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Sunday, October 15, 2006


 

Class justice


With the death of Freddy Fender, I decided to look up his entry in the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, which I just purchased from the remainder table at Border's yesterday for $7.50; not bad for an 1112-page book! Here's an interesting note from the entry:
Fender was arrested for the possession of two marijuana cigarettes in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Sentenced to five years in prison, he subsequently served 30 months in the Angola State Prison.
Here's a bit of information about Angola State Prison:
Known as "The Farm," the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is the largest prison in the United States. Around three-quarters of its inmates are African-American. According to the Academy-Award-nominated documentary The Farm, 85 percent of the inmates who are sent to Angola will die there.
A decade after Fender was doing hard time at Angola for possessing two marijuana cigarettes, rich boy George Bush was reportedly involved with much more serious drugs. Needless to say he didn't see the inside of even the town jail, much less a place like Angola.

I had the happy experience of seeing Freddy Fender perform with the Texas Tornados (Fender, Flaco Jimenez, Doug Sahm and Augie Meyers) at a small venue in Santa Cruz in the early 90's.


// posted @ 10/15/2006 11:02:00 AM // 

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