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[upbeat jazz music]

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[NBC jingle]

- [Announcer] The following program

is brought to you in living color.

- The gentleman, you're about to meet

is a north of the border talent

with a south of the border name.

Legend has it that he was found singing under a sombrero

on a Mexican highway,

but the truth of the matter is that

he was a well-established star of Texas nightclubs

before he became a top recording artist.

He's living proof

that what pleases Beaumont also pleases Broadway

and what sells in San Antonio also sells in San Francisco.

Ladies and gentlemen, Trini Lopez.

[audience applauding]

♪ I like to be in America

♪ Okay by me in America

♪ Everything's free in America

♪ For a small fee in America

[instrumental music]

♪ I like to be in America

♪ Okay by me in America

♪ Everything's free in America

♪ For a small fee in America

[instrumental music] [audience clapping in rhythm]

♪ Automobile in America

♪ Chromium steel in America

♪ Wire spoke wheel in America

♪ Very big deal in America

♪ I like the City of San Juan

♪ I know a boat that you can get on ♪

♪ Everyone there will give big cheer ♪

I put my own spin into that song

and it's one of my biggest songs, in the world.

♪ I like to be in America

♪ Okay by me in America

♪ Everything's free in America

♪ For a small fee in America

I like to be in America.

Everything's free in America.

Ah, yeah, it's great.

[audience applauding]

- Please welcome to the stage, Trini Lopez.

Legendary Trini Lopez. [audience applauding]

[instrumental music]

[audience applauding and cheering]

All right, Trini.

- [Audience] Trini! Trini! Trini!

- [Announcer] Now ladies and gentlemen,

the star of our show,

internationally famous, Mister Trini Lopez.

[audience applauding]

- Trini Lopez.

- Trini Lopez.

- You're famous, right?

Trini Lopez.

[instrumental music]

- Trini Lopez.

- Trini Lopez.

- Trini Lopez.

- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, Trini Lopez.

[instrumental music]

♪ Never know how much I love you ♪

♪ Never know how much I care

♪ When you put your arms around me ♪

♪ I get a fever that's hard to bear ♪

♪ You give me fever

- Trini's back.

- A lot of people would say Trini.

[audience applauding]

- Hey, are you Trini Lopez, the famous singer?

- Shh, not so loud.

- Great Trini Lopez.

- It's Trini like in Trinidad.

♪ In the morning, fever all through the night ♪

♪ Fever, I'm on fire

♪ What a lovely way to burn

- I met Trini Lopez on a show called "Hullabaloo,"

and became friends.

You know, that was a period of time

when we were all rooting for each other

and wanting you to win.

- [Announcer] And now this week's host on "Hullabaloo,"

picking up where he left off nine weeks ago,

Mister Trini Lopez.

[audience applauding]

[instrumental music]

- That Trini Lopez guitar sounds good.

- You know, we're both guitar players

and we started talking about gear and hats

and you know, the old days.

So we thought, let's just get him up here

amongst his friends, here in Palm Springs where he lives.

Let's just do it right in his backyard,

and rock it out and see what happens.

[instrumental music]

- He has been singing with us on and off now

for maybe four years.

I think Palm Springs has a magic to it.

You can't explain it,

but when people come here, they feel it.

- But a lot of what's happening now

is also recalling what happened

in the heyday of the 50s and 60s,

makes this perfect convergence, this energy that's here.

- You know, we all grew up on "Live at PJ's,"

so fast forward the years,

and we thought, well, you know,

we really need to show people that Trini is still the man.

♪ Captain Smith and Pocahontas

♪ Had a very mad affair

- Trini is probably one of the most exciting

young performers today.

- Oh, he was cute as a button.

Yeah, he was a handsome kid.

- Definitely, he drives the girls wild,

everywhere he goes.

- I told him, you could not stand in front of your God

and promise to be true to any woman.

And he said, you're probably right.

He liked women.

♪ And I light up

- [TV host] You're still a bachelor, how come?

- [Man] He's not married.

[all laugh]

- I was Trini Lopez' personal assistant, private secretary,

confidant, companion, and soulmate for 25 years.

- Like a lot of people from my generation,

I discovered him through thrift store records.

You pull it out and you're like,

oh, you know, who's this,

the name sounds exotic.

Oh, look at all these songs he does,

I know these songs.

Put on that record,

after a few minutes you're like,

I think I actually like this version of this song, you know?

- Tony Orlando, the singer, he came up to me

and I was at a big organization called Nosotros

'cause I was getting of this big, big honor.

He said, Mister Lopez, he says.

- I owe great thank you to you Trini,

because you really were the trailblazer

for this half Puerto Rican,

half Greek kid from New York City.

- He says, if it wasn't for you,

none of us would be here tonight.

And you know who was there?

All the biggest Latins, actors, actresses, singers, dancers,

and I said, wow, you know.

[audience applauding]

- He was with every celebrity.

You can ask him about any celebrity,

he's got stories, good and bad, about all of them.

- Every time I did the "Johnny Carson Show,"

in front of the camera,

he was, you know, he was very, very pleasant.

He was very friendly.

At this particular time,

I brought him a jar of jalapenos

and he started turning red.

[audience laughing] Blue.

Yellow.

And he couldn't talk.

[audience laughing]

- Ah!

- So ever since then,

I never did the "Johnny Carson Show" anymore.

[audience laughing and applauding]

- You're the best.

- The young Texas star from Dallas,

Trini Lopez and his 15 man combo [indistinct].

[audience cheering and applauding]

♪ Winds may blow o'er the icy sea ♪

♪ But I'll take with me, the warmth of thee ♪

♪ A taste of honey

♪ A taste much sweeter than wine ♪

♪ I will return

♪ I'll return

Princess Grace in Monte Carlo, she was my biggest fan.

She would invite me to parties.

Here's Prince Rainier.

And I was sitting there,

she always sat me next to her all the time.

And I liked her so much because

not because she was so beautiful

and not because she was so famous,

but because she was so down to earth.

It'd be like talking to just anyone.

Grace would go, Trini let's dance,

and I was nervous as hell.

I said, Oh no, thank you.

She said, Trini, come on.

And she would take my hand

and drag me out to the dance floor,

and the minute we started dancing,

everybody would stop.

And just me and her dancing in front of 100 people.

Hi everybody, I'm Trini Lopez,

and I'm here to tell you about something really new,

different too.

- What I remember the most

was some of the TV shows that he did like "Hootenanny."

- For the past three years,

Trini Lopez has become as much of a Los Angeles landmark

as I guess the Hollywood Bowl.

- Ladies and gentlemen, the Everly Brothers.

[audience cheering]

- All right, brother Trini, lets go.

[guitar music]

♪ Wake up little Susie

♪ Wake up

- [TV Host] Miss Gilgallen.

- Do you also play a musical instrument?

- Yes.

- [TV host] Trini Lopez and Bill Shatner

meet Joe Campanella and Lorne Greene on "Celebrity Tennis."

- [TV host] From Hollywood, Trini Lopez and Sue Anne Langdon

meet Lee Ann Meriwether and Max Baer on "Celebrity Bowling."

- I had one TV show, "The Trini Lopez Show" for ABC.

♪ Trying to keep the night on fire ♪

[audience clapping]

So why not get yours now.

Are we going to lose the boat

or do you really have the money?

- Yes and no. [audience laughing]

- What do you mean?

- Yes, we're gonna lose the boat

because no, I don't have the money.

[audience laughing]

You're from a different part of the South.

[audience laughing]

- My name is Trinidad Lopez.

[audience cheering]

And everybody calls me Trini for short,

isn't that exciting?

But in a way I was kind of lucky to have been named Trinidad

because my father and mother went on their honeymoon

to the island of Trinidad, in the Caribbean.

[audience laughing]

So if you think my name is a little strange,

you should meet the rest of my family.

[audience laughing]

[Trini laughing]

I have a sister named Long Island Lopez,

[audience laughing]

and I have a brother named El Paso Lopez.

