OT: Trini Lopez

[George Geddes]

At Cineworld in Glasgow last night for the live satellite linkup to Andre Rieu's concert in Maastricht. After two encores, Andre introduces another guest... Trini Lopez, who sings 'If I had a hammer' and 'La Bamba'!

Jim N will be pleased to know that he is still playing his Gibson Trini Lopez guitar...

Apologies if this should be in a different section...

George

[cockroach]

Apparently Trini's signature guitar model has a standby (on-off) switch- at the Gibson factory they called it the 'LaBamba switch' as he needed to stop strumming and get the audience to clap and sing along along with him...

Good to hear he is still out there playing though!

[Didier]

I saw Trini Lopez on stage at the Paris Olympia in 1964. Top of the bill was french singer Sylvie Vartan, and during the first part there was The Beatles and Trini Lopez.

Didier

[JimN]

But which of the two (quite different) models was it, George?

The Standard (335-alike) or the Custom (Barney-Kesselish)?

[George Geddes]

It was a red Standard. Which looks strange with the six-a-side headstock.

George

[JimN]

It was a red Standard. Which looks strange with the six-a-side headstock.

George

Although both Trini Lopez models have long been discontinued by Gibson, and although neither of them was a big seller (with the original mid-sixties batches selling very slowly with deletion when sold out), they have now become objects of desire (mainly because of use of the Standard by someone called Dave Grohl. And Gibson have effectively reissued the Standard model because of that connection, though called after Grohl. It takes the form of a 335-styled body with a (non-reverse) Firebird headstock and distinctive TL fretboard makers. The TL had a proper trapeze tailpiece (as did 335s and 345s of the period), but the new model is equipped with a stop-bar.



There's also a distinct current model called the "Vegas", with some of the Trini Lopez features:



I can stomach the look of the 335 body with the Firebird headstock, but the Barney Kessel styled Custom with the same headstock was too oddball for my taste.

]

[Didier]

Trini Lopez on French TV :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2l95fuAVWs (can't be integrated).

Didier

[JimN]

Trini Lopez on French TV :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2l95fuAVWs (can't be integrated).

Didier

Interesting video, because in it, Trini is using a Gibson Barney Kessel Custom, which is one of the two Gibsons on which his own signature models were based.

The Gibson BK was never used by Barney hinself. The only two well-known guitarists I've ever seen with it were Trini Lopez and the Splott Troubadour from Radio Fun, Stan Stennett.

JN

[cockroach]

JimN

I asked Barney Kessel about that signature guitar (when he played here years ago)- he couldn't say much for legal reasons, but it appeared there was a significant dispute with the royalty payment issue between him and Gibson - and as a consequence he was so pxssed off, he subsequently blacked out the Gibson name on his old gigging guitar so as not to give Gibson any free advertising!

The one in your picture-shouldn't it have the wooden nameplate on the tailpiece?

Quite a few US rock players used the big BK Custom in the '60s- including the chap in The Young Rascals-although it was generally thought of as a jazz guitar, the bridge pickup gave a nice raunchy treble tone...Sister Rosetta Tharpe also used one towards the end of her career , there is video on YouTube of her live with the BK, as well as her earlier clips playing in the USA and UK with an incredible loud raunchy Chuck Berry style solo on her open tuned white SG Custom..great gutsy gospel! (And Marty Wilde bought her old gold top Les Paul off her when she left after she toured the UK with Chris Barber, and Marty then let Big Jim Sullivan use it ...shades of Cliff lending Hank and Bruce his Strat and Gibson J200..)