Biography
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana during 1977, Lance Lopez began playing guitar before age ten. His family relocated to Dallas shortly after he turned twelve, then moved with his father to New Orleans at fourteen, where the teenager started backing other musicians in French Quarter bars. When his father shifted again to Florida, Lopez divided his high school years between Louisiana and Florida, continuing to perform in local clubs before returning to Dallas with his family at seventeen. That burgeoning reputation as a guitarist led Johnnie Taylor to recruit him for a six-month chitlin circuit tour. At eighteen Lopez joined Lucky Peterson’s road band, staying three years, during which he met drummer Buddy Miles and entered the Buddy Miles Express; Miles later co-produced Lopez’s debut album First Things First (1998) alongside Jay Newland.
His overdriven, hard-grooving approach draws directly from the late-twentieth-century Texas blues lineage of Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, while Jimi Hendrix and Robin Trower supplied additional core influences; Lopez’s gravelly vocal delivery carries notable power and authority. After European tours supporting Steve Vai, Jeff Beck, and B.B. King, he signed with Rochester, New York’s independent Grooveyard Records and issued the acclaimed Wall of Soul in 2004, followed by the funkier Simplify Your Vision in 2006. In 2007 Grooveyard reissued First Things First, the widely praised Higher Ground, and Live. The more roots-oriented R&B album Salvation from Sundown appeared on Germany’s MIG imprint in 2010, which also released Handmade Music the following year; Cleopatra put out Live in NYC in 2016, and Tell the Truth arrived on Provogue in 2018. After worldwide and U.S. touring plus the pandemic interruption, Lopez returned to Cleopatra for Trouble Is Good in 2023.
In 2000 his band toured Europe; a year later the group supported Steve Vai and Jeff Beck while Lopez received “Blues Band of the Year” at the Dallas Music Awards. He signed with Grooveyard and completed Wall of Soul in 2003 between road dates, releasing it in 2004; Eric Gales co-produced the set and contributed guitar. Simplify Your Vision reached the national blues charts in 2006. After extensive U.S. and European touring, Lopez recorded Higher Ground essentially solo, performing every instrument himself. Grooveyard issued Live and reissued First Things First in November of that year.
Between 2008 and 2010 Lopez and his band toured Europe, Asia, and the United States relentlessly. He signed with Made in Germany and released Salvation from Sundown in 2010, produced by Jim Gaines (Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan); the album shifted toward a traditional Texas blues sound, reducing earlier Hendrixian rock and funk elements. Pleased with the mature result, Lopez reunited with Gaines at Memphis’s Ardent Studios alongside engineer Jody Stephens to create Handmade Music, which contained twelve original songs written for the sessions and again featured Lopez on every instrument; reviewers hailed it as his strongest work to date.
Although he began another studio project, touring commitments intervened. Lopez served as original guitarist and vocalist in Supersonic Blues Machine with drummer Kenny Aronoff and bassist/producer Fabrizio Grossi, appearing on the band’s first two Provogue releases, West of Flushing South of Frisco (2015) and the star-studded Californisoul (2017). In between those projects he issued Live in NYC in 2016, recorded at B.B. King’s Blues Club & Grill in Times Square on Johnny Winter’s birthday and dedicated to the late guitarist’s memory.
Lopez signed with Provogue, assembled a new quartet, and enlisted Grossi as producer; the resulting twelve-song Tell the Truth balanced a large set of originals with a pair of covers, its production highlighting the raw, kinetic energy of Lopez’s style. After departing Supersonic Blues Machine he took the quartet across Europe, Asia, and the United States until the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown halted touring; they resumed road work in 2021, and in 2022 Lopez entered the studio while also joining the Southern rock band Two Wolf, founded by Blackfoot bassist Greg T. Walker. Trouble Is Good emerged on Cleopatra in July 2023; one defining trait of the twelve-song collection is the prominent return of Lopez’s slide guitar playing, which he had downplayed in prior years.
His overdriven, hard-grooving approach draws directly from the late-twentieth-century Texas blues lineage of Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, while Jimi Hendrix and Robin Trower supplied additional core influences; Lopez’s gravelly vocal delivery carries notable power and authority. After European tours supporting Steve Vai, Jeff Beck, and B.B. King, he signed with Rochester, New York’s independent Grooveyard Records and issued the acclaimed Wall of Soul in 2004, followed by the funkier Simplify Your Vision in 2006. In 2007 Grooveyard reissued First Things First, the widely praised Higher Ground, and Live. The more roots-oriented R&B album Salvation from Sundown appeared on Germany’s MIG imprint in 2010, which also released Handmade Music the following year; Cleopatra put out Live in NYC in 2016, and Tell the Truth arrived on Provogue in 2018. After worldwide and U.S. touring plus the pandemic interruption, Lopez returned to Cleopatra for Trouble Is Good in 2023.
In 2000 his band toured Europe; a year later the group supported Steve Vai and Jeff Beck while Lopez received “Blues Band of the Year” at the Dallas Music Awards. He signed with Grooveyard and completed Wall of Soul in 2003 between road dates, releasing it in 2004; Eric Gales co-produced the set and contributed guitar. Simplify Your Vision reached the national blues charts in 2006. After extensive U.S. and European touring, Lopez recorded Higher Ground essentially solo, performing every instrument himself. Grooveyard issued Live and reissued First Things First in November of that year.
Between 2008 and 2010 Lopez and his band toured Europe, Asia, and the United States relentlessly. He signed with Made in Germany and released Salvation from Sundown in 2010, produced by Jim Gaines (Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan); the album shifted toward a traditional Texas blues sound, reducing earlier Hendrixian rock and funk elements. Pleased with the mature result, Lopez reunited with Gaines at Memphis’s Ardent Studios alongside engineer Jody Stephens to create Handmade Music, which contained twelve original songs written for the sessions and again featured Lopez on every instrument; reviewers hailed it as his strongest work to date.
Although he began another studio project, touring commitments intervened. Lopez served as original guitarist and vocalist in Supersonic Blues Machine with drummer Kenny Aronoff and bassist/producer Fabrizio Grossi, appearing on the band’s first two Provogue releases, West of Flushing South of Frisco (2015) and the star-studded Californisoul (2017). In between those projects he issued Live in NYC in 2016, recorded at B.B. King’s Blues Club & Grill in Times Square on Johnny Winter’s birthday and dedicated to the late guitarist’s memory.
Lopez signed with Provogue, assembled a new quartet, and enlisted Grossi as producer; the resulting twelve-song Tell the Truth balanced a large set of originals with a pair of covers, its production highlighting the raw, kinetic energy of Lopez’s style. After departing Supersonic Blues Machine he took the quartet across Europe, Asia, and the United States until the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown halted touring; they resumed road work in 2021, and in 2022 Lopez entered the studio while also joining the Southern rock band Two Wolf, founded by Blackfoot bassist Greg T. Walker. Trouble Is Good emerged on Cleopatra in July 2023; one defining trait of the twelve-song collection is the prominent return of Lopez’s slide guitar playing, which he had downplayed in prior years.
Albums
Trouble Is Good
2023
Tell The Truth
2018
Live in NYC
2016
First Things First
2007
Live
2007
Higher Ground
2007
Simplify Your Vision
2006
Wall Of Soul
2004
Singles
