Vicente Fernández

Vicente Fernández Gómez (17 February 1940 – 12 December 2021) was a Mexican mariachi singer, actor and film producer. Nicknamed "Chente", "El Charro de Huentitán" (The Charro from Huentitán), "El Ídolo de México" (The Idol of Mexico), and "El Rey de la Música Ranchera" (The King of Ranchera Music), Fernández started his career as a busker, and went on to become a cultural icon, having recorded more than 100 albums and contributing to more than 150 films. His repertoire consisted of rancheras and other Mexican classics such as waltzes.

Fernández's work earned him four Grammy Awards, nine Latin Grammy Awards, fourteen Lo Nuestro Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He sold over 50 million copies worldwide, making him one of the best-selling regional Mexican artists of all time. In 2016, Fernández retired from performing live, although he continued to record and publish music. In 2023, Rolling Stone named Fernández the greatest Mexican singer of all time and the 95th greatest overall with their "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" list.

Early life

Vicente Fernández was born on the 17 of February 1940 in the village of Huentitán El Alto, Jalisco, the son of a rancher and a housewife. When he was between 6 and 7 years old, he used to go with his mother to see movies starring Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete and, as he himself once recalled, he told his mother that "when I grow up I'm going to be like them". Thereafter he had a taste for music and at the age of 8 he was given a guitar, which he learned to play at the same time he began to study folk music.

Fernández's family found it difficult to support themselves by selling milk from the cows on their ranch, so after Fernández finished elementary school, he and his family moved to Tijuana. Once a teenager, Fernández began working various jobs, including as a bricklayer, painter, and cabinetmaker. During his working day he sang, so many construction companies asked to have him as a worker. After these jobs he was hired to work as a cashier in his uncle's restaurant. At the age of 14 he started singing in restaurants and at weddings, joining several mariachi groups such as Mariachi Amanecer de Pepe Mendoza and Mariachi de José Luis Aguilar. It was then when, in Jalisco, he participated in the radio program Amanecer Tapatío, and began to be recognized locally. At the age of 21 he appeared on the television show La calandria musical. It was his first paid show.

On 27 December 1963 he married Maria del Refugio Abarca Villaseñor, with whom he had his first son, Vicente, who was born premature and had to be incubated at home because Fernández could not pay the hospital. That year, his 47-year-old mother died of cancer.

In 1965 he moved to Mexico City to seek a future in the world of music. His first attempts with the record companies were unsuccessful due to the popularity of singer Javier Solís. There he arranged to sing in a program of the radio network XEX-AM, which at that time was the most important in the country. A few days after the premature death of Solís in April 1966, Fernández received his first offers for albums. His first contract was with CBS Records of Mexico, the recording label in the Mexican department of CBS Records International, for whom he recorded albums such as Soy de Abajo, Ni en Defensa Propia, and Palabra de rey. Some of Fernández's songs such as "Tu Camino y El Mío" and "Perdóname" were very successful.

Career

1970s and 1980s: Volver volver and Fernández's success

Fernández had to wait a decade to consolidate his career. With the death in 1973 of José Alfredo Jiménez, one of the great icons of rancheras, Fernández became a reference point in the music industry. His next album was La voz que estabas esperando and the following albums, titled El rey, El hijo del pueblo, and Para recordar, sold millions of copies.

In 1976, with the song Volver Volver, written in 1972 by Fernando Z. Maldonado, his fame was catapulted throughout the country and the American continent based on the sales of this recording. That song came to be covered by more than twenty singers, including Chavela Vargas, Ry Cooder, and Nana Mouskouri.

In the 1980s the style of Fernández's songs changed from bolero ranchero to a ranchera focused on migration. In fact, the song Los Mandados was a reference to those Mexicans migrating to the United States and reproduced macho and patriotic stereotypes. These were the years in which he built his ranch "Los 3 Potrillos", which would end up being his music production center. In 1983 he released his album 15 Grandes con el Numero Uno, which was the first to exceed one million copies sold. In 1984 he gave a concert at the Plaza de Toros México, which was attended by 54,000 people.

In 1987 he launched his first tour outside the United States and Mexico when he traveled to Bolivia and Colombia.

1990s: Fernández at his musical peak

The U.S. press in 1991 was already talking about Fernández as the "Mexican Sinatra" and he released ranchera classics such as Las clásicas de José Alfredo Jiménez (1990), Lástima que seas ajena (1993), Aunque me duela el alma (1995), Mujeres divinas, Acá entre nos, Me voy a quitar de en medio (1998), and La mentira (1998), which all became classics.

In 1998 his elder son Vicente Jr. was kidnapped by the "Mocha Dedos", who demanded 5 million dollars as ransom. After Fernández Sr. paid $3.2 million to free him Vicente Jr. was abandoned outside the family ranch 121 days later with two of his fingers having been amputated. Fernández did all this without going to the police; both he and his other son Alejandro continued to perform concerts to maintain the appearance of normalcy to the public. In 2008 the kidnappers were sentenced to 50 years in prison.

2001 and 2011: Later years

In 2001 he launched the Lazos Invencibles tour, together with his son Alejandro. In 2006 Vicente Fernandez released the album La tragedia del vaquero, which was certified platinum in the United States.

He won a Latin Grammy again in 2008 with the album Para Siempre which was released in 2007. In 2008 he released Primera Fila, which was certified double platinum in Mexico, platinum in Central America, platinum in Colombia, and double platinum plus gold in the United States. The album remained seven consecutive weeks at number one on Billboard, and led him to win another Latin Grammy for Best Ranchero Album.

The concert he performed at the Zócalo in Mexico City on 14 February 2009 broke attendance records, with almost 220,000 people gathered to hear him. That same year he released the album Necesito de ti, which won a Grammy and a Latin Grammy the following year. In September 2010 the album El Hombre Que Más Te Amó was released, produced by Vicente himself, for which he won a Latin Grammy again. He released Otra vez, also produced by him, in November 2011.

After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Fernández was one of the 50 Latin singers who participated in the charity song "Somos El Mundo 25 Por Haiti", a cover version of "We Are the World".

Fernández started off the opening ceremony of the 2011 Pan American Games, hosted by Guadalajara, and sang "México Lindo y Querido" and "Guadalajara"; later in the ceremony he sang the Mexican national anthem before the parade of the athletes' delegations, while his son Alejandro closed the ceremony performing the games' theme song "El Mismo Sol". In October 2011, taking advantage of his U.S. tour, he signed a three-year agreement with Budweiser for the second time to promote scholarships for Hispanic American students through the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.

2012–2021: Retirement from stage

On 8 February 2012, he announced in a press conference, surprisingly, his intention to retire from the stage, but he specified that he would continue recording albums and that it was not for health reasons but because it was time to enjoy his work. Two months later, in the middle of a farewell tour throughout the country and Latin America, he released the album Los 2 Vicentes, together with his son Vicente Jr.; the album included the theme song of the telenovela Amor bravío.

That same year he recorded, together with Tony Bennett, "Return to me" at his ranch in Guadalajara for Bennett's album Viva Duets, in which Bennett sang in Spanish. In a later interview, Bennett said that Fernández had been "his favorite". In 2012 he also released the album Hoy and won again a Latin Grammy Award in the 2013 edition. This was followed by the albums Mano a mano, tangos a la manera de Vicente Fernández, in 2014 (for which he won his second Grammy for Best Regional Mexican Album and was nominated for a Latin Grammy for Best Ranchera Album), and "Muriendo de amor", in 2015.

On 28 November 2013, Fernández presented his book entitled Pero sigo siendo el rey in which he collects anecdotes and more than two hundred unpublished photographs about his professional career.