Johnny Herrera, Tejano songwriter
Hyfler/Rosner
Valley native was also a composer whose works were performed by Selena,
others
BYLINE: Matthew Sturdevant, Corpus Christi Caller-Times
Mary Dillaha said her older brother, Hall-of-Fame Tejano composer and
songwriter Johnny Herrera, was a young boy when he burst out with his first
song while sitting at the kitchen table in the family's home.
"We had just come back from the mov-ies," Dillaha said.
Herrera, 73, died at about 1 a.m. Wednesday at Doctors Regional Medical
Center after battling throat cancer that had spread to his spine and his
brain, relatives said.
When Herrera was a boy, he was strictly a Sinatra fan.
"If the radio at home was playing Mexican music, I would change it," he said
in an interview two years ago.
But soon he had made a name for himself and was writing songs that were
later performed by both American and Mexican stars. At age 15, he was
playing at the Madrid Club on Leopard Street, and his songs were already on
the radio.
In the '40s and '50s, his songs "De Rodillas Vendras" and "Por Ningun
Motivo" were popular, and were performed by stars like Mariachi Vargas de
Tecalitlan and Maria Victoria. In 1981, Lisa Lopez sang Herrera's "Si
Quieres Verme Llorar." In 1983, Herrera was inducted into the Texas Talent
Musicians Association Tejano Hall of Fame.
In the 1990s and now, his songs continued to be popular, with Selena's "La
Tracalera," and later Eddie Gonzalez's "Botoncito De Carino."
Herrera was an outgoing young man, and was the first male cheerleader at
Mercedes High School in the Rio Grande Valley, where he was born Feb. 9,
1930, his siblings said.
"He would wake us up in the middle of the night," said his sister, Elida
Gannon. "I used to get so mad at him, and mother would say, 'He's going to
be a composer.' "
Each of his siblings remembers Herrera as a creative, but humble man whose
songs were sometimes stolen by artists. But it never stopped him from
composing, writing and painting.
There is a poem that brother Ernest Herrera thinks of when he remembers his
brother's talent. It was a poem that Johnny had written to his grandmother.
"It goes like this, 'A rose more beautiful than I have ever seen, I saw that
morning in the mist," Ernest said. "It was pink-petaled, with some drops of
dew. 'Twas tempting to be kissed."
He is survived by a brother, Ernest Herrera; and three sisters, Mary
Dillaha; Irene "Minnie" Hagley and Elida Gannon, all of Corpus Christi.