But in a way,

in a way I was kind of lucky to have been named Trinidad

because my parents were thinking of spending their honeymoon

on the Virgin Islands.

[audience laughing]

My dad came from a very, very poor family,

so did my mother.

My father was a singer, a musician, an actor and a dancer.

And he was very popular in Moroleon, Guanajuato.

That's the name of the town that he was raised,

my mother too.

My father kept coming in through the Rio Grande River,

from Mexico to Texas, to make money to survive.

And of course, all of this was illegal by the way,

all illegal.

After two or three trips that he made,

he married my mother.

She was 16, my dad was 18,

and all of us, my siblings,

we were all born and raised in Texas,

and because of my dad wanting to better his life.

And that point is really important right now.

- [Trump] We're gonna build the wall, we have no choice.

[laughing]

- [Trini] In my family, I have four sisters,

my brother and myself.

- So to name 'em, I'll go in line.

So it was Grace, my mom was the oldest,

next in line was my Aunt Lucy,

then there was my Aunt Elia,

next in line was Trini,

next in line was my Aunt Rosita,

and the last was his brother, Jessie Lopez.

- A priest told my father

that he should bring his family to Dallas

so we could survive, you know?

It was all about survival.

Bigger town, bigger city.

There wasn't much to it believe me,

but it was a very rough area, I remember that.

It was a black and Mexican ghetto.

They called it Little Mexico, uh-huh,

and it was a tough place.

I remember our house was about 50 feet

from the corner of a cantina.

And I used to smell the beer all the time

because the cantina was real close.

And there was Mexicans and blacks,

and they were always fighting, killing each other,

and just to give you an example,

there was a man who was known in the neighborhood

for being a wino.

And he was in the back of my home in an alley,

and some of the guys that I used to run around with,

they bashed his head in and killed him for like $3, $4.

That's how tough this neighborhood was.

My dad, he noticed that I was running around

and getting in trouble with the gang.

He said to me,

"I want you to be home when I come home from work,"

and I didn't listen to him.

And on the third time,

he took his belt off

and gave me a real good whipping, I mean really.

And he hurt me, but he didn't hurt me physically.

He hurt me spiritually.

So the next day,

my father wanted to make up for hitting me.

So he went to a pawn shop

and he bought a guitar,

a beat-up old guitar that he couldn't afford.

And I heard later that it cost him $12 to buy that guitar.

He said, "Son," he said, "Look, what I got for you."

Guitar.

He said, yeah.

I said, "For me," he said, "Yes for you.

"I want you to learn some songs

"like I used to when I was your age."

I want you to learn something constructive, I remember that.

He said, "I want you to learn something constructive."

He taught me my first like eight, 10 songs,

Mexican folk songs,

and he taught me a little bit of the guitar.

These songs are all almost standards in Mexico.

When my father was young, Cielito Lindo,

[singing in Spanish]

El Rancho Grande, songs like that.

[Tito performing Alla en Rancho Grande]

[audience cheering]

And for sure, "La Bamba,"

he taught me that song

before anybody else ever recorded it in America.

I used to sing that song all the time.

I don't mind telling you that years later,

I was listening to the radio

and I heard "La Bamba" on the radio.

Who's that singing?

Who beat me to it,

'cause I wanted to record that song one day,

and it was a guy named Ritchie Valens.

La Bamba, but I made it a worldwide hit

more than Ritchie Valens.

Mine, worldwide because people liked my style I guess,

you know,

that's all I can say.

[singing in Spanish]

[upbeat music] [singing in Spanish]

Let me hear you again.

[audience cheering]

And I fell in love with music

[fingers snapping]

like that.

[dramatic music]

[train engine roaring]

- [Announcer] This is the morning prison train

out of Southern California into Mexico.

It makes this run every day about dawn.

It's cargo, Mexican wetbacks,

who have sneaked across the border

and are being deported.

- In my day, growing up, I must tell you this,

America was very prejudiced.

They were very prejudice about black people and Latinos.

Very, very, we were treated the same as a black person

when I was growing up.

We couldn't stay at a motel.

We had to sleep on the,

on the highway, me and my parents.

Oh yeah, it was terrible.

We had to sit in the back of the bus with the blacks.

Yeah.

[somber music]

We used to go up north, my family to Indiana and to Ohio,

and sometimes part of Michigan,

to pick tomatoes, potatoes, beets,

and we used to work real hard, real hard.

And we used to go in one of those trucks,

like in the movie, "Grapes of Wrath."

My life story was similar to that, with the family

in a canvas covered truck.

And it was pretty tough.

And so we used to work like 16 hours a day,

and so in the evening

I would take my little guitar that my dad bought me,

and I would go to the back of a shack where we lived,

and I would climb a fence post,

and I started singing my songs.

And I was all by myself.

After dinner, like around six,

six, seven o'clock before, in the summertime,

before it got dark.

And all of a sudden a cow showed up,

[cow mooing] one cow.

And so I just kept on singing, you know?

Next thing you know, about 10 minutes later,

another cow showed up, and then another one,

and then another one.

And before I finished my concert,

[Trini laughing]

I had about 20 cows in front of me.

And I didn't understand,

but they were just like,

like they were their big eyes here.

I had them mesmerized.

I said to myself, you know,

if I can get the attention of cows,

maybe the people would like me.

And that's exactly what happened,

but they were my first audience, cows.

Everybody.

Huh, right here.

It's my first little combo.

It was called the Copacabana Combo.

[Trini laughing]

We were all kids, you know?

Yes, I was a lead guitarist, a singer,

and then I graduated to high school.

- And he said it was kind of rough

knowing my friends were maybe two years ahead of me by then,

some of them three years

because he was held back every year,

because they got back late from working in the fields.

- I was enjoying high school very much.

I was beginning to get real popular in school.

I was voted most likely to succeed,

'cause I was already playing a lot in nightclubs

and I was singing in school.

I was a star of the assemblies

and my band played for all the proms and all that.

So I was becoming popular that way,

so there was also the beginning of me thinking

maybe I have a calling, you know?

[upbeat music]

- Now, if we're ready for our rock and roll specialist,

we have Buddy Holly and The Crickets.

- [Trini] Before the accident, I met Buddy Holly.

He came to a little town in Texas

where I was working with my little group.

♪ If you knew Peggy Sue, then you know why I feel blue ♪

- [Trini] And a friend of mine was a disk jockey

in a little town called Wichita Falls, Texas.

Buddy was promoting his, one of his big songs.

He said, let's go hear a friend of mine

who's appearing at a little nightclub,

and Buddy really liked me.

He liked my music and my singing.

- He's the first one that looked him straight in the eye

and didn't look down on him as a Mexican.

He looked at him as an entertainer.

There was no prejudice,

and Trini really wasn't used to that.

He got looked down on all the time.

- And he said, I'd like for you to meet my record producer.

He said, if you can get to Clovis, New Mexico,

I'll introduce you to him

and maybe we can get you a record deal.

And I said, oh God, you know,

and that's where Buddy used to record,

in a little recording studio.

It wasn't a big deal.

That night, he had a party for us.

He had a party the night I arrived,

and I sang like three, four songs.

♪ Well I saw a little girl

♪ Walking down the street

♪ I said that's a girl

♪ I would like to meet

♪ I walked over to her

♪ Looking my best

♪ Introduced myself

♪ She did the rest

♪ Rock on, yay yay yay

♪ Rock on

And that night before the night was over,

his record producer, he says,

Maybe we can do something with this guy.

Unfortunately, my guys, I guess were prejudice too

because my guys in my band were all Anglo musicians.

Anglo, meaning they were not Latinos.

I was the only Latino in the band.

- They wanted to take him out of the light

'cause Trini Lopez and his combo,

you don't want that,

take that Lopez name out.

And they were all Anglo,

and their boss was a Mexican

and they didn't like that.

The producer there didn't like it,

they didn't like it,

and he encouraged them to do this.

- And so the next morning,

they woke me up in my little $2 a night motel

where I was staying

and they were around my bed,

and said, wake up, wake up, wake up.

