Baldemar "Freddy Fender" Garza Huerta

The name was a choice, and so was the sound. In 1958 Baldemar Huerta legally became Freddy Fender, taking the surname from the guitar and amplifier brand and Freddy because the alliteration would "sell better with gringos," by his own account. Much of his formative career was spent in south Louisiana, and his ballads draw on swamp pop, a style he recorded on the 1978 album Swamp Gold. In 1989 he joined Doug Sahm, Flaco Jimenez and Augie Meyers in the Texas Tornados, and he also sang with Los Super Seven.

What the plaque says

Baldemar "Freddy Fender" Garza Huerta Known as Freddy Fender or El Bebop Kid (the Mexican Elvis Presley), Baldemar Garza Huerta achieved great success as a Tejano, rock and country singer for over fifty years. Born on this site in San Benito on June 4, 1937, he first performed in a Harlingen talent show at radio station KGBT where he won first prize. For years, he performed and won local talent shows. At the age of sixteen, with his mother's consent, he joined the Marine Corps. He was discharged in 1956, returned home and began playing to Tejano audiences at bars, nightclubs and honky-tonks in Texas and Mexico. In 1957, under the name El Bebop Kid, he recorded several Spanish-language versions of popular country and rock songs, popularly known as rockabilly. One year later, he changed his name to Freddy Fender. It was in Harlingen where he wrote and recorded his 1959 blues hit "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights." After serving nearly three years at Angola State Prison, Fender left music and began work as a mechanic. He returned to the music industry with his 1974 hit, "Before the Next Teardrop Falls," a number one single. Between 1975 and 1983, Fender charted 21 country hits. Fender's music appealed to a wide audience with his emotional and experience-driven songs. His fame also allowed him to contribute to many charitable causes. After a series of medical issues, he died on October 14, 2006 in Corpus Christi at the age of 69. Freddy Fender played for U.S. presidents and had a star placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Even with his fame, Fender never forgot his humble roots and hometown. One of San Benito's favorite sons, he is buried in the San Benito City Cemetery. (2013)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 13 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.
• Stillman House Museum — 18 mi
  The 1850 Greek Revival house of Charles Stillman, who laid out Brownsville in 1848 beside the army's Fort Brown, and for a century the home of the Treviño family.
• Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — 19 mi
  A coastal refuge set up in 1946 for wintering redhead ducks, with 417 bird species recorded and, by the Fish and Wildlife Service's account, the largest ocelot population in the United States.
• Port Isabel Lighthouse State Historic Site — 27 mi
  A 72-foot brick tower finished in 1852 for the Brazos Santiago shipping lane, dark from 1905 until a reproduction lens was lit in 2022, and the only Texas lighthouse open to the public.

More markers nearby

• Joe Callandret School — 0.3 mi
• Home of Col. Sam Robertson — 0.4 mi
• San Benito — 0.4 mi
• Spiderweb Railroad — 0.6 mi