To my credit, singer Trini Lopez only cracked the top 20 twice, so it’s not all that unusual that I really had never heard of him prior to the early 1990’s. Both of these songs, If I Had a Hammer and Lemon Tree, were cover songs at that. But the later of the two achieved a iconic status for a whole other reason than being a passably catchy tune…at least to me. Yes, it may sound weird but I learned about Trini Lopez from watching Seinfeld, in which they used the song as a minor plot device.
It was the episode The Phone Message and George and Jerry are plotting to steal an answering machine tape. George proposes that he will sing a tune to notify Jerry that someone is coming so he can abort the operation. His first suggestion is to sing How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria, but Jerry counter-suggests Lemon Tree. George wants to know if it is the Peter, Paul, and Mary version, but Jerry was thinking more along the lines of…Trini Lopez, who had a relatively lucrative career throughout the 1960’s.
So that’s it. I must admit that it is a relatively obscure connection, but for the Seinfeld fan, I guess it’s not so much. Since I hadn’t really known the song when I heard it mentioned in Seinfeld, I actually sought it out seven or eight years ago, so I had at least actually heard it.
Trini Lopez appeared at the Hollywood Show on August 4, 2012. He was an extremely nice guy and his autographs were actually cheaper than the norm. For $15 he signed a photo of himself and posed for a free picture with me. Naturally I had him write Lemon Tree on the photo – since that was how I knew him best – but I didn’t mention the Seinfeld reference. After all, he had devoted a lifetime to recorded music; I’m sure he didn’t want to be solely remembered for that by the likes of me.
It was a cool experience, and now I’m much more likely to search out even more from him.
Celebrity encounters from the Summer 2012 Hollywood Show will continue…
And I liked him because he is one of the few left from the film “The Dirty Dozen” which had nothing to do with his singing talents.
Bob
October 2nd, 2014