And I was half asleep and I looked at them

and I said, "Did somebody die?"

He said, "No, no, no, we gotta talk to you."

I said, "What about at eight in the morning, you know?"

And they said, "Well, we have decided,

"we have decided we're all gonna go commune

"and share everything, the money, everything.

"You're not gonna be the manager anymore.

"You're not gonna be the lead singer."

I was the lead singer and I was their manager.

We started recording the next day,

but they didn't let me sing.

- [Audience] No.

- And I was the, I was the,

they didn't know how to sing.

I knew that, you know?

They said, well, we're all gonna sing, okay.

I didn't like it at all, I was so upset.

So we recorded about three days.

All we did was instrumentals.

[audience laughing]

Instrumentals.

[instrumental music]

And during those three, four days and nights,

I cried myself to sleep.

Oh yeah, it was terrible.

It was, it was conspiracy, you know?

Yeah, and the last guy just,

I said goodbye to was a bass player, that was Earl.

I said, Earl, I won't be seeing you anymore

so good luck to you.

He says, what are you talking about?

I said, well, I said, I gonna have to get another band.

And they said, Trini,

we got a great deal with Columbia Records.

He said, yeah, you guys do.

Not me.

- So I said goodbye to him

and I started another group.

My father had asked me,

would I mind not finishing high school?

And I was getting ready to go on to my senior year,

and I said, "Oh," I said,

"dad, you need for me to help you?"

He says, "Yes, yes, I really do."

I said, "Okay, sure."

So I quit after my junior year,

and I went to work full time.

I did, I used to do all kinds of jobs.

I was a busboy, I was a dish washer.

I had a paper route.

And I sang at night in nightclubs

and anywhere I could sing that I could make some money,

I did that to help my dad.

- The people today do not realize what he went through

because he was a Mexican and proud of it.

- With that in mind,

my first recording I experienced

was when I was about 19 and so,

I was doing a show someplace,

or an opening of a grocery store

and this man came up to me,

he said, "I'd like to talk to you

about recording, you know."

My eyes were like this.

He said, "I have a record company here in Dallas

and it's called Volk records."

V, V like in Victor, V-O-L-K.

He said, "I'd like to talk to you about maybe recording you,

you're real good.

The only problem is we need to change your name."

And I said, "Change my name?"

I said to what?

He said, well, he said, "Trini's okay,

but Lopez has gotta go."

And see the prejudice.

And I realized it right away what he was saying.

I said, oh sir.

I said, "no, I can't do that."

I said, "I can't do that, I'm sorry."

And I stood up and I said, I shook his hand,

I says, "thank you anyway, thank you."

And I started to walk away,

and right before I got to the door,

he said, "hey kid, hey kid,

come back here, come back here, come back here.

Okay, okay, you can keep your name."

I said.

[Trini laughs]

So we recorded my first song,

and I wrote it, I wrote the song.

It was a song that I called "The Right To Rock,"

and rock and roll was just beginning to get started.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Executives of King Records

which was a pretty big company in those days,

heard my song and they called me.

They wanted to fly me to Cincinnati,

which I did for two summers

when I was off from school

and they would fly me to Cincinnati to record.

♪ The right to roll

♪ Right to rock and the right to roll ♪

♪ Rock, rock, rock and roll

And let me tell you who was in King Records

at that time,

these people were all just getting started.

James Brown.

[Trini laughing]

Little Willy John who recorded the first version of "Fever."

♪ You never know how much I love you ♪

♪ Never know how much I care

And Bill Doggett, he was a real popular instrumentalist,

played the piano, it was great.

He did a big record called Honky Tonk

that was a big record, but only in the black market.

They weren't played on popular radio stations.

And they would back me up, you know,

the Midnighters and Clyde McPhatter.

These people were just up and coming

in the black field of music.

So then I sang a song that was a number one record.

My first record in Dallas

was a song called "Don't Let Your Sweet Love Die."

And I heard it for the first time

when I was in my station wagon,

and I pulled over to the side of the street

and I just listened to it,

and I wanted to hear my name on the radio.

♪ Don't take away the smiles and leave the tears ♪

♪ Don't say goodbye, don't let your sweet love die ♪

- [Radio Host] That's lovely right there

and right here on K-box.

♪ K-B-O-X

♪ Wonderful in every way in Dallas ♪

- And that was the beginning of my first recordings

before Sinatra and everything.

So within three, four weeks,

unfortunately, my friend Buddy Holly gets killed,

the three of them.

Everybody knows the story.

- [News Anchor] We interrupt this program

for a special news bulletin.

Three young singers who soared

to the heights of show business

on the current rock and roll craze

were killed today in the crash of a light plane,

in an Iowa snow flurry.

The singers were identified as Ritchie Valens, 17,

Buddy Holly, 22, and JP Richardson,

known professionally as The Big Bopper.

- I'm working at a nightclub in Lubbock, Texas,

and that's where Buddy was born and raised.

So the phone rang and it was during an intermission

and it was my friend, the disk jockey,

that introduced me to Buddy Holly in the first place,

and he said, "Trini," he says,

"this is Tommy, Tommy Garrett."

He says, "I'm in Hollywood with a group.

You're not gonna believe who I'm with."

He said, "The Crickets, Buddy Holly's Crickets.

We're gonna send you the money

and you fly out to meet us,

and they got a home in Hollywood

and we're gonna go on the road.

They want you to be their lead singer."

And I couldn't believe it,

I said, "Tommy, send me the money and I'll drive.

I'll drive to Hollywood."

[upbeat music]

♪ Hear you have a plan to go to west ♪

♪ Do as I do, take the highway

♪ That's the best

♪ Get your kicks on route 66

- All of a sudden leaving Dallas to go to California,

to Hollywood, to Los Angeles,

and I will never forget as he was departing,

my mother and his sisters and his father all crying,

crying, because all I remember him saying was,

I've done everything here in Dallas I possibly could.

I think that I've peaked, it's time for me to move on

to the big city, to the big state of California.

[upbeat music]

- I always wanted to go to Hollywood since I was a kid.

Took me three days to get to Hollywood from Dallas.

So I remember driving the Sunset Strip in my little woody,

my little red station wagon,

name all in white, Trini Lopez and his Combo,

on both sides of the woody.

I was driving through to get to the house

where The Crickets were staying.

I had $200 in my pocket,

so I get there and Texan musicians love to drink.

And I wasn't drinking anything in those days.

So, but they invited me, and said Trini,

we're gonna go see Elvis.

He's making his first movie after the,

he came out of the service, GI Blues.

♪ I've got those hup, two, three, four ♪

♪ Occupation GI Blues

♪ From my GI hair to the heels of my GI shoes ♪

- Wow, you know, so we went to Paramount Studios,

we went to the set,

and he was wearing his GI outfit

and he was just great, oh great.

And then after that,

I got to know him.

After that, he got to invite me to Las Vegas

to do, to see his shows, you know,

he invited me to his home here.

Two doors from here.

[Trini laughing]

And The Crickets wanted me to take over Buddy's place,

but it never materialized,

because we're partying and having a great time

and the guys were drinking like crazy.

They had women all over the place.

I enjoyed that, that I enjoyed.

But I ran out of my money

and I was waiting for them to rehearse

and to get on the road 'cause I promised my family,

as soon as I started working,

I was gonna send 'em money every week.

But now, I'm broke,

and they had an agent, a guy named Danny,

and I said, "Danny, I said, is it possible for me to maybe,

maybe you can get me a gig somewhere

so I can make some money.

I don't wanna borrow money from the guys."

I was embarrassed.

And he was kind of a Hollywood type guy,

you know? [fingers snapping]

And I didn't think he was gonna do anything.

Well, about two days later,

there's an audition in Beverly Hills.

I'd never been to Beverly Hills

and man was I impressed.

Wow, you know, palm trees all over the place.

It was great, mountains and everything.

1960, this was February, I'll never forget.

We went into this beautiful little nightclub.

It was called the Ye, the Ye Little Club.

How little was it?

Very little. [audience laughing]

- Isn't that where Joan Rivers started out?

