#TBT: Wasted Days And Wasted Nights by Freddy Fender

Sometimes for Throwback Thursday I’ll go back and look at what the chart looked like in country music several years ago. This week I wanted to go way back to 1975.

I wasn’t around back then so there’s a little clue on my age.

But I have listened to the number one country song from this week in 1975 more than a few times.

Wasted Days And Wasted Nights – Freddy Fender

1975 was a huge year for Freddy Fender. He came out with his first number one earlier in the year. Wasted Days was the second number one of his career and second of the year.

The crazy thing is that Freddy had never appeared on the country charts before. He started out of the gates with two straight number one hits.

That’s pretty impressive for any era in country music. It just doesn’t really happen even on the first single. And if an artist does have a first single that goes to number one it’s really difficult to follow it up.

But that’s what Freddy did with Wasted Days and he actually had a third number one later in the year with Secret Love and a few more hits later in the ’70s.

One interesting point about this song was that Fender had written it much earlier and had recorded it. But his career never took off in the late ’50s or in the early ’60s. It wasn’t until he had his first country hit that he recorded this song again and put it out.

It goes to show you that sometimes even if a song is a good one that it still needs the right set of circumstances to find it’s way to the people and become a hit.