The Official WHIPPED CREAM Review Thread

[Mike Blakesley]

I like the way they designed this cover better than the previous packages. It has an actual pocket for the booklet, rather than just a tab. Makes the whole package sturdier and protects the booklet better. Hope this is carried over into the rest of the series.

I also noticed that the website address "www.herbalpert.com" is not included on this package.

Overall, an excellent issue. The sound is excellent especially on those album tracks that I'd never heard on CD before. (I only had this on LP until now.)

 

[Ed Bishop]

It's a fine mastering, with a minimum of Eq adjustments, though I suspect the highs were boosted just a tad to bring out the percussion(there is certainly no lack of hiss here, and whatever NR was employed seems to have been infrequntly used and never obvious). Beyond that, however, nice sound for what it is...and what it is, is an old stereo mixdown tape that is obviously the best available short of remixing from the multi-track sources, which would likely be a waste of time anyway, the magic would not be there, very likely.

Overall, a very pleasing listen! The bonus tracks are no great shakes, but nice to have all the same. Now if only we could get those mono tapes out there....

 

[Numero Cinco]

What a week: The 19th having come and gone, finally last night I placed my online order for two copies of Whipped Cream. They're on their way. This afternoon, in my local Barnes & Noble, I find the reissue in stock. What the heck? Sold.

I'll have to drag out the earphones and listen carefully for all the buzz that this site's experts have complained about for "A Taste of Honey" and "Ladyfingers." Meanwhile, it's a joy to have this album back in print. If this doesn't transport you back to some of the 60s' happier times, nothing will. The booklet's comments by The Man Himself are great; the photographs, a lot of fun. And the poster of The Lathered, Lovely Delores—Ahh. It's almost enough to stir my long-forgotten, prepubescent hormones.

TonyCurrie's comments on, and explanation of, bleedthroughs is fascinating. Many thanks.

I want to hear the bonus tracks a few more times before commenting. It's a bit like having a new TJB 45, with one song on each side. I'm as glad to have them in the canon as I am all the fresh tracks on Lost Treasures.

Meanwhile: Could the site's moderators post a new poll for the new album, allowing us the pleasure of selecting our favorite track? With as many great songs as WCOD boasts, I predict there will be a healthy difference of opinion.

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Meanwhile: Could the site's moderators post a new poll for the new album, allowing us the pleasure of selecting our favorite track? With as many great songs as WCOD boasts, I predict there will be a healthy difference of opinion.

Consider it done!


Capt. Bacardi

 

[DAN BOLTON]

This is another album like SOTB...it's even a theme album, so it would follow that all the songs form a cohesive unit. SOTB begs to be listened to as one giant long-playing single. Soooo....it's hard to really pick just one song that stands out.

I picked LOVE POTION #9 as my favorite, because this is the song that made me aware of just how talented an arranger Herb really is. All he did was slow down the tempo a bit, and make the song just a little cheesier than it originally was, and...VOILA!!! That's Madame Rue doing the bump-and-grind!


The title song from SOTB proved that Herb could take an old standard and breathe new life into it, and this song proves that he could do it with new material, too.

Close second would be LEMON TREE and LOLLIPOPS AND ROSES[hard to believe it as originally a waltz!]. L&R also proves just how good Herb is at reinterpreting a song and making it say something completely different than the original, but with a great deal of respect for the original statement. The calypso beat to LEMON TREE should have been included in the original version, IMO...and those "power chords" add an almost ethereal quality to the song, like a dream.

To me, this the first album that shows that there's more to the TJB than just latin or "ameriachi" sounds...a lot of the songs here are really not ones that would usually be considered "easy latin". ATOH, for example, lends itself beautifully to a latin beat, but nobody ever did it that way before Herb...also, TANGERINE wasn't a latin song, more of a south seas-exotic number, but it goes latin very well, too...LEMON TREE was a folk song, LADYFINGERS...well, I've never heard another version of this song, so I can't really compare it; but it sounds great with just a hint of latin flair...so do PEANUTS and L&R. I guess it's like Chuck Champlin said on the back of GOING PLACES, the TJB sound will "travel"...

It really stretched it's legs with this album!


Dan, remembering that listening to side one of WCAOD turned me on to the TJB and was one of those life-changing events...thanks, Herb!

 

[Ed Bishop]

"Honey" for me...and that was the performance that woke up America to the TJB sound...up until that time, they'd kinda been on the fringes a bit, doing Ok but not overwhelming commercially. "Honey" is catchy, a landmark recording for them. And that it had already been done before--vocal versions, and Martin Denny's 1962 version--makes Herb's making it his own all the more remarkable....