- Uh-huh, oh yeah.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

This place was already doing pretty good.

So I started singing a song,

and I looked at him and I thought he didn't like me.

I didn't think he liked me.

He says, "okay, okay, okay, you open tonight."

I said, "well, I said I'm with a group."

He said, "no, no, I don't want you with a group,

just you and your guitar with a spotlight, you know."

[Trini singing in foreign language]

By me getting a very nice following

for a whole year in Beverly Hills,

I had all these young stars that really liked me a lot.

I started hearing about a place in Hollywood called PJ's,

and man that's where the higher echelon movie stars

and big name singers,

they were all going to this place.

Sinatra, everybody, everybody was going to this place.

Steve McQueen,

Paul Newman,

Natalie Wood,

Elizabeth Taylor, all these people,

and I said to myself, I gotta work there,

'cause I wanted to see Frank Sinatra in person.

I just wanted to see him in person one day

and I would've been happy the rest of my life.

And so, you know,

I didn't have to audition by that time

'cause I was getting a pretty good following.

They said, we'll hire you for three months.

My luck, when you walked into PJ's,

the bar was long, one of those long, long bars.

And then everybody sat on the bar, of course,

and they had some booths,

and they had an Afro jazz group, four pieces,

and they were in this room.

Me, they put me in a room in the back

which seated, like about 300 people,

with just me and my guitar.

I opened and it was great.

And I stayed a year and a half, instead of three months.

And during that time I kept seeing Frank Sinatra come in,

and he had a hat similar to this one like this.

He would always come in

with like 10, 15 people, you know,

big table and all that.

And I would just look at him.

I never got any closer than 15, 20 feet from him,

but I used to just stare at him

and look at his clothes and his beautiful jacket.

That's all, but I was happy that I saw him in person.

I've only had one idol in my whole life, Frank Sinatra,

since I was a kid and I had my dreams come true.

Frank Sinatra sent one of his biggest record producers,

a guy named Don Costa.

He recorded and produced Frank Sinatra's big hits.

[orchestral music]

Johnny Mathis and Steve and Eydie Gorme

and all these big stars, you know, these big singers.

So he came up to me

and he talked to me during my intermission and he says,

"Trini, I'm here on behalf of Reprise Records."

And I said, "Frank Sinatra's label?"

He said, "yeah, how do you know?"

Because at that time, Frank Sinatra,

wasn't selling that many records on his label.

Sammy Davis, Junior, Dean Martin,

they weren't selling any records,

but they were all on Reprise Records.

I said, "Oh, I know the label, you kidding."

He says, "I'm here on behalf of Frank

and he would like to offer you

a six-year recording contract."

[Trini laughing]

"And by the way, we'd like to record you here at PJ's."

"May I ask why?

Why aren't we going to the recording studio

like everybody else?"

He said because he, this was very interesting.

He said, "because we want to record

everything on the excitement

that you are creating in this nightclub,

we wanna put it on wax."

Okay, the whole thing?

[indistinct]

Okay, all of it?

- Live records are just the best

energy conduits for an artist.

If you think about the great live albums, you know,

starting with Trini at PJ's.

[instrumental music]

When you think about "The Allman Brothers

Live at the Fillmore,"

and you think about Peter Frampton live,

there's just something that happens

when you're in front of a live audience.

There's no net, there's no trampoline to catch you

and you just gotta go for it.

[Trini Lopez performing What'd I Say at PJ's]

♪ Tell me what'd I say

♪ Tell me what'd I say

Within three months at the most,

not only was my record a big, big hit in America,

but internationally because

Reprise was a pretty good label because of Sinatra.

Before I knew it, I was known all over the world.

♪ Tell me what'd I say

♪ Tell me what'd I say

♪ Hey mama, don't you treat me wrong ♪

♪ Come and love me all night long ♪

♪ Baby what'd I say

♪ Tell me what'd I say

♪ When you see me in misery

♪ Come on baby, sit on my knee

♪ Baby what'd I say

♪ Tell me what'd I say

♪ Baby what'd I say

♪ Tell me what'd I say

That happened because of my,

my first album that I recorded in America,

which was at PJ's, "Trini Lopez at PJ's."

And out of the album came "If I Had a Hammer,"

which broke very fast in America

and then all over the world.

And that's why in such a short time,

I have been traveling so fast everywhere now.

[fans clapping and humming]

- At first he didn't wanna sing "If I Had a Hammer,"

and I couldn't understand it

because he said that he sung it to death.

So I thought about what could we do to make it

so that he really would love to sing it again?

And I was listening to the words,

the words are so inspiring,

and I thought, this is really a song with a message.

It's really a gospel song,

it could be a gospel song.

[organ music]

So sat down at my 1960 Hammond B3 organ,

[organ music]

I revved up the Leslie,

[organ music]

I said, listen to this,

and I played it.

And then I said, and then we say one, two,, three, four,

we start launching into it and you start singing.

And I just stopped and looked at him

and he goes, I'll do it.

[organ music]

[audience applauding and cheering]

[instrumental music]

♪ If I had a hammer

♪ I'd hammer in the morning

♪ I'd hammer in the evening

- The dynamic performer of Mexican descent,

who's hit songs lyrically spelled out a desire

for social and economic change,

ladies and gentlemen, Trini Lopez.

[audience applauding]

- [Joan] Love between my brothers and my sisters

all over this land.

You know, we still haven't gotten there yet.

- Everybody!

Well, I connected it with my life, yes.

I do that a lot in some different songs,

"This Land is Your Land," you know, like that,

another big hit for me.

I can't help it, you know,

you just hear the songs

and you think of your life,

it helps, it enhances, missing in a song, recording a song

because I feel that it's part of my life.

Yes, to answer your question, yes.

If I Had a Hammer is a very, it has a message,

a very good message to everyone in the world.

And that's one of the main purposes for the song

being such a big hit, I think.

It's a great lyric.

- [Interviewer] Talking about If I Had a Hammer,

did you wrote that song?

- No, I wish I had.

That song was written by two people,

gentlemen named Hays and Pete Seeger.

And I wish I had written it, I would have much more money.

[Trini laughing]

♪ If I had a hammer

♪ I'd hammer in the morning

♪ I'd hammer in the evening

♪ All over this land

- I did know that those songs were important,

I did know that in my heart.

- And now

a group of singers

who have come

to help express

in song

what this great meeting is all about.

I give you now

Peter, Paul and Mary.

[crowd cheering]

♪ If I had a hammer

♪ I'd hammer in the morning

♪ I'd hammer in the evening

♪ All over this land

- At that time, folk music was real in,

folk music, real popular.

And I just happened to like "If I Had a Hammer,"

I just happened to like "Lemon Tree,"

I just happened to like "Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore,"

but when I started hitting real big PJ's

because I took my Latin feel, my Latin heritage,

and I put it into the folk music.

And so I get credit for starting Latin rock.

- It was originally,

♪ If I Had a Hammer

♪ I'd hammer in the morning

♪ I'd hammer in the evening

Trini,

[Tony imitating Trini's rhythm]

♪ If I had a hammer

Now, he added some rhythm, Latin rhythm to it,

and a fusion happened.

[guitar music]

- People, a lot of people have told me

that they like my beat,

because they can also dance to it.

With Peter, Paula and Mary,

there was more or less listening,

but with my version, it's got a beat to it,

and they like to dance to it.

♪ If I had a hammer

♪ I'd hammer in the morning

♪ I'd hammer in the evening

♪ All over this land

♪ I'd hammer out danger

♪ I'd hammer out a warning

♪ I'd hammer out love between

♪ My brothers and my sisters, ah-ah ♪

♪ All over this land

Everybody!

And then by the grace of God, I put my own style,

my own version of that song.

And I made 'em bigger.

"If I Had a Hammer," for example,

was much, much bigger than Peter, Paul and Mary worldwide.

- [Interviewer] How many times in your life

you sang that song?

- Oh my God.

I think maybe millions, millions of times.

Many, many times, all over the world.

