Herb Alpert | Artist

Herb Alpert is an American trumpeter, singer, bandleader, actor, and record company executive, born 1935 in Eastside Los Angeles. He is well known as the leader of the Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. Alpert has 28 albums that landed on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, five of which reached No. 1; he has scored 14 platinum albums and 15 gold albums. He is the only musician to hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 as both a vocalist, with "This Guy's in Love with You" (1968) and an instrumentalist, with "Rise" (1979). Born the youngest of three children, his parents Tillie Goldberg and Louis Leib Alpert, were Jewish immigrants from Radomyshl Romania, in present-day Ukraine. His father was a talented mandolin player, and his mother taught violin. His older brother David was a talented drummer, his sister Mimi played the piano, and young Herb began to play trumpet at eight years old. While attending the University of Southern California in the 1950s, Alpert was a member of the USC Trojan Marching Band, then served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, where he played in the 6th Army Band. In 1957, Alpert teamed up with lyricist Rob Weerts, as a songwriter for Keen Records, were he penned several hits including "Baby Talk" by Jan and Dean and "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke. In 1960, he began his recording career as a vocalist at RCA Records under the name of Dore Alpert. In 1962, Alpert and his business partner Jerry Moss formed Carnival Records which was later renamed A&M Records. The song that jump-started Alpert's career was originally titled "Twinkle Star", written by Sol Lake. Alpert was dissatisfied with early efforts to record the song, then took a break to visit a bullfight in Tijuana, Mexico. As he later recounted, "That's when it hit me! Something in the excitement of the crowd, the traditional mariachi music, the trumpet call heralding the start of the fight, the yelling, the snorting of the bulls, it all clicked." Alpert adapted the tune to the trumpet style, mixed in crowd cheers for ambience, and renamed the song "The Lonely Bull". He personally funded the production of the record and it caught on and became a Top 10 hit in 1962. He followed up quickly with his debut album, The Lonely Bull by "Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass". Originally the Tijuana Brass was just Alpert overdubbing his own trumpet, slightly out of sync. It was A&M's first album and reached No. 6 on the Billboard pop chart. For this and subsequent releases, Alpert recorded with the group of LA session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew. Alpert's 1965 album Whipped Cream & Other Delights was the number one of 1966, outselling The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, and The Rolling Stones, prompting him to form the Tijuana Brass as an actual touring ensemble. In 1966, a short animated film by John and Faith Hubley called "A Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature" was released; it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1967 and featured two songs by the band, "Tijuana Taxi" and "Spanish Flea". Also in 1967, the Tijuana Brass performed Burt Bacharach's title cut to the James Bond movie Casino Royale. Alpert's first No. 1 hit for his A&M label, was a solo effort: "This Guy's in Love with You", written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. After years of success, Alpert took a four-year sabbatical 1969, disbanded the Tijuana Brass and stopped performing in public. In 1974 he re-emerged with the comeback album You Smile - the Song Begins which signalled a shift towards a more sophisticated lounge jazz style rather than the faux-latin exotica of previous albums. As a recording artist, Alpert has 29 solo studio albums to his credit, and a further 19 credited to Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. Standouts include The Lonely Bull (1962), Whipped Cream & Other Delights (1965), Going Places (1965), Rise (1979), and Come Fly With Me (2015). Alpert has sold an estimated 72 million records worldwide and has received many accolades, including a Tony Award and eight Grammy Awards, and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama in 2013. A&M Records became hugely successful and was acquired by PolyGram in 1989 and began distributing releases from Polydor Ltd. from the UK.

Artist Website: wikipedia/Herb_Alpert

Featured Albums: Herb Alpert

Related Artists: The Tijuana Brass, The Wrecking Crew, Burt Bacharach, Sergio Mendes