Courtesy Photograph / The Ramón Hernández Archives
Former Grupo Mazz frontman Joe Lopez is scheduled to obtain his recognition on the forty third Annual Tejano Music Awards.
Within the late ’80s and early ’90s, Brownsville-founded Grupo Mazz was among the many hottest names in Tejano music and a significant South Texas live performance draw.
The influential band was recognized for bringing an up to date sound and picture to the style, drawing on rock and pop influences. Its hits, together with “Amor Con Amor,” “Estúpido Romántico” and “No Te Olvidaré,” stay standard to this present day.
Provided that monitor report, it’d appear to be a call by the organizers of the Tejano Music Awards to present a Lifetime Achievement Award to one among Grupo Mazz’s founding members can be trigger for celebration amongst South Texas music followers.
As an alternative, the popularity of former Grupo Mazz lead vocalist Joe Lopez with that award is mired in controversy, and a few Tejano followers say they plan to protest the forty third Annual Tejano Music Awards, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 21, on the Boeing Middle at Tech Port.
Casting a darkish cloud over the award is Lopez’s 2006 conviction on expenses that he raped his then-13-year-old niece. He served 12 years of a 20-year sentence for the crime and was launched from jail in 2018.
What’s extra, some followers argue that the popularity slights the legacy of fellow bandmember Jimmy Gonzalez, who died in 2018. Gonzalez’s supporters argue he did many of the work in working the band, whereas Lopez ultimately left to strike out on a solo profession.
Whereas Grupo Mazz racked up six Latin Grammy Awards, it received all of them after Lopez’s departure. By that point, the group had been renamed Jimmy Gonzalez y Grupo Mazz. In latest public statements, Gonzalez’s household accuses Lopez of taking credit score for these Latin Grammy wins within the bio he submitted to the Tejano Music Awards.
Nonetheless, the Texas Expertise Musicians Affiliation, which organizes the Tejano Music Awards, sticks by honoring Lopez for his lifetime contribution to the music kind. Gonzalez acquired the identical recognition posthumously in 2018.
“Our mission assertion is to acknowledge artists and songwriters for his or her contributions to Tejano music, and that is the one factor we base it on,” TTMA Vice President Frank Salazar mentioned.
“The preliminary bio that was despatched to us was despatched by [Joe Lopez’s] camp,” Salazar additionally mentioned. “We do not know every little thing about an artist. So, after they ship us their bios, we’re assuming that they’re what they’re saying. So far as investigating, we will solely accomplish that a lot of that.”
The Present tried to succeed in out to Lopez for remark, contacting each his brother and his present music label, Monterrey Music. We acquired no response by press time.
Even so, Gonzalez’s household did reply, saying they had been “devastated” by the TTMA’s resolution to acknowledge Lopez.
“We definitely don’t agree with the TTMA’s resolution to hail Lopez with a Lifetime Achievement Award, particularly as a result of he tried to impersonate our father and his profession accomplishments, and most significantly as a result of we stand in solidarity with the sufferer of the crime through which Lopez was discovered responsible,” the household mentioned in an emailed assertion.
Courtesy Photograph / Wittliff Collections
A decades-old promo photograph reveals off the Grupo Mazz lineup that included each Joe Lopez and Jimmy Gonzalez.
A wild run
Whereas Grupo Mazz was standard and left an enduring stamp on Tejano music, the anger over Lopez’s award is not the primary time controversy swirled across the group.
“There was a side of [Grupo Mazz] that was much like the excesses of what you hear about Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, and what you hear about among the binges these bands did,” mentioned music historian Hector Saldaña, curator of the Texas Music Assortment at The Wittliff Collections at Texas State College.
The Grupo Mazz was additionally subjected to a bitter breakup throughout its run. Lopez left in 1999 to strike out on a solo profession, which Gonzalez and others mentioned put additional stress on the band. By many reviews, that departure ended a long-running friendship and musical collaboration.
Lopez and Gonzalez collectively launched what would ultimately turn out to be Grupo Mazz within the ’60s in Brownsville, in response to a biography printed by Texas music journalist Ramon Hernandez.
“We grew up collectively, we went to kindergarten collectively, we went to the elementary, and we graduated from the identical highschool,” Gonzalez advised Tejano music radio host Robert Rivas in Might 2015.
After knocking round in South Texas teams, generally collectively and different instances aside, the pair crossed paths once more when Lopez joined Gonzalez’s band One thing Completely different in the course of the early Seventies. That group in the end turn out to be Grupo Mazz in 1978.
“Joe [Lopez], because the lead singer, was the frontman, the musician who received the highlight and all the eye,” journalist Hernandez mentioned of the duo’s relationship. “Whereas an at all times humble Jimmy [Gonzalez] was content material doing second voice.”
Throughout his 2015 radio interview, Gonzalez maintained that he did many of the behind-the-scenes work for the band and even recorded one full tune on each Grupo Mazz album imitating Lopez’s voice. He did it so nicely, many followers mistook the tracks as being sung by Lopez himself, the musician added.
“I imply, I did every little thing,” Gonzalez mentioned in 2015. “Lots of people did not know that, and I feel individuals are realizing that. I picked the songs, I did the preparations, I went to the studio, I recorded the entire thing. Joe did not even take time to follow the songs at residence. He did them within the studio.”
