Johnny Rodriguez, the first country star of Mexican-American descent, died Friday after entering hospice after entering hospice on Friday. He was 73. His daughter confirmed Rodriguez's death in social media posts.
"We announce with deep sorrow and heavy hearts that the death of our beloved Johnny Rodriguez, who left us peacefully on May 9, surrounded by family," she wrote. "Dad is not only a legendary musician whose artistic nature touches millions of people around the world, but a deep husband, father, uncle and brother whose warmth, humor and compassion shapes the lives of all those who know him."
Born in Sabinal, Texas, just 90 miles from the Mexican border, Juan Raul Davis Rodriguez became "Johnny Rodriguez" after attracting the attention of businessman Happy Shahan, who hired him to sing in his Alamo village and John Wayne's movie "John Wayne Formage". While performing there, Rodriguez was noted by country singer and songwriter Tom T. Hall, who encouraged him to take a country career in Nashville, and later hired a 20-year-old Rodriguez to play the main guitar in the band, paving the way for a deal with Mercury Records.
Rodriguez releases his debut album Introduction to Johnny Rodriguezin 1973. The record gave him his first hit, the top ten “by me (if you just pass)”, and then the rankings “You always come back (hurt me). The bar house written by Rodriguez and Hall is the ideal tool for Rodriguez’s rich and approachable voice.
That same year, Rodriguez released his second album All I have to do is singwhich adds to his resume. The tough national anthem "Ridin'My Thumb to Mexico" mixes Wanderlust with a broken heart, and "This is the way Love" finds that he explains Lefty Frizzell's sublime ballads decade before Merle Haggard's version.
“Rodriguez is already an excellent C&W stylist and one of the most promising national writers,” Rolling Stone'S Chet Flippo wrote Rodriguez in 1974. “His first two albums show that he certainly studied his George Jones, Mel Haggard and Charlie Pride, but he also went beyond those influences to build his own C&W enclave.”
Indeed, Rodriguez emphasized the “Western” in the C&W at the time, weaving into his songs in Mexican fluid elements and Texas styles and often sang in Spanish. Rodriguez Country Music series. In another interview, he said: “I believe there is a marriage between Mexican wandering music and country music.”
Rodriguez was a consistent killer in the 1970s and 1980s. He took "Dancing with my (again)", "I just can't get her out of the way", "I wonder if I ever said goodbye", "North Frontier" and "Follower" and "Follower" and "Follower" and "Follower" and "Follower" and put his spin on a pair of rocks covering the Beatles' "stuff" and "Desperdodo." He also recorded an exciting version of Robert Earl Keen's "Corpus Christi Bay".
Even highway people recognized Rodriguez's huge talent. Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings Road people In 1984, they recruited him to sing with producer Chips Moman, singing with Woody Guthrie's "Deportation (the wreckage of Los Gatos' plane). "It's one of the old stories about alien abuse," Cash said, introducing the song when he and Rodriguez released a duet version on the TV series. Nashville now 1987.
Rodriguez, though not an "illegal country" singer, was in trouble. In 1998, he was arrested and charged with murder, shooting him at his home in Sabinal, Texas, mistook him for a theft. Rodriguez was acquitted the following year. He also fought and later overcomes cocaine addiction and alcohol problems.
Rodriguez continued to tour and perform throughout his life. He was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007, and in 2017, he won a victorious appearance at the CMA Fest in Nashville and stood out on a lineup of legends including Jeannie Seely, TG Sheppard and his old friend Bobby Bare. Although his right hand played the cast, which banned him from playing the guitar, Rodriguez, 65, was filled with voice and group spirit, with a kilowatt smile between the scriptures. He sang all the hits, from "You Always Back (Help Me)" and a gorgeous "This Is the Way of Love" to his iconic rambler song "Ridin'My Thumb to Mexico" where he wrote Solo.
"I asked Willy (Nelson) … why do you say so few things," Rodriguez once recalled in an interview in Australia. "He said, 'Just honest and become rhymes.' In the end, it kind of started to sink, and I tried to use it in my songwriting most of the time."