In his continuing quest to be all things to all record-buyers,
Trini Lopez added
The Love Album to his previous records
The Latin Album and
The Folk Album (one more was yet to come:
The Rhythm and Blues Album). With arrangements from Don Costa -- whose blend of flutes and strings smoothened many a
Sinatra chart of the '60s (and who had actually discovered
Lopez a few years earlier) -- the LP certainly had potential, but the misses outweigh the hits.
Lopez's voice was deep and friendly enough to appeal to most pop listeners of the era, and the material appears to have been selected well ("Blue Velvet," "Moon River," "People," "Our Day Will Come"). Still,
Lopez doesn't have the same ease of delivery he'd shown on his previous work. With his pop singles ("Lemon Tree," "If I Had a Hammer") or with his Latin material, he always had energy to spare, but here he appears unsure of how to treat the type of vocal pop that gets a performer into a supper club. ~ John Bush