Tuesday, August 11, 2015

40 Year Itch : The Blame For Making Me Blue


Freddy Fender : Wasted Days and Wasted Nights


    In August of 1975, Freddy Fender had the top selling country single, a remake of his 1960 hit "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" as well as the top selling album, Before the Next Teardrop Falls. The last time his "Wasted Days" was a hit, in 1960, Fender and his bass player were arrested and sent to Louisiana's notorious Angola prison farm. 

Fender in 1960

   He was released after three years on the condition he stay away from bars. Fender became a mechanic and might have vanished for good had it not been for a record producer named Huey P Meaux, aka "The Crazy Cajun". Meaux asked Fender to overdub some vocals on an instrumental version of a minor country hit  written in the late 1960's. Fender sang the song in English and then Spanish and thought nothing of it. That song was the #1 country and #1 pop hit, "Before The Next Teardrop Falls". Fender's follow-up nearly duplicated "Teardrop"'s success selling a million copies in the US where it became a Top 10 pop hit.  


In New Zealand the song topped the pop charts for twelve weeks.

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