Vicenta Fernandez, the King of Mexico’s traditional ranchera music has died
Vicenta Fernandez, the King of Mexico’s traditional ranchera music, known for classics like “El Rey” and Volver, Volver, has died aged 81. He died on the same day as Mexicans celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe. Fernandez who was critically acclaimed and had sold tens of millions of records worldwide and began his career singing for tips in Guadalajara, the capital of western Jalisco state known as the birthplace of mariachi music.
In 1998, just month before Mexican musician Vicente Fernandez earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, his eldest son, Vicente Jr, was kidnapped. The kidnappers cut off two of Vicente Jr’s fingers and was released only after four months for a reported ransom of $3.2m ( £2.3m). Over 5, 000 people came to see him receive his star on Hollywood Boulevard just months later- reportedly a record turn out.
His voice and his immense popularity at home and abroad earned his comparisons to Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, as well as dozens of awards. The singer had been in poor health for months after suffering at his ranch earlier this year.
Fernandez was born on a ranch outside the Mexican city of Guadalajara, the state capital of the state of Jalisco, on 17 February 1940. He grew up working on his father’s ranch and watching the films of Mexican actor and ranchera signer Pedro Infante, one of the three traditional singers in Mexico at the time known as the Three Roosters. By age of eight, he had moved after his father lost the ranch, Fernandez returned to Jalisco to pursue a career in music full time in 1960, working as a busker and making occasional television appearances.
He then moved to Mexico City and sang in a restaurant to make ends meet, but he returned to Jalisco and got married after failing to get a record contract.
In 1966, Javier Solis, the last of so-called Three Roosters, died after complications from surgery, and CBS Records offered Fernandez a contract. He released his first album Perdoname, that same year and has been with the label ever since. He went to release more than 50 albums, and sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, and between 1971 and 1991 starred in dozens of films, for which he also occasionally wrote the soundtracks.
He won three Grammy Awards, eight Latin Grammy Awards, and more than a dozen Lo Nuestro awards for Latin music. Fernandez even has a street named after him in the US city of Chicago and a statue of him in his home city of Guadalajara.
In January 2021, he sparked outrage after footage emerged of Fernandez gabbing a female fan’s breast, which he later confirmed he had done so, telling the press “ I don’t know it was a joke, I don’t remember .. I apologise with all my heart”.
Fernandez announced his retirement in 2012 but continued recording albums releasing his last in December 2020. In 2016, he performed one final time in Mexico City’s massive Azteca Stadium, home of Mexico’s national football team, where 85, 000 people attended.