Though Gonzalez and music historian Saldaña insist that Lopez was extra of a fairly boy frontman than the engine behind the group, Grupo Mazz definitely had its share of success whereas he was within the band.
The act signed its first main recording take care of CBS Information in 1988 and received a number of Tejano Music Awards, together with Most Promising Band of the Yr (1981), Album of the Yr (1988) and Music of the Yr (1990), in response to the TTMA archives.
Nonetheless, no Latin Grammys, although.
Divergent paths
With that early success below his belt, Lopez struck out on his personal.
Music historian Saldaña mentioned it is possible a expertise agent whispered into Lopez’s ear that he did not want Gonzalez or the remainder of Grupo Mazz to succeed. Nonetheless, Gonzalez mentioned within the 2015 radio interview a lady Lopez was romantically concerned with urged him to go away the band.
Both means, Lopez break up from Grupo Mazz in 1999, leaving his childhood buddy behind. Gonzalez was so distraught that it took him greater than a yr to carry out once more.
Finally, nonetheless, Gonzalez and others regrouped as Jimmy Gonzalez y El Grupo Mazz. The brand new incarnation continued to report and tour, ultimately bagging Latin Grammy awards for Finest Tejano Album in 2001, 2022, 2003, 2004, 2009 and 2014.
However, Lopez’s solo profession proved lackluster, in response to Saldaña. Finally, it floor to a halt as a result of singer’s authorized troubles.
In 2006, a Cameron County jury convicted Lopez on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a kid and one depend of indecency with a toddler on allegations that he raped his teenage niece two years prior, court docket information present.
Lopez was launched on parole in March 2018. He stays on the Texas Public Intercourse Offender Registry.
Grupo Mazz performed one last efficiency in Dallas earlier than Lopez was sentenced. Throughout his 2015 radio interview, Gonzalez mentioned that was the final time he had any contact with Lopez.
“I wasn’t too loopy about it after what he did to me; it simply terribly harm me,” Gonzalez mentioned. Rompio mi corazon is what he did to me.”
He continued: “He has the suitable to name me, and he has my cellphone quantity, however he has but to name me. So, I do not know, I suppose there’s nonetheless harm there.”
After his 2018 launch, Lopez tried to launch a solo profession, however the transfer proved controversial. That very same yr, he canceled a present in San Antonio after reportedly receiving demise threats.
Courtesy Photograph / Wittliff Collections
Joe Lopez was Mazz’s public face, however critics now say he’s attempting to steal the highlight from late bandmate Jimmy Gonzalez.
Anger over the award
Whereas the dangerous blood between Gonzalez and Lopez could also be outdated information, the controversy over the latter’s pending Lifetime Achievement Award is something however, in response to observers.
“I have been getting quite a lot of calls about that, and lots of people are excited about protesting [the awards],” mentioned Felix Mendoza, a former media contact for the Tejano Music Awards.
Whereas a lot of the anger facilities across the TTMA’s resolution to honor a convicted intercourse offender, many even have vented frustration concerning the award’s announcement. Like Gonzalez’s household, some on-line posters expressed outrage that Lopez’s bio included point out of Grupo Mazz’s Latin Grammys, all of which had been received after he left.
On Sept. 29, Gonzalez’s property posted a strongly worded message on a Fb fan web page devoted to the late musician. Members of the family accused the Tejano Music Awards of permitting Lopez to impersonate Gonzalez and steal his profession achievements.
“We urge the Tejano Music Awards and Affiliation to retract the misinformation shared in a mass electronic mail to their followers which falsely credit Mr. Joe Lopez because the recipient of Grammy Awards earned by Jimmy Gonzalez y Grupo Mazz whereas in his solo profession,” the assertion learn.
As of press time, the publish has garnered 3,000 reactions and greater than 600 feedback.
“That electronic mail was insulting to learn. And his biography had one thing lacking,” fan Piper Lemone commented, noting that two press releases from the TTMA on the award failed to say Lopez’s rape conviction.
“The credit score should go to Jimmy Gonzalez,” chimed in Benito Conteras Jr.
Music historian Saldaña understands the outrage.
“For those who do not seem on that report, then that is not your [Latin] Grammy,” he mentioned.
The TTMA in the end despatched out a revised model of its press launch, this one eradicating the Latin Grammys from Lopez’s checklist of achievements. Nonetheless, the group plans to maneuver forward with the Lifetime Achievement award.
“With out one or the opposite, with out Jimmy or with out Joe, there can be no Mazz,” STTM’s Salazar advised the Present. “Joe was the voice of Mazz, Jimmy was the man behind them ensuring that the band sounded tight. It was a contribution by each gents that made the sound of Grupo Mazz. So, by recognizing one and never the opposite, we did not assume that was proper.”
Who in the end deserves essentially the most credit score for Grupo Mazz’s success might stay a topic debated by Tejano followers for years to return. The truth that feelings run so excessive many years after the band’s time collectively stays a testomony to its lasting impression.
“We did stunning music, and that is why it will not go away,” Gonzalez mentioned throughout his 2015 interview.
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