TRINI
Trini
Lopez: Mexican-American singer and guitarist
Common clue:
“Lemon
Tree” singer Lopez; Singer Lopez; “If I Had a Hammer”
singer Lopez; Lopez of pop; Lopez of “The Dirty
Dozen”
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
2 times a year
Video: If
I Had a Hammer – Trini Lopez
Trinidad López III (May 15, 1937 – August 11, 2020) was an American singer, guitarist, and actor. His first album included a cover version of Pete Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer", which earned a Golden Disc for him. His other hits included "Lemon Tree", "I'm Comin' Home, Cindy" and "Sally Was a Good Old Girl". He designed two guitars for the Gibson Guitar Corporation, which are now collectors’ items.
Lopez made his name on the club circuit of the Southwestern United States before being "discovered" in 1962 by the record producer Don Costa, while playing at the PJ Club in Hollywood, California. Costa was greatly taken with Lopez's latinized versions of contemporary hits and signed him up to Frank Sinatra's record label, Reprise Records. His debut album, Trini Lopez Live at PJ's, was released in 1963. The album included a version of "If I Had a Hammer", which reached number one in 25 countries and was a radio favourite for many years. He also performed his own version of the traditional Mexican song "La Bamba" on this album.
His popularity led the Gibson Guitar Corporation to ask him in 1964 to design a guitar for them. He ended up designing two: The Trini Lopez Standard, a rock and roll model based on the Gibson ES-335 semi-hollow body, and the Lopez Deluxe, a variation of a Gibson jazz guitar designed by Barney Kessel.
He later recorded covers of other popular songs of the day, including "Lemon Tree" (1965), "I'm Coming Home Cindy" (1966) and "Sally Was a Good Old Girl" (1968).
During the 1960s and 1970s Lopez moved into acting as well as recording and playing, though his film career was not as successful as his music. His first film appearance was in Marriage On The Rocks (1965) where he appeared with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. He was one of The Dirty Dozen (1967) and starred in Antonio (1973). He continued his musical career with extensive tours of Europe and Latin America during this period, remaining firmly within his Latin music genre; an attempt to break out by releasing a disco album in the United Kingdom in 1978 proved an embarrassing flop.
Lopez remained a lifelong bachelor and had no children. His nephew, Trini Martinez, was the drummer for the Dallas indie rock band Bedhead.
Lopez died on August 11, 2020, at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, California. He was 83, and suffered from complications from COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in California.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Trini Lopez".
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