Trini Lopez (May 15, 1937- ) is a Latin American singer/guitarist.

Born Trinidad Lopez III in Dallas, Texas, he made his name on the club circuit of the American Southwest before being "discovered" in 1962 by the record producer Don Costa while playing at the PJ Club in Hollywood. Costa was greatly taken with Lopez's Latinized versions of contemporary hits and signed him up to Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records. His debut album, Trini Lopez Live at PJ's, was released in 1963. The album included Lopez's most famous song, 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. He also 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 nearly 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 co-starred the war movie The Dirty Dozen (1967) and 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.

Since then, Lopez has done much charity work and has received many honours, such as being inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame in 2003. He was still recording and appearing live in the early 2000s. Recently he has announced a new CD and taken part in a benefit concert to raise money for the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

Related links

• Official site (A detailed biography is available at this site.)