Appreciation: 10 essential songs of ranchera legend Vicente Fernandez
No one would've held it against Vicente Fernandez if he had flamed out early in his career. After all, the singer had the weight of a nation placed on him when he debuted in 1966.
Mexico's three greatest ranchera icons — Jorge Negrete, Pedro Infante and Javier Solís — had died at the height of their careers in the previous 13 years. The man who wrote their greatest hits, José Alfredo Jiménez, was slowly drinking himself to death. Other stars of the genre — Luis Pérez Meza, Antonio Aguilar, Miguel Aceves Mejía — were popular but couldn't capture the zeitgeist the way Negrete, Infante, Solís and Jiménez had.
Fernandez would. The title of his second album, released in 1967, set those expectations from the start: "La Voz Que Usted Esperaba."
The Voice You've Been Hoping For.
Over the next 40 years, Fernandez released hundreds of songs that secured his spot as
