RIO RANCHO, N.M. – Trini Lopez, a singer and guitarist who became known for his versions of “Lemon Tree” and “If I Had a Hammer” in the 1960s and who brought his talent to Hollywood, died Tuesday. He’s 83.
Filmmaker P. David Ebersole, who finished filming a documentary about Lopez with Todd Hughes, showed Lopez died of COVID-19 headaches at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, California.
Musician and business spouse Joe Chavira said he and Lopez had just finished recording a song “If By Now”, a song intended to raise funds for COVID-19 food banks. “And here he dies of anything he sought to fight,” Chavira said.
Lopez went to the theater, appearing in the World War II drama “The Dirty Dozen” and the comedy “The Phynx”, as well as on television “Adam-12”. He also designed guitars that are favorites of Dave Grohl and other rock stars.
Trained by Buddy Holly and Frank Sinatra, Lopez has become a foreign star acting in English and Spanish. Unlike Mexican-American singers like Ritchie Valens, Lopez rejected the recommendation to replace his call and brabbyly embraced his Mexican-American heritage despite warnings that it would damage his career.
“I insisted on staying with my Lopez,” he told the Dallas Morning News in 2017. “I’m proud to be a Lopez. I’m proud to be a Mexican.”
Born in Trinidad López III to immigrants from Guanajuato, Mexico, Lopez grew up in the impoverished Dallas community in Little Mexico. The family’s terrible economic scenery forced Lopez to drop out of high school and work.
His life was replaced after his father bought him a $12 black Gibson acoustic guitar from a pawn shop. His father taught him to play the instrument, which led young Lopez to perform in Dallas nightclubs that did allow Mexican-American clients.
Buddy Holly saw Lopez at a small nightclub in Wichita Falls, Texas, and took him to Norman Petty, his record manufacturer in Clovis, N.M. Holly died in a plane crash six months later, and Lopez replaced him as lead singer of The Crickets.
Lopez moved to Southern California and received a regular concert at the P.J. nightclub in West Hollywood. Sinatra saw him play and presented him with a contract with his new label, Reprise, where Lopez achieved his first major success with “If I Had A Hammer”. It reached number one in nearly 40 countries.
They have become friends and have been combined in social circles in Las Vegas and Palm Springs, California.
His first album, “Trini Lopez at PJ’s”, reached the 10 most sensible in 1963, and had good fortune in the Spanish market with “The Latin Album” and “The Second Latin Album”. a rare Latin in the world’s rock and folk of the time, he talked about resisting the tension of record managers to replace his call and probably attract more white audiences.
Lopez earned a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 1963 and, in early 1964, was so waiting for him and the Beatles to be co-headlined by an 18-day engagement at the Olympia Theatre in Paris. That was just before the British band went to the United States, gave the impression of “The Ed Sullivan Show” and interrupted Lopez’s career and many others.
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French newspapers would say “Bravo Trini Lopez! Who are the Beatles? Lopez later told the website ClassicBands.com. “When we finished doing the shows, the last night we were there, the hounds came to my dressing room. My dressing room was next to theirs and they said, “Mr. Lopez, the Beatles are going to New York. Do you think they’ll be a success? “I said, “I don’t think so. »»
“Trini used to say that he had come to California, broke and on a break. He thanked Sinatra for “finding out,” Chavira said. Sinatra said, “No, I pretended to be.”
Lopez rarely made the impression on the charts after the 1960s, however, his diversity of Gibson Trini Lopez guitars released from 1964 to 1971 influenced a generation of young guitarists, adding Grohl, The Edge and Noel Gallagher.
Ebersole and Hughes finished filming a documentary about Lopez titled “My Name is Lopez”, which is expected to premiere in 2021.
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