Would you like to sing it Vikki?

♪ Si si si senor

♪ Sing sing sing

♪ If I had a hammer

- What would you do?

♪ I'd hammer in the morning

- Huh?

♪ I'd hammer in the evening

♪ All over this land

♪ I'd hammer out justice

♪ I'd hammer out warning

♪ I'd hammer out love between

♪ My brothers and my sisters, ah-ah ♪

♪ All over this land

[instrumental music]

♪ If I had a song

♪ I'd sing it in the morning

♪ Make you know that I could sing it in the evening ♪

♪ All over this land

♪ I'd sing out danger

♪ I'd sing out a warning

♪ I'd sing about the love between ♪

♪ My brothers and my sisters ah-ah ♪

♪ All over this land

Everybody!

[instrumental music]

♪ I've got a hammer

♪ Man, I've got that bell

♪ And I've got a song to sing

♪ All over this world

♪ It's the hammer of justice

♪ It's the bell of freedom

♪ It's the song about the love between ♪

♪ My brothers and my sisters

♪ All over this land

♪ Everybody now

♪ I wanna hear you sing it

♪ Sing it

Thank you!

I'll be very honest with you,

I didn't think, I didn't think that any of my songs

would be hits, that's for starters.

That's where it started, I have to be honest.

I was ecstatic, you know,

I couldn't believe it was like a dream, you know?

And then thank God, thank God,

I kept recording hit albums and hit singles,

and that helped a lot.

[audience applauding]

♪ I was just a lad of ten

♪ My father said to me

♪ Come here and take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree ♪

♪ Don't put your faith in love, my boy ♪

♪ My father said to me

♪ I fear you'll find that love is like ♪

♪ The lovely lemon tree

♪ Lemon tree, very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet ♪

♪ But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat ♪

♪ Lemon tree, very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet ♪

♪ But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat ♪

♪ Beneath that lemon tree one day my love and I did lie ♪

♪ A boy so sweet that when he smiled ♪

♪ The stars rose in the sky

♪ One day he left without a word ♪

♪ He took away the sun

♪ And in the dark he left behind ♪

♪ I knew what he had done

- He was doing something that was so different

than anything else that was being done at the time.

So why are you gonna put it in a box?

♪ Lemon tree, very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet ♪

♪ But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat ♪

♪ Lemon tree, very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet ♪

♪ But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat ♪

[audience applauding]

♪ Lemon pledge, very pretty

♪ Put the shine down well and good ♪

♪ Lemon pledge, anti-dusting

♪ Brings new luster to the wood ♪

- [Advertiser] New from Johnson Wax.

- The moment Trini hit, he hit with a power

that was not too unlike the power of the Beatles, really.

[instrumental music]

- Now, did you perform with the Beatles?

- We performed almost like together.

One of the first places that I got booked outside of America

was in Paris.

They had a beautiful, beautiful theater

called the Olympia, right on Champs-EÉlysées.

We were booked for four weeks.

Two shows a night, three on Saturday, matinee.

Just me and my trio, and they only had four people,

and we packed that theater man,

like four or 5,000 people per seating.

And all the young people, you know, were coming to see us.

♪ If there's anything I could do ♪

♪ Green Green

♪ I'm going away to where the grass is greener still ♪

The newspapers, the first three, four days,

on one of the biggest papers in Paris,

big letters, headlines on the front page,

Bravo Trini Lopez, who are the Beatles?

[audience laughing]

I heard about a week before we finished

that The Beatles were gonna go to America

for the first time.

They weren't known in America,

but they started getting going with Europe

and then they went to America.

I went from America to Europe, you know.

- Elvis, Louie Armstrong, Eartha Kitt,

Josephine Baker, Trini Lopez,

artists who frequently loved leaving the United States

to go to any part of Europe or Asia to perform,

because they were truly accepted,

not only for their music,

but as people, as a human being.

- Well, they're going to New York for the first time.

I think it's-

- [Interviewer] Tomorrow.

- Tomorrow, is it?

Yeah, right.

So they have, they have had great success here in Europe,

and I hope they'll have success in America

because they're very nice boys.

They're very, very nice human beings, you know,

and they got great talent.

And the reason they wanted to know my opinion

was because when I worked with the Beatles

for a whole month,

they were getting two encores a night.

I was getting seven.

And so they wanted my opinion.

Well, in my dressing room, it's a historical theater,

so the walls were very thin,

but the wall was right here.

And I'm here with all the photographers

and the cameras and all that.

And they said, do you think the Beatles

will be a success when they come to New York?

And I said, well, I gotta tell you the truth,

I had to whisper because they were right,

I could hear everything they used to say

in their dressing room,

I'm sure they used to hear me.

I said, I don't think so.

[audience laughing]

They said really, really?

In America, there is a group

that I like much better than them called The Beach Boys.

[audience applauding and laughing]

- Yeah, Trini was a big influence

on a lot of the other groups of the day.

Marty Balin from the Jefferson Airplane

was looking for a way to take folk music

and go electric with it,

and he heard what Trini was doing

and said that that's what gave him the idea to go electric.

♪ Don't you need somebody to love ♪

[instrumental music]

- Bob Dylan, he really liked my albums that I did at PJ's.

Big magazine asked Bob Dylan,

by the way, who's your favorite singer?

He said Trini Lopez.

And so he liked me so much that he stole my drummer.

[Trini laughing]

He was with him for a long time.

I think because of me,

he started getting into the electric guitar

with his music, with his material,

and especially with my drummer, you know, that helped.

- Who were you listening to back in the day?

Who were some of your influences?

- That's very easy because

I used to listen to Frank Sinatra all the time.

I loved his, not only his voice,

but I liked his style and his phrasing, oh, it's great.

And of course, all the songs he picked were unbelievable.

And so he was my first idol.

- [Hostess] Wow.

- Listening to him on the radio

and buying records whenever I had the money,

little did I know that three years later

he was going to discover me

at a nightclub in Hollywood called PJ's.

I've always been very timid

and very bashful about life and so on.

He really intimidated me, you know.

When you have an idol, since you were a kid, you know,

it's kind of different.

And after the album came out and it was a big success,

this guy comes up to me and he says, I wanna manage you.

Durgom Bullets, Durgom.

I said, Bullets, I couldn't believe the name.

So now we sign up

and he woke me up one morning, he says,

"you gotta get ready, I wanna take you to meet Frank."

And I said, "Frank who?"

He said, "Frank Sinatra."

He says, "He's making a movie

and he would like to meet you after lunch."

And I met him for the first time about six months ago

while he was doing a movie called "4 For Texas."

And now Reprise is connected with Warner Brothers,

which he is also connected with, Warner Brothers Pictures.

And now we're getting closer to the set,

and I'm seeing horses

and I'm seeing stage coaches and all this stuff.

There were about 30 people

around with these cameras and the whole bit,

and about 20 of 'em are around one guy.

Oh, right away, I looked and it was Frank Sinatra

in the middle of all these people.

All of a sudden Frank Sinatra did a double take

and he saw one of his best friends, Bullets Durgom,

and me walking closer to the group,

and he left everybody.

He left everybody talking

and he came over with his hand extended like this

and he shook my hand.

He said, "Trini Lopez, you're a great talent."

That's the first thing he said, I'll never forget.

And boy, he got me a chair and he says sit down,

whatever you want, you want a drink.

And I am very happy because I admire him so much

and I am also happy because I am working for him now.

He became one of my best friends.

He used to cook for me in Palm Springs.

His mother used to cook for me, big parties.

He was like my dad.

- Palm Springs, by the way,

how long have you been living in Palm Springs?

- 1932.

[audience laughing]

Can you believe that?

My manager, Bullets Durgom, had a house in Vista Las Palmas.

He says, "You have a weekend off,

would you like to come and spend the weekend

with me and my wife?"

And then Sinatra invited us

to a big party at his house in Rancho Mirage.

And that was the beginning

of my coming to Palm Springs, 1964.

And then I bought this house in 1966.

And I've been here ever since.

