Well, they called it a Country song. I guess it was, at least before Freddie Fender got ahold of it. Then it became another country song. It had been recorded by a bunch of people, including Jerry Lee Lewis, but no one remembers that now.
The Freddie Fender version was a throwaway afterthought. A record producer wanted a version with Spanish lyrics mixed in, so he hired Freddie to sing it. “I was glad to get it over with and I thought that would be the last of it”. It made it to Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975, and was the fourth most popular song of the year. After that, pretty much no one knew Freddie had ever sung anything else. The music business is like that sometimes.
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I remember that song. But not that rendition. By 1975, I was no longer listening to any Country, and what I’d heard before that came from either the AM radio in a ’64 Impala, or Hee-Haw. My best guess for who I heard it from is Faron Young.
I do know of Freddy Fender, but not why. I guess he didn’t make as big an impression on me as Ritche Blackmore.