Special to the NEWS
What began as “black and white,” has now gone to “full color!”
With a life-long dream of approximately 70 years in writing music (lyrics and melody), Tere Villarreal, an award-winning songwriter, now 85, sits back with a cup of coffee and smiles while she listens to the sounds of her beautiful music occasionally on AM/FM radio or CD’s and/or online i.e., YouTube, Shazam, Spotify, and other facets of social media. Her most recent song, recorded by CHR Records, is: “Si Te Vas” performed by artists Ruben De La Cruz y Su Conjunto con Ruben Garza. The song was written in Santa Rosa, Texas, in 2001, during the time her mother passed away. Consequently, Tere relocated from Houston to stay with her 84-year-old father who needed company.
Born 1937, Tere Villarreal, of Harlingen, Texas, was born to Polo Villarreal and Ernestina Garcia Villarreal on June 16, 1937, in Linares, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, a small town southeast of Monterrey, Mexico. In the mid-1940s, due to great hardship, her parents immigrated to the United States with three children. Within time, her parents and the family went through the immigration process and became proud U.S. Citizens. Raised Catholic to a hard working-class family in Primera, Texas, she was eldest of 12 siblings: Alfonso*, Humberto*, Alicia, Connie*, Irene*, Lencho, Delia*, Imelda, Bertha*, Polo, and Juan. (*) Preceded in death.
Harmony and lyrics are recognized in elementary
Growing up, Tere was not shy. She demonstrated passion for singing and performing at the early age of nine or 10. She vividly recalls performing at “Wilson Elementary” in Primera, especially during holiday. She remembers her teacher, Mrs. Yates. The stage was her spotlight! Not realizing she had a greater gift, she began drafting poems and phrases at school. Tere often wrote notes to herself, jotting her feelings and ideas in her school notebooks. She recalls the notes were a combination of poems and phrases. Later those notes became pieces of songs and shortly, thereafter, she realized she could apply the melody to her phrases forming harmony in a “well-balanced” repeated sequence, she recalls.
Her parents: Old fashioned values and qualities
Polo Villarreal, her father, born in 1916, was from the “old school.” Growing up, as a teenager was not easy for Tere. It was not likely for her to have the opportunity to be in the limelight of things. Buying records and posters was not a priority for her dad, nor was going out with friends or much less, dating boys. Her mother, Ernestina, sewed her dresses and made sure Tere learned all the household traits as so did her other siblings. While times were tough and money was not easy, Tere managed to save enough money to buy her “very own” cassette recorder with radio and began recording her songs with great harmony formation . By this time, her writing, in a sense, took off to another level. Writing songs became a natural. She recalls, the best part of working in the fields was listening to her favorite musical genres of boleros and ranchera music. Some of her favorite female Mexican singers were the famously known in the 1950’s “La Prieta Linda” Enriqueta Jimenez, Amalia Mendoza, and Lola Beltran. She was fascinated and inspired by the “boleros” of Javier Solis and “mariachi-trio music” of Los Panchos. Tere was also captivated by the accordion sounds of music legends such as Los Alegres de Teran, Narciso Martinez, Pedro Ayala, Ramiro Cavazos, and many more including Ruben Vela, Valerio Longoria, and Los Hermanos Garza of Sebastian.
Marriage 1956
In the summer of 1956, at the age of 19, Tere marries Odon Rodriguez Nava of Tampico, Mexico Tamps. They met at the Herman Ranch in 1955 and married the following year in August in Primera, Texas. Her younger cousins (Juanito and Jose Maria) now Los Cachorros de Juan Villarreal performed a few songs at the wedding.
The move to California 1962
In 1962, Tere, a mother of five, and her husband moved from Texas to Healdsburg, California and spent 10 years in Sonoma County. While her inspiring mission to someday become a notable songwriter, her song writing, unfortunately, came to a complete halt that year (’62). Things began to happen. Her husband was not supportive or understanding of her songwriting. Tere was at a crossroads. It was a time of a huge transition, a new phase of life, a new area, and raising their five children at Jones Ranch. Their home was surrounded by prune orchards, grapes, and apples. During the turn of many seasons, her husband was the lead man at the farm, teaching all five children to work alongside him, Tere, and the many farmworkers. Tere recalls, she and her husband were active members of the Latinos Unidos in Healdsburg, California. They were part of the Cesar E. Chavez movement in the Spring of 1966, joining hundreds of striking farmworkers for better wages and conditions. In 1972, the family finally moves from Northern California to Harlingen, Texas.
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