Strachwitz Frontera Collection

Veteran Mexican singer Gerardo Reyes, whose popular touch and unpretentious demeanor earned him the nickname "El Amigo del Pueblo" (The Friend of the People), died February 25 after battling liver cancer. He was 79.

"His life was one of professional triumphs in an exemplary career of a man who rose from nothing to become a folk hero," his friend and colleague Jesse Armenta was quoted as saying in a tribute published in Prensa Hispana.

The superficial coverage of the singer’s death in the U.S. Spanish-language media did not measure up to his accomplished career, which he launched on this side of the border. The exception was the aforementioned article by writer Hugo Laveen of Prensa Hispana, based in Phoenix, Arizona, where the late artist got his start.

A native of the state of Guerrero, Reyes immigrated to the United States as a young man to pursue his music career. He first settled in Phoenix, where he worked in the lettuce fields while moonlighting as a radio deejay and performing in local restaurants and nightclubs. His early recordings were made for the Texas-based Bego label, many of which are contained in the Frontera Collection.

Reyes went on to record 60 albums, mostly for Columbia Records of Mexico. He also composed some 600 songs and made 80 films, many of which he directed and produced himself, according to a profile in Mexico City’s Excelsior newspaper, which ran as a companion piece to the its news obituary.

Reyes passed away in the colonial city of Cuernavaca, near the Mexican capitol, where he had lived for 45 years. The news was announced by his son, Gerardo Reyes, Jr., who had served as his father's manager and who also was pursuing his own career as a singer and actor. The younger Reyes said his father's last recording was a tribute to the iconic ranchera star Pedro Infante.

Many news articles featured videos of the late singer's biggest hits, such as "Libro Abierto" (Open Book), performed here in this flim clip showing Reyes smiling while he serenades a woman outside her window.

But from the Frontera files, take a listen to this early Bego single, a mournful ranchera song which the singer wrote and delivers with his strong and supple vocal, backed by El Mariachi Alma Jaliciense. The tune has what now seems like an appropriate title, "Me Vengo a Despedir" – I come to say farewell.

-AgustÍn Gurza