 

[Numero Cinco]

No doubt about it: "A Taste of Honey" was a landmark recording for the Brass, deserving every award it received. It is as strong as any contender I can imagine for Exhibit A of Herb Alpert's genius in creative arrangement. Up to his cover, the song was a maudlin waltz. Afterwards, almost every performer followed Herb's redefinition of the song, with his indelible stamp.

Still, for sheer joy of listening, I opt for "Green Peppers," as I have now for forty years. So often did I drop my needle on that track that it's a wonder there's any vinyl left. For me it's a combination of (a) Sol Lake's bright yet strangely minor melody, with a powerful bridge; (b) seamless orchestration, defined by the trumpets' tight harmonic thirds, with a perfect blend of piano, marimba, guitar, and bass, punctuated by those clockwork rim-taps and undulating maracas; (c) all wedded to an infectuously sexy samba rhythm. That sly false ending, with its silent seven-beat kickback to the bridge, always makes me smile. Finally, (d) it's the unfussiest of arrangements—in and out in 1:31 (including decay). A perfect statement: In fact, it's over so quickly that you just have to play it again. (And, in my case, again and again and again.)

"Green Peppers": Not so historically important, but quintessential TJB sound. One of the best songs ever.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I often vacillated on what was my favorite -- GP or "Bittersweet Samba." That's another one that just "has it all" as far as Brass arrangements go. But I just can't pick one over the other -- especially since they're both pretty much tied with "Honey" in my book.

It's much easier to tell what songs I like the least -- "Lemon Tree" and "Butterball." To me they sound like filler, but they're pretty darn good filler. (Or for this album, maybe they should be called "filling?")

 

[Numero Cinco]

JM/JO: Rosemary and Blueberry Park don't sound like they were from that era but what the heck. I liked them. It is so great to get this CD, it brings back lots of memories as a kid.

Both bonus offerings sound later to my ears, too. Neither track has that distinctive Gold Star brigthness. "Rosemary"'s orchestration vaguely reminds me of "Las Mananitas" from the Christmas Album; "Blueberry Park," of "Warm" from the same LP (listen to that slightly muffled kick-drum in their respective breaks). But similarities in arrangement or instrumentation don't guarantee chronological association.

Mike B.: It's much easier to tell what songs I like the least -- "Lemon Tree" and "Butterball." To me they sound like filler, but they're pretty darn good filler. (Or for this album, maybe they should be called "filling?")

Personally, I'd add "El Garbanzo" and "Peanuts" to that filling; but, as you say, it's pretty good filling.

 

[Dave]

"A Taste Of Honey for me", too! What I probably thought the LP, should'a been "called", though Delores in WHIPPED CREAM was probably "a lot NEATER" in that "Eye-Opener" of a cover...!

Countless remakes, both VOCAL and INSTRUMENTAL of Herb's "newfound signature song", and too numerous to mention here, right now, 'specially after finding about as many as there are versions of "Close To You"! (...in a con-current A&M Corner-Album Review going on right now, in "another forum")

And well, there is LOTS OF SHADES OF GREEN!!!! on the cover, too!


Dave

 

[walterphil]

finally got mine today from amazon

a couple of things i wanted to mention from an art director's
point of view.

compared to an lp, cd graphics are laughable. poster indeed. remember when you used to get a poster with your new lps? (bookends, dylan's greatest hits, let it bleed, etc.) it was huge. the poster included in this cd while sweet, is as tiny as a postcard

also it's intersesting to me that for whatever reason, they never covered the model with solid whipped cream. even as a youth i was bothered that it was basically some globs of shaving cream over a fuzzy white blanket.

all this aside (i'm just complaining graphically.)

the lp sounds as fresh to me as the day it came out. can't wait for my real favorites tho. (the next 6 in the series.)

that's when herb really gets cookin.' (i consider his first 4 lps as just a prelude to the dizzying heights of "going places" or "herbie's 9th.")

by the way, how handsome does herb look in the (green) cover shot on the little booklet? impossibly young

guess we all were

walt

 

[Mr Bill]

The poster included in this cd while sweet, is as tiny as a postcard.

Yep. In fact, it's only slightly larger than the original LP cover so in a sense you're getting the right two thirds of a sheet of the original "almost actual size" LP cover! What would've been neat is if they enclosed a postcard for you to send off for a nice two or three foot square poster. The cost could easily have been built into the purchase price.

Also, the model in the booklet doesn't look anything like Dolores Erickson. I'd say they hired a local model for whatever that promo session was for. Besides, six months later Ms Erickson would be quite pregnant and or nursing/playing mom to the child. So I say it's a different model, there.

Walter, I'm gald I'm not the only one who sees the cover as largely a while blanket (or that sheet-spun cotton stuff they sell for decorating around Christmas time) and a few selectively placed dollops and smears of shaving cream!

