Freddy Fender

From George Jones' and Conway Twitty's early rockabilly sides to Jerry Jeff Walker's psychedelic folk-rock experiments with Circus Maximus, more than a few country acts have rock & roll skeletons in their closets, and Freddy Fender was no exception -- the main difference being that Fender was a teenage Texas rocker living in a Hispanic community along the Mexican border, and cut his earliest records en Espanol. Recording under his given name, Baldemar Huerta, Fender earned the nickname El Bebop Kid for his frantic early singles, and in 1961, hoping to make a few extra bucks on the side, Fender and his band cut an album called Rock 'n Roll under the alias Eddie con los Shades. Drawing as much from R&B as the rockabilly sounds that were still making the rounds in Texas at the time, Eddie con los Shades: Rock 'n Roll sounds a bit prescient of the garage rock sounds that would be all the rage three or four years down the line, though with less grit and a decided Latin undertow. Fender doesn't get much of a chance to show off the luxuriously weepy vocal style that would make him a Nashville star in the mid-'70s, but as a rocker he sounds solid and light on his feet, and if his guitar work isn't always virtuoso stuff, there's a minimalist Carl Perkins-style attack in his sharp, meaty solos that sounds both tough and lithe. Not quite the great lost Fender album, Eddie con los Shades: Rock 'n Roll still proves he was serious about his rock & roll, and served it up with style and passion. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide