Rick Trevino

The same year Trevino appeared on compilation CD Tribute To Tradition (released on Columbia label) with a cover version of "City Lights" (#1 country classic recorded by Ray Price in 1958).

Ricardo Treviño Jr. (born May 16, 1971), known professionally as Rick Trevino, is an American country music artist.

Ricardo Treviño Jr. was born May 16, 1971, in Austin, Texas.

He is the son of Ricardo Treviño Sr., a Tejano musician, and Linda Chavez.

His music career began when he started taking piano lessons at the age of five.

He plays rhythm guitar as well as keyboards.

Trevino graduated from Westwood High School in Austin, Texas.

Although he was offered a baseball scholarship to Memphis State University, Trevino chose instead to study music at Texas A&M University.

While a student, he played his brand of country music in local clubs.

In the late 1990s he joined an all-star group of Mexican-American singers, including members of Los Lobos, Freddy Fender, Ruben Ramos, and Flaco Jimenez, to create the supergoup Los Super Seven.

In December 1991, a representative of the Sony label, Paul Jarosik, was stranded in Austin due to flooding conditions and visited a small club where Trevino regularly played.

Although Trevino was not performing that evening, the representative saw several articles on the walls which praised Trevino.

Employees of the club gave him a tape of Trevino's music, which the label representative then passed onto music producer Steve Buckingham.

Buckingham made a special trip to Austin just to hear Trevino perform and signed him to Sony.

Trevino left school to pursue his music career.

At the insistence of Columbia Nashville, his first album, Dos Mundos, was an almost entirely Spanish country album.

Trevino, who is not a native Spanish speaker and needed lessons before he could record the album, was displeased with the decision.

"I didn't like that a bit because I didn't want people to think I was a Tejano artist...Everybody thinks I'm a Tejano singer crossing over to the country format."

The album was certified gold (selling over 500,000 copies).

Signed to Columbia Nashville in 1993, Trevino began his career that year with the release of his debut single "Just Enough Rope", the first mainstream country music single to feature separate English and Spanish versions.

The song was included on his debut album Dos Mundos; a self-titled album followed a year later.

Trevino has charted a total of fourteen singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and recorded seven studio albums.

He released his debut single, "Just Enough Rope" ("Bastante Cordón") on September 7, 1993.

It appeared in English on Rick Trevino and in Spanish on Dos Mundos, while a version of the song which combined the two languages was also released to radio.

This became the first mainstream country single to be released in both English and Spanish.

The album's third single, "She Can't Say I Didn't Cry", became Trevino's first chart-topper, spending one week at the top of the Gavin Report country singles charts.

Seven months later, in 1994, Sony released his first English album, Rick Trevino.

Rick Trevino was certified gold (selling over 500,000 copies) and featured the hits "She Can't Say I Didn't Cry" and "Doctor Time."

The follow-up English album, Looking for the Light, was released in 1995 and included the top-ten hit "Bobbie Ann Mason."

Trevino also recorded a Spanish version of the album, titled Un Rayo de Luz ("A Ray of Light").

His highest-charting single, "Running Out of Reasons to Run", reached No. 1 on that chart in 1996.

Trevino's 1996 album Learning as You Go, produced his first and only Billboard Number One single in "Running Out of Reasons to Run" with "Learning As You Go" reaching #1 on the Radio & Records Chart and #2 on the Billboard Country Chart.

The third single, "I Only Get This Way With You" reached #7 on the Billboard Country Chart.

As with Looking for the Light, Learning As You Go also featured a separate Spanish-language version, titled Mi Vida Eres Tú ("My Life Is You").

Trevino asked to leave his contract with Sony in the hopes of moving in a different musical direction.

The group won a Grammy in 1998 for Best Mexican-American Music Performance for their self-titled debut album.

Sony refused to release him from the contract, and Trevino cut a new album and released the single "Only Lonely Me" on August 18, 1998.

Before the album could be released, Sony agreed to release Trevino, and the album was shelved.

Another two albums followed – Canto in 2001 (also released live on DVD) and

Heard It On The X in 2005 (both albums included Raul Malo of The Mavericks among others).