Consumer Guide Album

Freddy Fender: Fuera de Alcance/Out of Reach [Starflite, 1974]
Né Baldemar Huerta, this South Texas legend is a real traditionalist, as he illustrates on the title number, a country song warbled in Spanish over a reggae backing track. Cutting that one inspired him to write a little tune called "Jamaica Farewell" twenty years after Harry Belafonte went pop with it. Time travel is nothing to a man who's done three years for weed, a drug commemorated--along with wine, cocaine, and morphine--on a version of "Junko Partner" that made Dr. John blush as he tickled the ivories in fond support. And "holding his hand and showing him the way is, no other than the great, incredible TV personality, Mr. Domingo Peña known from coast to coast!" B+