 recording. It's hard to tell as the credits are sketchy - well, non-existent. There's a certain charm to this one and it's rough and spotty in places but the bones of the song that he re-recorded to greater fanfare in 1975, the same year this collection was released by Pickwick, the king of budget opportunistic hits packages. I should have known it would sound like dogshit, especially with the little blurb on the top left on the back cover: "Electronically Enhanced for Stereo" - whatever that means.

The joy to be had here doesn't reside so much in the recordings as the time capsule this represents. This was early rock and roll and the tracks are likely lifted from his early records that aren't listed on his wiki page, but are on discogs. The songs range from covers of contemporary classics, Barrett Strong's (he didn't write it but he made it famous before The Beatles or The Flying Lizards) "Money" and Ritchie Valens "Donna" as well as an interesting interpretation of "Jamaica Farewell" that I really enjoyed. Interestingly it was attributed to Freddy Fender on the record label, not Irving Berlin. In fact a lot of the credits seem to be gibberish. 

Pickwick, baby.

The Story of an "Overnight Sensation" spans nine songs, and is predominantly centred on the do-wop era, and frankly was more fun than I expected it to be ... even with the terrible sound quality. It does make me wonder what his mid '70s output sounded like and was he really a country artist?

The redeeming element to this cash grab collection is the essay that's reprinted from The Music Gig from November of 1975. It pretty much makes this worthwhile. Freddy seemed like a guy who had seen some ups and downs but had his head screwed on right. I think the best quote from the article has to do with Freddy wanting to be an actor. "I'd like to do a Mexican bandito with bullets across my chest, a real sweaty, revolutionary character." The author of the article seemed to get it, writing, "The appearance is easily visualized, but not the disposition.

I wanted a taste of what Freddy Fender was like, and while I was disappointed in the recordings it did whet my appetite, and I'd like to hear more.