American singer Freddy Fender, best known for his 1975 smash hit Before the Next Teardrop Falls, died Saturday in his home in Texas.

Ron Rogers, a family spokesman, announced late Saturday the Mexican-American crooner passed away at noon at his home surrounded by his family.

Grammy-winning musician Freddy Fender died in his South Texas home after a battle with lung cancer.
(Chris Pizzello/Associated Press)

Fender had been in failing health, diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year. He stopped performing after it was revealed there was nothing doctors could do for him.

"I feel very comfortable in my life. I'm one year away from 70 and I've had a good run," he told a local newspaper in August.

Fender had a long battle with drugs and received a kidney transplant from his daughter in 2002 and then underwent a liver transplant two years later.

Fender was born Baldemar Huerta in 1937 in San Benito, Texas, the son of migrant workers. He sang on radio as a boy and also picked crops. His time with Mexican and African-American field workers shaped his musical style — learning a type of Mexican polka called conjunto as well as the blues.

He was a regional sensation in the south Texas town but it was his single, Before the Next Teardrop Falls, that catapulted him to fame. It hit No. 1 on both the pop and country charts in the U.S. in 1975. That year, he garnered the Academy of Country Music’s best new artist award.

Other No. 1 hits soon followed, including a re-release of his 1960 song Wasted Days and Wasted Nights, Secret Love and You’ll Lose a Good Thing.

"The Old Man upstairs rolled a seven on me," he once said in a 1975 interview.

Fender was proud of his heritage and frequently sang songs in Spanish.

In 1999, then Texas governor George W. Bush wrote to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce urging them to honour Fender. The singer was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

"I think he was the precursor to Los Lonely Boys," said Cristina Balli of the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center in San Benito.

Fender also appeared in the 1987 movie The Milagro Beanfield War, directed by Robert Redford.

He continued to put out music, winning a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album in 2002 for La Musica de Baldemar Huerta. He already had two Grammys, in 1990 and 1998, with his group The Texas Tornados.

With files from the Associated Press