Obit watch: August 11, 2020.

Wayne Fontana, of Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, one of those British Invasion bands that was (sadly) before my time.

Mr. Fontana, who made a name performing as Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, found brief success with the band when “The Game of Love” hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard chart the week of April 24, 1965.

Trini Lopez.

His interpretations bridged two prominent trends of the day. At a commercially rich time for folk music, Mr. Lopez drew on the beauty of the genre’s tunes while souping them up with the sharp rockabilly beats employed by hitmakers like Buddy Holly and Carl Perkins.
“Making songs danceable helped me a lot,” Mr. Lopez told The Classic Rock Music Reporter in 2014, adding, “Discotheques back in those days were not only playing my songs, they were playing my album all the way through.”
For yet another draw, Mr. Lopez punctuated many of his songs with joyous hoots and trills drawn from Mexican folk, emphasizing his ethnic heritage at a time when many Latin performers kept theirs hidden. “I’m proud to be a Mexicano,” he told The Seattle Times in 2017.

He also did some acting:

He also appeared in the hit 1967 movie “The Dirty Dozen,” in a role that was meant to be large but that got cut down after Mr. Lopez left the shoot before it ended, frustrated by production delays. He had the lead role in “Antonio,” a 1973 movie about a poor Chilean potter who befriends a rich American (Larry Hagman) passing through his village.

(We finally watched the movie of “The Dirty Dozen” a few weeks ago. I have to admit: it is much better than the book, especially since the movie actually has an ending, and the people responsible for the movie actually bothered to film it.)

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