- Like Trini said, in my own yard,

if they didn't know who I was,

they wouldn't even speak to me

'cause I would be the gardener.

We all know this country is prejudiced.

They try, some of 'em try not to be, but they have to try.

- Bob Hope, I went to his house many times.

Kim Novak lived about two blocks from my house here.

Kirk Douglas, he lives about four blocks from here.

Jack Benny, Elvis, Peter Lawford.

He lived down the street for me.

Oh, this one here,

this is interesting picture

because we were asked to take some pictures

because Dean had sold over a million

albums, one of his albums,

and I had sold over a million

on one of my albums,

Sinatra was not selling that much.

And look at his face.

[Trini laughing]

He didn't like it too much.

But I did of course do things with Sinatra in the Rat Pack.

I was part of the Rat Pack.

Yeah.

[upbeat jazz music]

We did a big show with the Rat Pack.

Everybody, Ella Fitzgerald, everybody.

- I'd like to thank the NAACP for this wonderful trophy.

- Put me down!

[audience laughing]

- Delightful young man and a fine performer,

would you welcome please, Mister Trini Lopez.

[audience applauding]

- We got an amigo friend of mine coming up,

and I love his work,

and he thinks I'm all right too,

but he's a beauty.

He's made a tremendous hit in the past two or three years,

drums and guitars, sings beautifully,

Mister Trini Lopez.

[audience applauding]

[instrumental music]

- He became friends with the Rat Pack

and who loved him,

it was Sinatra, Sammy, Dean,

he became one of them.

- Mister Sinatra, he always had me call him Mister Sinatra.

I never called him Frank, never.

I knew him for 36 years,

he never said Trini, call me Frank, will you?

He demanded respect like you wouldn't believe.

- Yeah, welcome gentlemen.

- Say, is there any soup in the menu?

- Yeah, but we wiped it off.

[audience laughing]

- I kind of took over Sammy's place with Frank Sinatra

in his Rat Pack because Sammy was his number one boy,

and a little later after I did two or three more shows,

then everybody was saying that I was Sinatra's boy.

And that's a big compliment.

- Hey, you can't do that to my leader.

- Here's your leader.

- Sinatra was very, very particular.

Very much so.

And I was so lucky,

I was so lucky that he liked me,

that he liked my talent and so on.

So Sammy was a little jealous.

They say that there was a falling out.

They say that he,

I don't know what the falling out was about,

but I do know that there was something that happened

because Sinatra wasn't too,

he wasn't too, what's the word,

sympathetic when Sammy died.

- [Interviewer] You are only 25, 25?

- 26.

- [Interviewer] 26. [Trini laughing]

- [Interviewer] And you have a-

- I wish it was 25.

- [Interviewer] And you have a great future in front of you.

Which are your musical and other plans?

- Well, I would like to continue recording of course

and nightclubs, and I would like someday make a movie.

- [Interviewer] Make a movie? - Yes.

- [Interviewer] With Frank Sinatra.

- Of course. [laughing]

Frank Sinatra put me in my first movie at Warner Brothers

with Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, Dean Martin,

'Marriage On The Rocks,"

and he wanted me to do a cameo.

It was great, it was a great experience.

And I sang a song that I wrote.

One, two, one, two, three, four.

[instrumental music] [audience clapping]

♪ There was a sinner man, who laughed and ran away ♪

♪ He had a different girl, for every single day ♪

I had to be there at six in the morning.

I was half asleep.

Sinatra got me a dressing room right next to Deborah Kerr,

and Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

Can you believe it?

I was real nervous and I was half asleep

getting makeup on and all that,

and there was a knock on the door,

I opened the door and I looked down

and was this beautiful lady, gorgeous blonde

in a cocktail dress 'cause we were doing a nightclub scene

and I looked at her and I recognized her right away.

And I said, hello?

She said, hello, Mister Lopez,

like this real nice.

And she said, "I'm Deborah Kerr."

I said, "I know, I know who you are."

And she said, "I just came over to tell you

how proud all of us are to have you

on the set with us today."

Wow.

You know.

She had already done "The King and I,"

and all these big movies.

It was great.

Let me hear everybody now.

Here we go.

Everybody.

[audience applauding and cheering]

- He became the guy who had the big hit records,

crossover hit records,

that opened the doors for guys like me.

Not only was he number one on the charts,

but he crossed over to Vegas.

Ah, that was a whole other opening door.

But in that time, you didn't see a lot of Lopez.

You didn't see a lot of Garcias on stages in Las Vegas.

For you to break Las Vegas,

you had to be a special entertainer.

You couldn't walk into this town

just because you had a hit record.

That's a whole other acceptance now.

That means you're accepted as an entertainer.

[instrumental music]

- He has that amazing talent where he can walk on

and just electrify an audience

in a matter of couple of minutes.

[instrumental music]

♪ You gotta know how to pony like Bony Maroni ♪

♪ Put your hands on your hips, let your back-bone slip ♪

♪ Do the Jerk, watch me work

♪ Or the Watusi, like my sister Lucy ♪

Would you repeat it to me, everybody.

I wanna hear everybody now.

One more time everybody.

One more time everybody.

- When Trini first started,

Bullets Durgom was booking him all over Europe

to sell out audiences.

The booking agents in this country didn't believe him.

They said, there's no way a Mexican can do that.

And so Bullets and Frank Sinatra talked the Flamingo

to book Trini Lopez and Bill Cosby.

And oh my, agents and everybody said,

can you believe they're booking a black man and a Mexican?

Who's gonna go see them?

Well, after one night it was sold out,

and never again was that a question.

♪ Hey, Little girl, I tell you true ♪

♪ I'm as mean as a cobra through and through ♪

♪ Don't care to be called what I ain't ♪

♪ I confess I'm a sinner, not a saint ♪

♪ Hey, hey, hey, little girl

♪ Don't you mess around with me ♪

♪ Cause I'm just a sinner, not a saint ♪

- By the way, Hugh,

I would like to tell you how happy I am

and how grateful I am that you had your beautiful plane

pick me at the airport in Las Vegas,

and your beautiful bunnies and everything it's just great.

- He kept his Latin side upfront and personal.

- [Trini] I am also in the restaurant business, you know.

- No kidding?

- Yeah, and I'm very proud of this venture

because my restaurants are so authentic,

you can't even drink the water there.

[audience laughing]

Yeah, you know.

- He was able to be self-deprecating in his humor,

which opened the door for my buddy Freddy Prinze.

- Right, I got light skin, straight hair,

that's from my father.

From my Puerto Rican mother,

I got my nose and my mustache.

[audience laughing]

- Because that comedy came after Trini Lopez.

- Listening to the show earlier when Linda said that

you have to watch everything you eat, you know?

- [Linda] Yeah.

- Well, it's a little different with me because you know,

with the kind of hot Mexican food that I eat,

it's always eat and run.

[audience laughing]

No, it's true.

Also, we feature things like tacos and enchiladas,

tamales, and so on.

- Good American meals.

- We're doing so great, my manager wants to franchise me.

- Trini Lopez, franchise.

I think that'd be a little difficult

because there's really only one Trini.

[instrumental music]

- [TV Host] You better explain to the audience that beard,

because you look a little poor.

[Trini laughing]

It's for a "Dirty Dozen," isn't it?

- It's for "The Dirty Dozen" and we-

- [TV Host] Your first movie?

- My first picture.

- [TV Host] Wow.

- And we have to grow a beard

to sort of look dirty, you know?

- [TV Host] Yeah.

- And so I started growing up for about five days.

- [TV Host] Which number are you, if there's 12?

- I don't know what number I am.

- [TV Host] You're dirty five, dirty six?

- Nobody's ever asked me that.

- [TV Host] Yeah.

- I'm just one of 'em, that's all I know.

- [TV Host] What's it about?

[lion roaring]

- [Announcer] "The Dirty Dozen."

[guns firing]

[explosion]

[dramatic orchestral music]

- All the guys were great.

Lee Marvin, Telly Savalas, Charles Bronson.

[guns firing]

John Cassavetes, yeah.

