1984 - Clearing up the bullish

[whippedflea]

Does anyone else recall this??? I saw a syndicated TV show, late night in the summer of 1984. I can't remember the title, but the style of it was kind of Donnie & Marie meets MTV. The only one I saw featured a full half hour of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass and the reunion. As per usual, the show featured misinformation about Herb's career, but they did include several interview clips of Alpert at his command post at A&M. One scene showed Alpert and a graphics guy going over variations of the BULLISH album cover and when the graphics guy says that one design will be cheaper to produce than the other, Alpert jokes (I'm paraphrasing as best I can) "THIS cover is looking better and better all the time." Is this ringing any bells?

Anyway, one of the interview clips clearly states that the BULLISH album was clearly NOT A TIJUANA BRASS ALBUM. Herb says that he was inspired to put on a special TJB concert because Frank Sinatra was putting on "special event" concerts that summer too. Anyway, the "one" special TJB concert turned in to a TJB reunion mini-tour. It was then that Herb took his album at hand (in this case, BULLISH) and decided to put the TJB name on it since it could give him an extra promotional push and to tie album and tour together.

Also in the show was Herb & The TJB, lip-synching (?) to a poorly edited "mega-mix" medley of hits. These were the original TJB recordings held together by an extra synthesizer and drum-machine (remember, this was the summer of 1984). It was embarrasing, but along with Herb, Nick Ceroli, Bob Edmonson & John Pisano did a great job making the best of the situation. Nick looked liked he was squelching serious laughter the whole time!! The rest of the band included a bunch of early-to-mid 20's kids on bass, 2nd guitar, keyboards and extra percussion.

Please forgive me for lack of more detail. This was many, years ago and I didn't get a VCR of my own until 1991!!

So...did I dream this? Does anybody else have less foggy memories?

 

[jazzdre]

the show you are referring to was called ONSTAGE AMERICA,and yes it was a syndicated series in the summer of 1984. i was two years into being an alpert fan(i was 18 at the time,and there wasn't too much on herb via the media,the acts that dominated at tha time were michael jackson,prince,and here's an a&m relation:the police,and madonna.)so yeah i definitely had to see it! i don't remember herb going into details about the bullish lp,but i remember the show showing clpis from his tv specials,herb walking around the a&m lot,the scene with the art director,and him flying a kite with lani and their daughter on the beach at malibu.i do remember them(the tjb)playing a medley of their hits,but it didn't seem like they were 'lipsynching' the medley;in fact i remember bob edmondson honking the horn-live!but however,bullish was lipsynched!here's another a&m relation:the week before the alpert segment,onstage america did a profile of:sergio mendes!!!there were interviews with herb and lani about sergio and how much he meant to them.hope this answers your query!

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Just about everything on that show was synced, although Nick Ceroli was playing along with those electronic drums (Linn or Simmons, I'm not sure which) which you can hear at the end of "Tijuana Taxi".


Capt. Bacardi

 

[Harry]

Eight years on this Forum, and this is the first time I've heard of this particular TV show.

I guess it's true - we learn something new every day.

Harry

 

[Mr Bill]

Jim Carrey was a featured comedian on this particular broadcast as well. This was before In Living Color, before his first series The Duck Factory and before his first film, Once Bitten. You could tell then was a talented guy and ould likely go far...

--Mr Bill

 

[bob knack]

Wasn't this the same year Lani and Herb and the TJB appeared on the Academy Awards? They did 'Maniac' and the new band was pretty much in place by then and a tour followed?

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Yep. And host Johnny Carson introduced them as Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass with "Lane-ee" Hall.


Capt. Bacardi

 

[Rudy]

Just about everything on that show was synced, although Nick Ceroli was playing along with those electronic drums (Linn or Simmons, I'm not sure which) which you can hear at the end of "Tijuana Taxi".


Capt. Bacardi

I remember the electric drums too...in fact, there's a slim chance I may have this buried somewhere on a videotape, if I could ever get my VCR hooked back up and look through literally dozens of tapes to find it.