Monday, June 15, 2009

Herp Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - Latino 60s

Remember Herp Alpert and the Tijuana Brass? Singaporeans loved his good looks and trumpet. Better than Harry James. They sold twice as many records in 1966 as compared to The Beatles.

Herp Alpert and the Tijuana Brass were first on the Billboard album charts for 18 weeks with 4 albums in the Top 10. Lonely Bull, (image) Whipped Cream and Other Delights, South Of The Border and a single that must be mentioned, Spanish Flea. The hits followed one after another as the handsome L.A. Californian introduced Latino sound to the pop/rock mainstream in the 60s. He is the "A" of A& M Records with Jerry Moss (M).

Alpert's musical accomplishments include 5 number one hits, 28 albums on the Billboard charts, 8 Grammy Awards, 14 Platinum albums, and 15 Gold albums. As of 1996, Alpert had sold 72 million albums internationally. But he could sing too and with This Guy's In Love With You, he topped the US charts for 4 weeks and reached Number 2 in the UK.

A personal favourite: SPANISH FLEA, a melody heard so many times, it comes out as a whistling tune, anytime, every time. Mr Herp Alpert.

He was also an influence on Singapore music in the 60s. Born in 1935, Herp Alpert should be 74 now. It is also well-known that he uses only Benge trumpets (image).

Comment by Mr Lum about the non-existence of instrumental music from the 80s till today has been inadvertently left out after the post has been deleted. The answer is probably because of IT and digitalized music without live musicians. Next, it's probably because of the introduction of rap where there is hardly any melody to be instrumentalized. Any other reason?

(Articles: Sourced from Music by David Wells)

3 comments:

Lam Chun See said...

Hey, I posted a couple of comments here and suddenly they disappeared. Very strange?

ANDY: Pop Music Not Pills. © said...

Yes, I accidentally removed your comment but replaced it with the last paragraph on Guantanamera. Check it out.

ANDY: Pop Music Not Pills. © said...

It's just above your comment.