Fender tune added to NRR

(Archival photo)

By RAY QUIROGA
publisher@sbnewspaper.com

Freddy Fender’s country music classic, Before the Next Teardrop Falls, was added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry [NRR].

The announcement was made last week after Congressmen Julian Castro of San Antonio and Vicente Gonzalez Jr. of the Rio Grande Valley championed the song and Fender earlier this year.

According to Geneva Fuentes, Congressman Castro’s Director of Communications, before this year’s induction class, there were 650 recordings in the NRR, but less than five percent of those titles were attributed to Latino or Hispanic voices.

She also stated that the listings are part of Castro’s ongoing efforts to “improve awareness of how Latino voices have shaped American history and culture.”

The goal of the NRR is to “preserve sounds and recordings with cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance to life in the United States,” according to Fuentes.

Recordings selected for the NRR are culturally, historically or aesthetically important, according to the Library of Congress website. Recordings may be a single item or group of related items — published or unpublished — and may contain music, non-music, spoken word, or broadcast sound.

According the Library of Congress website, this year’s NRR induction class includes sounds of Elton John, the rock band Chicago, Broadway’s Hamilton, Mary J. Blige, Amy Winehouse, Minecraft and Microsoft.

Also including in this year’s inductions are recordings from Tracy Chapman, Celine Dion, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Miles Davis, Charley Pride, Vicente Fernández, and the Steve Miller Band.

Elton John’s monumental album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Chicago’s debut Chicago Transit Authority, the original cast recording of Broadway’s Hamilton, Mary J. Blige’s My Life, Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, Microsoft’s reboot chime, and the soundtrack to the Minecraft video game phenomenon were selected as some of the defining sounds of history and culture that will join the NRR of the Library of Congress, reads a Library of Congress press release.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden named the 25 recordings as audio treasures worthy of preservation for all-time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage.

The 2025 class of inductees includes Tracy Chapman’s self-titled debut album, Celine Dion’s 1997 single My Heart Will Go On from the blockbuster film Titanic, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans’ classic Happy Trails, Miles Davis’ jazz fusion album Bitches Brew, Charley Pride’s groundbreaking Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’, Vicente Fernandez’s enduring ranchera El Rey, Fender’s breakthrough song Before the Next Teardrop Falls and the Steve Miller Band’s Fly Like an Eagle.

“These are the sounds of America – our wide-ranging history and culture. The National Recording Registry is our evolving nation’s playlist,” Hayden said. “The Library of Congress is proud and honored to select these audio treasures worthy of preservation, including iconic music across a variety of genres, field recordings, sports history and even the sounds of our daily lives with technology.”

More than 2,600 nominations were made by the public this year for recordings to consider for the registry. Chicago Transit Authority finished in first place in the public nominations this year.  The recordings selected for the NRR this year bring the number of titles on the registry to 675, representing a small portion of the national library’s vast recorded sound collection of nearly four million items.

Elton John, the 2024 winner of the Library’s Gershwin Prize for Popular Song with his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, reflected on their 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

“This year’s National Recording Registry list is an honor roll of superb American popular music from the wide-ranging repertoire of our great nation, from Hawaii to Nashville, from iconic jazz tracks to smash Broadway musicals, from Latin superstars to global pop sensations – a parade of indelible recordings spanning more than a century,” said Robbin Ahrold, chair of the National Recording Preservation Board.
The National Recording Preservation Board [NRPB], originally created by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 and most recently reauthorized in 2016, serves as an advisory group to the Librarian of Congress.

The Board consists of 44 members and alternates representing the recorded sound industry, archives, scholars, musicians and others who comprise the diverse American recorded sound community. As its primary mission, the Board works to ensure the survival, conservation and increased public availability of America’s audio heritage.

The Board realizes its mission by advising the Librarian on the current state of audio preservation and initiatives such as the National Recorded Sound Preservation Plan, and the annual selection of the NRR.

Fender, a San Benito native born Baldemar Garza Huerta on June 4, 1937, died in Corpus Christi, TX on Oct. 14, 2006.

After attending San Benito schools before dropping out at the age of 16, he enlisted with the US Marines and subsequently served in the military for three years.

According to his online biography, Fender’s musical career and genre evolved through the years as he reinvented his career — time and again– to incorporate Rock N Roll, country, and country-Tejano into his musical repertoire. He was known for his work as a solo artist and in the groups Los Super Seven and the Texas Tornados. He was best known for his 1975 hits, the aforementioned, Before the Next Teardrop Falls and the subsequent remake of his own Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.

During an appearance with the Texas Tornados on Late Night with David Letterman, on Dec. 2018, 1990, the legendary comedic host introduced Fender as, “one of the greatest voices in all of music.”

Fender also starred in television shows and movies, mostly playing bit parts such as Mayor Sammy Cantu alongside actors Ruben Blades and Christopher Walken in the 1988 critically acclaimed motion picture, The Milagro Beanfield War directed by one of Hollywood’s all-time great talents, Robert Redford.

Always proud of his San Benito and Mexican-American roots, Fender was quick to correct reporters who attempted to paint his San Benito neighborhood of his childhood, El Jardin, as a slum, saying it wasn’t a ghetto, but a poor Mexican-American neighborhood with proud, hard-working people.

He was also known to specify his native town during live performances. In 1990, Fender performed as part of the Grammy Award-winning supergroup, the Texas Tornados (Doug Sahm, Freddy Fender, Augie Meyers and Flaco Jimenez) in the acclaimed, nationally televised PBS show, Austin City Limits donning a grey, off-the-rack, San Benito Greyhound t-shirt underneath a blue denim vest. The Texas Tornados, incidentally, were also featured in the soundtrack album for the 1996 golfing flick/romantic comedy Tin Cup starring Kevin Costner, Rene Russo and Don Johnson.

In recent years, a grassroots movement to have Fender inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, TN. has gained momentum.

According to the petition to have Fender inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, his accolades included, but are not limited to, the following: three-time Grammy Award Winner, 24 Billboard Hot Country Songs charted (four of which reached number one), Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) Jukebox Awards for highest earning songs played on a jukebox, Single of the Year at the 1975 Country Music Association Awards.

From 1974 to 1983, Fender released a total of 16 albums with a total of 24 songs charting successfully in both Country and Pop, many featuring lyrics in English and Spanish.