Popular Mexican American singer Johnny Rodriguez has died.

He was 73 years old.

Rodriguez was one of the first Mexican American country singers and had such hits as “I Just Can’t Get Her Out of My Mind,” Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico" and “That’s the Way Love Goes,” The Associated Press reported.

He died May 9 in San Antonio, peacefully and surrounded by family, his daughter said.

A cause of death was not released, The New York Times reported.

Rodriguez’s debut album, “Introducing Johnny Rodriguez,” was nominated for album of the year in 1973, after he was named the most promising male vocalist at the Academy of Country Music Awards the year prior.

In all, six singles hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart while nine others made it to the Top 10.

Most of his music was similar to songs performed by Merle Haggard and Lefty Frizzell, or, as the Times said, “unreconstructed honky-tonk.”

“I was drawn to country music because I could relate more about what they were singing about,” he said in the 2019 PBS documentary “Country Music.”

“Also, it was the music of our people,” he said in the Ken Burns’ program. “I think that Mexican music and country music said almost the same thing, just in different languages.”

His music was unlike another Tejano singer, Freddy Fender, who became popular about three years after Rodriguez came on the scene.

Rodriguez was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007, being called the “greatest and most memorable Chicano Country singer of all time.”

Rodriguez was born Juan Raoul Davis Rodriguez in Sabinal, Texas, on Dec. 10, 1951. He was the second youngest of 10 children.

He got an early start in music, starting to play guitar when his older brother bought him one at the age of 7.

The family lost their father when Rodriguez was 16 and he was just getting started forming a band. His brother died the next year. Both losses sent him “spiraling,” the hall of fame said.

By the time he was 18, he was jailed for an unpaid fine, so to pass the time, he would sing. A Texas Ranger heard him and got him a job as a singer and stagecoach driver at the tourist attraction, the Alamo Village.

Tom T. Hall and Bobby Bare heard him sing and invited him to Nashville at the age of 21, the Times and People magazine reported. Rodriguez eventually became the lead guitarist in Hall’s band.

But despite a string of hits and numerous awards, Rodriguez had tough times.

He was charged, but acquitted in 1999 of murder of the killing of a friend he said he thought was a burglar.

Rodriguez faced life in prison for shooting the man. The defense said that the shooting was justified because Rodriguez was defending himself and his property.

He leaves behind his sisters and daughter, the Times reported.

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