Johnny Rodriguez, Country Music's First Mexican-American Star, Dead at 73

Johnny Rodriguez, first Mexican-American country star, known for hits like 'That's the Way Love Goes' and 'Ridin' My Thumb to Mexico,' has died at 73.

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Johnny Rodriguez, the first country star of Mexican-American descent known for such recordings as “You Always Come Back (To Hurting Me)” and “Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico,” died Friday after entering hospice care. He was 73. His daughter confirmed Rodriguez’s death in a social media post.

“It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that we announce the passing of our beloved Johnny Rodriguez, who left us peacefully on May 9th, surrounded by family,” she wrote. “Dad was not only a legendary musician whose artistry touched millions around the world, but also a deeply loved husband, father, uncle, and brother whose warmth, humor, and compassion shaped the lives of all who knew him.”

Born in Sabinal, Texas — just 90 miles from the Mexico border — Juan Raul Davis Rodriguez became “Johnny Rodriguez” after catching the attention of businessman Happy Shahan, who hired him to sing at his Alamo Village, a John Wayne film set turned Texas tourist attraction. While performing there, Rodriguez was noticed by the country singer and songwriter Tom T. Hall, who encouraged him to make a go for a country career in Nashville and later hired a 20-year-old Rodriguez to play lead guitar in his band, paving the way for a deal with Mercury Records.

Rodriguez released his debut album, Introducing Johnny Rodriguez, in 1973. The record gave him his first hit, the Top 10 “Pass Me By (If You’re Only Passing Through),” followed by the chart-topping “You Always Come Back (To Hurting Me).” A barroom weeper written by Rodriguez and Hall, it was the perfect vehicle for Rodriguez’s rich yet approachable voice.

That same year, Rodriguez released his second album, All I Ever Meant to Do Was Sing, which added two more hits to his resume. The hard-luck anthem “Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico” mixed wanderlust with a broken heart, while “That’s the Way Love Goes” found him interpreting Lefty Frizzell’s sublime ballad a decade before Merle Haggard’s version.

“Rodriguez is already a superb C&W stylist and one of the most promising country writers,” Rolling Stone’s Chet Flippo wrote of Rodriguez in 1974. “His first two albums demonstrate that he’s certainly studied his George Jones, Merle Haggard and Charley Pride, but he’s also moved beyond those influences to establish his own enclave of C&W.”

Indeed, Rodriguez emphasized the “Western” in C&W back then, weaving in mariachi elements and Tex-Mex stylings into his songs, and frequently singing in Spanish. “You have stories in Mexican music, and country music said almost the same thing, just in different languages,” Rodriguez said in Ken Burns’ 2019 Country Music series. In a separate interview, he said, “I believe there’s a marriage between Mexican mariachi music and country music.”

Rodriguez was a consistent hitmaker throughout the Seventies and well into the Eighties. He scored with “Dance With Me (Just One More Time),” “I Just Can’t Get Her Out of My Mind,” “I Wonder If I Ever Said Goodbye,” “North of the Border,” and “Foolin’,” and put his own spin on a pair of rock staples, covering the Beatles’ “Something” and the Eagles’ “Desperado.” He also recorded a rousing version of Robert Earl Keen’s “Corpus Christi Bay.”

Even the Highwaymen recognized Rodriguez’s immense talent. When the supergroup of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings were recording their debut album Highwayman with producer Chips Moman in 1984, they recruited him to sing on their version of Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos).” “It’s one of those old stories about maltreatment of aliens,” Cash said to introduce the song when he and Rodriguez delivered a duet version on the TV series Nashville Now in 1987.

While not an “outlaw country” singer, Rodriguez had his share of troubles. In 1998, he was arrested and charged with murder after shooting an acquaintance that he mistook for a burglar in his Sabinal, Texas, home. Rodriguez was acquitted the following year. He also battled, and later overcame, a cocaine addiction and issues with alcohol.

Rodriguez continued to tour and perform live throughout his life. In 2007 he was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame, and in 2017, he made a triumphant appearance at CMA Fest in Nashville, anchoring a lineup of legends that included Jeannie Seely, T.G. Sheppard, and his old friend Bobby Bare. Despite sporting a cast on his right hand that prohibited him from playing guitar, Rodriguez, then 65, was in superb voice and gregarious spirit, flashing his thousand-watt grin in between verses. He sang all the hits, from “You Always Come Back (To Hurtin’ Me)” and a gorgeous “That’s the Way Love Goes,” to his signature rambling song, “Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico,” which he wrote solo.

“I asked Willie [Nelson]…how you can say so much in so few words,” Rodriguez once recalled during an interview in Australia. “He said, ‘Just be honest and make it rhyme.’ Finally, it kinda started sinking in and I try to use that most of the time in my songwriting.”

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