🥂 50th CLASSICS SERIES, VOL. 1 - Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass (CD 2501)

[Harry]

Classics, Volume 1
Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass [1987]
CD 2501

1 The Lonely Bull
2 Acapulco 1922
3 A Taste Of Honey
4 Green Peppers
5 I'm Getting Sentimental Over You
6 Whipped Cream
7 Lollipops and Roses
8 What Now My Love
9 Memories of Madrid
10 This Guy's In Love With You
11 The Maltese Melody
12 So What's New?
13 Spanish Flea
14 Tijuana Taxi
15 More and More Amor
16 Jerusalem
17 Zorba The Greek
18 Tangerine
19 Mexican Shuffle
20 Marching Thru Madrid
21 Mame
22 A Banda
23 Casino Royale
24 Love Potion #9

Now that we've taken a look at the FOURSIDER series (see appropriate threads), and as part of our 50th anniversary celebration of the founding of A&M Records, we're going to take a look at the series of CDs that were released at the now halfway point, the 25th Anniversary CLASSICS series. First up is co-founder Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass' entry in the series.

 

[Captain Bacardi]

This is a really nice compilation of the TJB's music. My only gripe is that there could have easily been more songs added. It clocks in at 62:37 so I thought more of the actual hits should have been included ("Third Man Theme", "Flamingo", "Wade In The Water", "The Happening", "Last Tango In Paris", "Fox Hunt"). But for the novice TJB fan this is an excellent place to start.


Capt. Bacardi

 

[Harry]

Early pressings of this disc have an error in the track programming. "So What's New" and "Spanish Flea" are combined onto one longer track. Then they split up "Zorba The Greek" into two parts to get back on track.

After the error was discovered, A&M repressed it with the corrected track indexing. I have one of each that I purchased, then found another of the error CDs in a pile of throwaways. That disc had no cover, was just laying around loose, so I gave it a home and made a scanned set of inserts. It's scuffed, but still plays just fine.

Harry

 

[Rudy]

A pretty good compilation, and I'm with the Captain in that it could easily have touched on a few more hits, and deleted a few filler songs. As such, many CD manufacturers were still wary about going over the 60 minute mark, so that may explain why it did not go much further.

I am pretty sure I bought this the same day that I picked up U2's The Joshua Tree. Gas was cheap, I had a car with a turbo, and I was heading out for some twisty roads in the country. U2's album really struck a nerve with me and I played it a couple of times I'm sure. The TJB CD I'm pretty sure was a surprise, as I don't think I had heard about this series being released, and the only TJB I had on CD was the Christmas Album on a German import CD. I can't recall if I bought anything else that day, such as the Styx Classics CD or something else, but the TJB was an exciting purchase. When it was followed by the album CDs a couple of years later, it felt like CD had finally arrived.

 

[Harry]

I recall seeing this compilation in stores on both CD and cassette well into the '90s. I've always wondered how many of the 25th Anniversary series CDs were also released on cassette.

Harry

 

[Dave]

An album which came as a surprise (as did the entire 'Classics'-series) series-ulosly capitalizing on A&M's first 25-years & w/o being toted as any quick way to raise money (well, other than the look-alike PURPLE cover design)...

A "poor man's Four-Sider"..., An "expanded GREATEST HITS"...--no matter; the tracks are pretty well-chosen w/ a good enough all-around view at Herb's career w/ the Tijuana Brass! (And certainly no "Definitive Hits" type of capitalizing either--well, not quite yet, there, anyway!)

Kicks off the "ultimate collectors" editions for fans of A&M Records & its stars, alike!


-- Dave

 

[Bobberman]

Regardless of color and cosmetic arrangements What matters most is the music and paul grein,s helpful liner notes remember 1987 was the dawn of compact discs i purchased this in early1988. When i got my first cd player. And the sound Oooohhhh my my. From that point on i began buying all further alpert and all releases on cd. Iagree there could have been more other hits added to this but ill let you all in on this i have a cd recorder and i dont go past 65 minutes for a reason most cdrs are not of the same cloth so to speak. And as they age and continued use. Anything recorded past 65 min. At least in my experience with cdr music types. Has a scratchy kind of sound nevertheless. As far as classics volume one is concerned. An excellent introduction to the tjb on cd.