I used to play football with him between takes.

Jim Brown, he was my roommate.

- I knew his music,

I knew he was a pretty popular artist at the time.

♪ As sure as you are born

♪ The bramble bush will stick you with it's prickly thorn ♪

♪ And the pretty girl is like a bramble bush ♪

♪ Yes, a pretty girl will thrill you very much ♪

- Trini was like more popular than any of us.

That's why I knew he was important

because he was a singer that was known all over the world.

And the people responded to him more than Lee Marvin.

He was a star in a certain way

that none of us could approach.

- The director, Robert Aldrich,

I was doing the only big scene,

in my appearance in "The Dirty Dozen,"

I had to climb this rope.

I looked down and I didn't see a safety thing, you know?

No couches, no mattresses, no nothing.

And it was a pretty high.

- Jimenez, you come back down that rope,

you're going straight back to prison.

- I can't, I can't.

Really, I can't.

- Sergeant gimme that weapon.

- But Robert Aldrich was a tough guy, you know.

He says, "come on, you can do it."

I said, "all right."

My adrenaline was up, you know,

and so thank God I held onto that rope.

If I had let go.

[gun firing]

- Whoa, look at him go now.

- Gracias a dios.

- So you couldn't make it, huh?

- I think I could have maybe broken my neck.

[Trini laughing]

My contract was for three months.

So now I'm in England and we're shooting all over England,

and now it's seven months later,

and the movie is not even half completed

because of the bloody weather in England.

So Sinatra at that time, married Mia Farrow

and then the next day they flew to London,

and that night he invited me to dinner.

Just me and him and my manager and Mia.

He says, "By the way,

I understand your movie is running really late, my movie."

And I said, yeah.

I said, "how did you know?"

He said, "I know."

He knew everything.

Sinatra knew everything.

[Trini laughing]

And he said, well, he said,

"I think you should leave the movie."

And I said, "excuse me."

He said, "I think you should leave the movie."

And I said, "may I ask you why?"

He said, because, he said it just like this,

"Because your career right now,

you're as hot as a firecracker.

And if you don't go back to your fans and back to touring,

they'll forget about you."

And I said, "oh, okay."

There was a parachute jump for all of us

to parachute towards the German enemy lines.

As I was coming down in the parachute,

I broke my neck on a lemon tree.

[Trini laughing]

I'm kidding.

[Trini laughing]

- I remember the lines almost said, where's Jimenez?

I think Lee Marvin and someone said, where's Jimenez?

He's back there, they broke his neck

or something to that effect.

- Where the hell have you been, we're six minutes late.

- We've been looking for Jimenez.

- And?

- We found him hung up in an apple tree.

- His neck's broken.

- So they got rid of him by killing him,

and then he could leave.

- He got three attorneys to get me off the movie.

- [Soldier 1] You mean he's dead?

- [Soldier 2] That's exactly what I mean.

- [Trini] Charles Bronson, he came up to me and he said,

Trini, man, is this, you ought to think about this.

This is gonna be a big movie, Trini.

- Trini came to the screening that night,

even though he was done.

And he looked at the picture

and he said, oh shit,

Mister Aldrich, I would like to come back

and play this and finish the role.

And Bob Aldrich said, you're hanging in a tree, Trini,

you're outta here.

- And so I had a big part at the end of the movie,

a hero's part,

but I didn't get a chance to complete it,

but that's okay.

- Trini was recording usually four albums a year.

Sinatra was losing money.

That's why he wanted him off.

- Yeah, I enjoyed it.

I had a good time.

Now the movie comes out, it's a big hit.

[rock and roll guitar music]

And I'm in Beverly Hills getting into my car.

Jack Palance was waiting for his car,

and he came up to me.

I never met him before.

Big, tall guy, he says,

"You shouldn't have done The Dirty Dozen,"

with a big voice.

And I looked at him, I said, "why is that?"

He said, because I was supposed to have

the part of Telly Savalas

but I didn't like being prejudiced

against Jim Brown 'cause he was black.

Yeah.

- Sir.

Do we have to eat with [beeping]?

- He said, I turned that movie down

'cause I didn't wanna do that to Jim Brown.

I said, well, I can understand that, you know.

Yeah.

And I had a big, Dirty Dozen party

at my penthouse in Beverly Hills.

I used to invite five, six hundred people.

Lee Marvin was there,

and so the toughest guy in The Dirty Dozen,

Charles Branson and his wife, Jill Ireland,

and he looked at me one particular time during the party,

he said, "Trini, why haven't you done any more acting?"

I said, "Oh Charles, I said, oh God."

I said, "I wish, I wish I could have."

He said, "Well, why didn't you?"

- Trini idolized Sinatra and Sinatra told him to do that,

he did it.

But I think if he had stayed,

he could have been in more movies.

- You know, when you're making a movie, you don't leave.

[Jim laughing]

That's one of the laws of being an actor,

and so I retired on the set of "The Dirty Dozen."

Called a press conference and announced my retirement.

- "I know that everybody wants to be in the movies."

I said that to Charles, and it's true,

everybody wants to be in the movies.

And I said, it's tough.

It's tough for me to, because I'm a singer and so on.

I was at a real popular nightclub in Hollywood

called The Factory.

Bullets and I went,

and Bullets was about three, four feet from me and he went.

And this guy turns around and it was Steve McQueen.

And he was already the hottest thing in the world, you know.

I said, "Steve, how you doing man?"

He didn't say hello.

He said, "Trini saw you in The Dirty Dozen,

and you were great."

And I said, "Steve, I didn't do anything."

He said, "Yeah, but what you did was great."

BB King was doing a show at the Caesars Palace.

I used to listen to his music when I was a kid like crazy.

So we got a real nice booth,

and then he stopped in the middle of his performance.

He said, "Everybody, I like for you to please join me

in a big round of applause for a very great actor."

And I went like this, I said, "I wonder who."

"Join me in a big round of applause for Mister Trini Lopez."

[audience applauding]

- [TV Host] So are you planning any straight dramatic roles?

- Yes, I am.

I have three particular pictures they want me for,

and I'm hoping that they will be

the kind of picture that I wanna do.

I have been turning down a lot of different scripts,

you know, the bikini beach things,

which I don't like at all.

- [TV Host] Is that hard to find, you know,

pretty good scripts in films today?

- [Trini] That's the secret of the whole thing.

It's like finding a good, the material for a good song.

- He turned down Warner Brothers,

he turned down United,

he turned out Universal Studios,

and he got out of The Dirty Dozen.

I think that was part of the reason

he didn't get offered a lot of movies,

because he, you know, bottom line,

they couldn't depend on him.

- People don't realize that he was selected in those movies.

- Buenos dias, Major.

- Not just by chance.

- This here's your weapon.

And we begin with fingering, your basic D seven chord.

- Go back to charisma, which is a God given thing.

- What's the beef this time father?

- Who knows?

Today with all the frustrations,

it takes very little to set some of our young Chicanos off.

- That charisma transcended on film.

- You know what's wrong with you, man?

You're chicken!

- Those directors knew that there was something about him.

There was something about his mannerisms that worked.

- We found out everything.

[instrumental music]

- Do you mind?

- Oh, go ahead.

There are police all throughout the show, okay.

[audience applauding]

- Thank you.

[audience applauding]

I did another movie later,

the movie was called "Antonio,"

and I was Antonio in the movie

and my co-star was Larry Hagman.

We went to Chile for two and a half months,

and Larry was really, really something.

His routine was every morning, first thing in the morning,

beer, and then wine,

and then after lunch,

smoking, and then marijuana, and then cocaine.

Every day, man, every day.

- Mister Hunter, please, don't do this to me, please!

- I already did.

[Trini singing in Spanish]

- We finished the movie,

and so now I'm watching TV one night

in my penthouse in LA

[Trini laughing]

and Larry Hagman,

- Help your friends find something better to do

with these two fingers than hold a cigarette.

After a whole day without one, they can do this.

[Larry laughing]

- Like he was an anti-smoker, get it?

