674 Lydia Mendoza (1916-2007) “Mal Hombre” 1934

“Lydia Mendoza began her long musical career as a child in the 1920s, singing for pennies and nickels on the streets of downtown San Antonio, Texas. She lived most of her adult life in Houston, Texas, where she was born…In the early 1930s she established her reputation first and foremost as a grassroots idol with a loyal following among U.S.-Mexican migrant farm workers who followed the crops from Texas to Michigan and later to California and the Pacific Northwest as well. Her earliest solo hit, ‘Mal Hombre’ (‘Evil Man’), in 1934 made her an overnight star, and that song never waned in popularity throughout her long career. Mendoza’s loyal fans nicknamed her ‘La Alondra de la Frontera’ (‘The Meadowlark of the Border’) and ‘La Concionera de los Pobres’ (‘Singer of the Poor’)” (Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez, Lydia Mendoza, Lydia Mendoza’s Life in Music, 2001). 

Lydia Mendoza “Mal Hombre”