Song of the Day 8/12: Trini Lopez, “If I Had a Hammer”
Trini Lopez, a Dallas-born ’50s rock-‘n’-roller who rode the Great Folk Music Scare to stardom in the ’60s, died yesterday of the COVID. He was 83. This Pete Seeger tune was his biggest hit, reaching No. 3 in 1963.
Lopez started out as a teen, forming a group called the Big Beats. He left for a solo career soon after, but the band is still playing ’50s rock ‘n’ roll in Dallas. This 1957 single was the band’s first recording.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_zYSm0c5yw
He cut his first solo record the next year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN1an8Ix3OM
His big break came in 1962, after he moved to Los Angeles in search of a recording contract. He had no luck until Frank Sinatra saw him playing at a nightclub and signed him to his new Reprise label. His only other Top 20 hit was another folk standard, “Lemon Tree,” but he was a popular live performer. He parlayed his success into a movie career that never took off, though he did land a role as the least likely of the convicts in “The Dirty Dozen.” His music career tailed off in the ’70s, but he began playing live again in the ’90s and kept releasing albums until 2011.
