Richard “Scar” Lopez, whose band Cannibal and the Headhunters took everyone to the “Land of 1000 Dances” in 1965, died of lung cancer on July 30 in a convalescent home in Garden Grove, California. He was 65. The song, which spent 14 weeks on Billboard‘s Top 100 chart, made the band a one-hit wonder – and got them performing on American Bandstand, Hullabaloo, and Shebang, and opening for the Rolling Stones, the Righteous Brothers, and the Beatles during the Fab Four’s American tour. After the band opened for the Beatles at Shea Stadium, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards “came backstage to tell us how good we were,” Lopez told LA Weekly in 2005. “We were four Mexican kids from East LA coming from the projects. Your dreams can be fulfilled if you work at it,” he told the Weekly. Hector A Gonzalez, owner of Rampart Records, whose founder discovered and recorded the group, said, “They gave pride and dignity to the Mexican-American community because of their contribution to not only rock ‘n’ roll but the success they achieved.” (LA Times)