Email Regarding Freddy Fender and 2003 Laughlin DVD Shoot

Hello Conrad,

I really appreciate having found your website because of the wonderful inside look at Freddy Fender. I have been just short of obsessed with finding information about Freddy since his death.

freddy5.jpgI’m not sure why except for perhaps some sort of spiritual connection on all levels. I’ve always liked his music but hadn’t listened to it recently. I didn’t recall what brought me back to it until I read on your site that it was included on the soundtrack of “3 Burials …” which I saw and enjoyed immensely. Probably that was what got me started seeking out and downloading all of his stuff. Then I read a little about his being so ill and finally his sad death. Since that I have been combing the internet, buying DVD’s, haunting YouTube, wanting to know everything I can about him.

Perhaps the whole spiritual thing is wrapped up in his looking so much like my first love, (who I met around the same age he and Vangie met and fell in love). I didn’t spend my life with this man but did reconnect with him briefly in our late 50’s and he was very much like FF in appearance and personality at that age as well. He had also been through the whole prison, drugs, & drinking experience that Freddy had but also retained a great basic wisdom, self awareness and childish joy that I observe in Freddy. They both had that smile and sparkle that can only come from within. Also, in my lifetime I was a caregiver for many years to my husband who developed Alzheimer’s Disease, so I relate to what Vangie must have experienced in the many years of illness through which she cared for and supported Freddy.

And finally, I relate to you, being super Scandinavian in heritage and skin tone but I grew up in National City, California where I was the minority and all of my friends were Mexican. I adored their families and was often referred to by more than one dad or brother as “weda” or “blanca” and one particularly mean big brother as “gordita”!

Even before I found your website, I saw the Laughlin casino DVD from 2003 where you are on keyboard and he calls you “blanco”, “blancito” and “Wedo”. I loved it and recalled many warm feelings with my Mexican friends. One funny note. In High School, my parents decided perhaps I should find friends who were not Mexican so they moved to another slightly more upscale area of San Diego in hopes I’d find more of “my own” type. I did. I found all 5 Mexican families in the area and hung out with them!

Anyway everything about Freddy Fender, his surroundings, his family, his music strikes a chord with me and I just wanted to mention that I found your information to be the most personal and enlightening and I’m very appreciative of it. You write so beautifully too. Why not write a book or a movie about his life? Please continue to share stories about him.

Judy Bow

Barrington, IL

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