And then I did a Movie of the Week for Aaron Spelling.

- You better not give range coordinates,

just tell 'em to fire forward on the hill,

and you're correct.

- Right.

- And I played a GI, yeah.

And that was it for me.

- [Hostess] Beginning of your career,

when did you know when you picked up a guitar, this was it.

- Oh, from the very beginning,

after my father bought me a $12 guitar.

And just by coincidence it happened to be a Gibson guitar,

and a Gibson guitar is like

the Rolls Royce of an automobile, you know?

So I, never did I dream that one day

I would be endorsing and designing two Gibson guitars.

[audience applauding]

- In 1964, Gibson came to Trini and said,

we want you to design two guitars for us,

'cause he was such a big star.

So he started out with the Barney Kessel style body,

he was playing a Barney Kessel at the time,

and that's a thick body guitar.

And so he did some of his own design work to that.

He put the diamond shaped D holes on it,

which had never been done before.

That's a total invention of Trini's

being the style meister that he was.

At the time,

all head stocks on Gibson guitars looked like this.

This is what we call three on a side,

one, two, three, one, two, three.

And he came up with a jazzy idea

to put all the tuners on one side,

to make it look more

like the popular fender guitars of the day.

At the time surf music was getting popular

and this is a Gibson Firebird.

They were trying to appeal to a rock audience.

So they thought by turning that headstock over,

they would attract the rock players.

Of course, that didn't really work.

What did work was when they said to him,

we want you to design a guitar for the rock guys,

and that's the Trini standard.

And this is what we call a thin line guitar.

Much thinner than the jazz thickness that we saw

on that Barney Kessel guitar.

Well, one of the things that he masterminded

was playing the guitar down low.

Up to that point,

everybody played their guitars up here, even Elvis.

And he came up with the idea,

put that guitar down here, where it counts.

- This guitar, I've made

every single Foo Fighter's record with, this one.

This is a fucking beautiful guitar.

I saw this in a guitar shop in Bethesda, Maryland.

I think it was 1992 or '93 or something like that.

I think I was still in Nirvana when I bought it.

I thought it was unusual.

It looks like a Gibson ES-335,

except it has diamond-shaped F holes

and it has this different headstock on it.

And I didn't really know anything

about Trini Lopez, the artist when I bought it,

but this fucking thing,

this is the sound of the Foo Fighters, this guitar.

On every record, I might use other guitars

every now and then,

for the most part, it's just this.

- He loves my guitar.

There was a picture not too long ago in a guitar magazine

and it's a full page of him with my guitar

and he's kissing the guitar.

[audience laughing]

So he really likes it.

And a lot of rock and roll groups.

A bunch of them.

- Yeah, well I'm playing a Trini Lopez most of the time,

the red one is a Trini Lopez,

which actually Noel Gallagher borrowed

for a couple of Oasis tours.

And on an 18-month world tour

followed us all the way around the world.

- And people are like Paul McCartney's guitar player,

I hear that he plays my guitar too.

Bono's guitar player, Bono, the singer,

and Sting's guitar player.

Uh-huh.

And all kinds of other people

that I can't even think of right now.

- Trini we need to give you a guitar.

- All right, all right.

[audience applauding and cheering]

- This is the only white Trini Lopez in existence

[audience applauding and cheering]

for the only Trini Lopez that we'll ever have.

- I hope so.

- Please give it up once again

for the legendary Trini Lopez.

[instrumental music]

[audience applauding and cheering]

- All right everybody, let's go to Kansas City.

- You know, we were focusing a bit

on the Trini Lopez guitar.

I've been playing one for years.

So I said, hey Donnie, bring your Trini Lopez guitar,

we'll just put it up on stage, maybe something will happen.

And so the Reverend Billy F. Gibbons from ZZ Top

showed up and he got up and did a couple numbers with us.

♪ I'm going to Kansas City

♪ Here I come

♪ I'm going to Kansas City, I'm on my way ♪

♪ Got lots of crazy little women there ♪

♪ And I'm gonna get me one

- Listen, if we could find a Trini Gibson,

we'd play it all night long, all day and all night.

♪ Standing on the corner of 12th Street and Vine ♪

♪ With my Kansas City baby and my bottle ♪

♪ Of Kansas City wine

♪ Well, I might take a train, I might take a plane ♪

♪ But if I have to walk

♪ I'm gonna fly there just the same ♪

[instrumental music]

- Well, it was a very special thing.

Gibson was not implying to do

too many personalized instruments.

They had a very select group of professional players,

great stars that made the guitar really what it was.

And of course, when Trini came out with his instrument,

it shot to the top.

Way to go, Trini.

♪ They've got some crazy little women there ♪

♪ And I'm gonna get me one

Do it, do it.

[instrumental music]

Play it.

One more time.

[instrumental music]

Can I hear you join in?

[instrumental music]

♪ Standing on the corner, with my wine ♪

♪ Standing on the corner, 12th Street and Vine ♪

♪ They got some crazy little women there ♪

♪ And I'm gonna get me one

All right everybody.

I need you!

I want you to help me.

Help sing this song.

You're a great audience and I know you can sing.

So get ready.

[instrumental music]

♪ Crazy little women there

♪ And I'm gonna get me one

[instrumental music]

[audience applauding and cheering]

- [Audience] Trini! Trini! Trini! Trini! Trini! Trini!

- I will say when he hit it really big,

the first thing he did

and he always said he was gonna do this,

he bought his parents a home,

bought his parents a new car,

this big, beautiful Cadillac Fleetwood.

And I was like, oh my God,

what an uncle to do this for his parents.

He did what he wanted to do.

He did what he said.

- Even though they were very poor,

they were very rich

because they were just very special people.

They were very special.

They had the gift that God gave them,

which was to be thoughtful, to be kind.

So my parents are really, really nice, nice people.

My favorite saying that I have to,

I have to say it right now 'cause I feel it.

My favorite saying in the whole world is

it's nice to be important,

but it's more important to be nice.

- A week before he became ill,

I had written everything and I said,

honey, is there anything you wanna say personally?

And he said, you know, I have completed,

I have achieved all my wishes,

all my desires,

all my goals.

I've done it all.

I think it must be time to start new goals.

[somber music]

Personally, I think God said,

no, Trini, it's time to come home.

♪ Michael, row the boat ashore

♪ Hallelujah

♪ Michael, row the boat ashore

♪ Hallelujah

- He was my whole world.

He was my life.

[guitar music]

[The Right To Rock by Trini Lopez playing]

♪ Read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights ♪

♪ It's all down there in black and white ♪

♪ It ain't wrong to rock, you've a right to roll ♪

♪ Let's bop baby, let's rock baby, go, go, go ♪

♪ 'Cause we've got a right

♪ The right to roll

♪ Right to rock, right to roll

♪ Rock, rock, rock and roll

♪ Read the Constitution and the Golden Rule ♪

♪ I'm a real gone Willie and I'm nobody's fool ♪

♪ It ain't wrong to rock we've got a right to roll ♪

♪ Bop bop baby, rock rock baby, make it cool ♪

♪ We've got a right

♪ Yeah yeah yeah the right to roll ♪

♪ Right to rock and a right to roll ♪

♪ Rock rock rock and roll

♪ Read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights ♪

♪ I need your honey loving, I need it tonight ♪

♪ It ain't wrong to rock, we've got a right to roll ♪

♪ Have a ball, that's not all, hey it's star night ♪

♪ We've got a right

♪ The right to roll

♪ The right to rock, the right to roll ♪

♪ Rock rock rock and roll

♪ Read the Constitution and the Golden Rule ♪

♪ I'm a real gone Willie and nobody's fool ♪

♪ It ain't wrong to rock, we've got a right to roll ♪

♪ Bop bop baby, rock rock baby, make it cool ♪

♪ We've got a right

♪ To rock and roll

♪ Right to rock, and a right roll ♪

♪ Rock rock rock and roll

♪ Rock rock rock and roll

♪ Rock rock rock and roll

♪ Rock rock rock and roll