The hometown of Baldemar Huerta, better known by his stage name, Freddy Fender, will soon honor the trailblazing Tejano musician in a first-of-its-kind exhibit at the San Benito Cultural Heritage Museum.
“Freddy Fender: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Baldemar Huerta,” is the first to ever work with the artist’s estate. Running from Sept. 26 to Nov. 9, the exhibit will work to emphasize and display Fender’s generational impact as an artist across genres.
Featuring Fender’s music, memorabilia and his multiple appearances on TV and film, the historians curating the exhibit hope to highlight the artist’s legacy in a way never seen – or heard – before.
Veronique Medrano, a musician and archivist whose own work has been greatly influenced by Fender, is one of those historians. She joined the Standard to talk about what visitors can expect when visiting the exhibit. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Now, Freddy Fender’s face used to literally loom over the city. I remember driving down toward town from Austin and seeing his image on a huge water tower. I trust he’s still there.
To start, how would you describe Fender to someone who’s never heard his music?
Veronique Medrano: I would definitely describe it as soulful and powerful Tex-Mex country.
When you were growing up, how did you get into Freddy Fender?
I got into Freddy Fender right in the beginnings of my Tejano career, funnily enough, because I am just a bilingual artist. And so as someone who is a bilingual artist, you kind of try to gravitate to other bilingual artists. And it’s literally right in my backyard. Brownsville and San Benito are like just sisters, right next to each other.
And so given that, as I was kind of embarking on a bilingual acceptance of my songwriting and my musicality and my artwork, I stumbled upon Freddy Fender and his history and his career. And my God, I think I was barely getting into high school or like ending middle school.
So he was such a big part of the Rio Grande Valley. And so to be able to kind of like accept that and really dig into it in my own musical career is really how it all started.
You know, it’s interesting. He had some hits, not just in the U.S. He had success in Mexico and South America, too. I think he, in a sense, translated Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel” once upon a time – back when he was known as “El Bebop Kid,” right?
Yeah. And he actually was not just “El Bebop Kid.” He also went by “Eddie con los Shades.” He went by his given name, Baldemar Huerta.
So, yeah, he did a cover of “Don’t Be Cruel” by Elvis Presley in Mexico and South America. And it was pushed out there by Falcon Records, and it went No. 1.