--Mr Bill

 

[Mike Blakesley]

That "blanket as whipped cream" was discussed quite a while ago, as I remember. It's pretty obvious when you look at it. I do think it'd be pretty hard to get enough shaving cream to "look right" and simultaneously stay in place properly to get a good photo shoot, so I'm sure that's why they went the blanket route.

Also that photo, if they enlarged it much more, would not look very good, so a larger poster probably wouldn't have worked. (Assuming the original negative is long lost.) Even on the poster as is, it's pretty fuzzy/grainy compared to today's photography.

Maybe they should have done a 2005 poster with some current hottie in the same pose! (I'm kidding. Well, sort of.)

 

[Ed Bishop]

Whether it's Delores or not, all I know is the av I made of the booklet's splash photo has turned heads over at SH.tv....and understandably so! I'm not sure it's the WC model herself, either, Bill....but she's a looker! And a fine choice, if I may say so....

 

[Dave]

I think my second-favorite track, should definitely be "Whipped Cream", the Foot Stompin' & Be-Boppin' title-track of this album! Wasn't it originally a New Orleans tune written (and possibly performed) by Alan Toussaint? Or by a group of his? Hard to believe what ONE listen to the original gave Herb the "inspiration" to do...!


Dave

 

[Rudy]

I went with "Bittersweet Samba", although it just barely edges out all my other favorites here. Brings back early memories of being three years old and stacking this rekkid on Dad's Admiral hi-fi in the basement.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

An aside: the Shout!Factory website now features a cool "ad" for the Herb series (along with the now-familiar brief snip of "Spanish Flea") at the top-center of their front page. !

 

[LPJim]

The Disc Exchange in Knoxville had WHIPPED CREAM priced at $13.99 and then I noticed a red 'on sale' sticker for $2 off.
Played it in the car and it sounded great. Nice bonus poster and liner notes (which I did not attempt to read while driving).
IMHO the 2 bonus tracks have a "'70s feel" to them, making me think they weren't recorded at the same time as the album.
JB

 

[DAN BOLTON]

That "blanket as whipped cream" was discussed quite a while ago, as I remember. It's pretty obvious when you look at it. I do think it'd be pretty hard to get enough shaving cream to "look right" and simultaneously stay in place properly to get a good photo shoot, so I'm sure that's why they went the blanket route.

Also that photo, if they enlarged it much more, would not look very good, so a larger poster probably wouldn't have worked. (Assuming the original negative is long lost.) Even on the poster as is, it's pretty fuzzy/grainy compared to today's photography.

Maybe they should have done a 2005 poster with some current hottie in the same pose! (I'm kidding. Well, sort of.)

I would have liked to see Delores do a re-shoot...she still looks pretty good...as for the whipped /shaving cream and towel debate; ANYTHING under those hot studio lights would never last very long without melting or curdling and separating.

I wonder if she'd share her memories of that shoot with us if we asked?

Dan

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I looked at her website (www.whippedcreamlady.com) and unfortunately, there's not a "contact" method there.

Interesting to look at the voting results. "A Taste of Honey" has the most votes, and the numbers mostly get less as you go down the list, with a "bump" for "Love Potion" and another for "Lollipops," which has gotten more exposure lately due to inclusion on DEF HITS. Proof that the best tracks lead off the album and the weaker tracks tend to make up side 2, (except for the opening side 2 track, which was often the location for a "hit single" back in the day).

 

[Harry]

I voted for "A Taste Of Honey". It was a kick-a$$ record 40 years ago, and it hasn't diminished at all with time. I wish that the "with symphonic strings" version would have found its way to CD - maybe in a future rarities collection or box set.

My second choice in songs would be "Bittersewwt Samba" or "Lollipops And Roses" which was a killer track with which to end the original album.

I think that everyone's perception of the new bonus tracks being later, though probably right, might also be confused by the more modern mixing techniques on these songs. They were likely unfinished, with Herb adding his newly recorded trumpet parts over the old basic rhythms tracks, and mixed for a more modern sound. thus perhaps reminding folks of the way the '70s TjB sounded.

The WHIPPED CREAM era tracks were still largely of the widely divided stereo backing tracks, drums/percussion/bass left, guitar/marimbas/piano right, with Herb firmly anchoring the center. One big exception to this is the song "Whipped Cream" itself, with the backing track being essentially a mono recording, with Herb's twin trumpets on the extreme left and right. He even alternates the solo sections with the first time playing on the left, and the second time through on the right.

My first copy of this album all those years ago was a mono version, which lasted a few years until I just had to spring for the stereo issue as well. I remember it being a revelation to hear all of these tracks in stereo the first time.

Harry
NP: WHIPPED CREAM AND OTHER DELIGHTS

 

[Steve Sidoruk]

Whipped Cream & Other Delights is currently the top selling CD at CD Universe, beating Bruce Springsteen and Rob Thomas.

 

[Mike]

Whipped Cream & Other Delights is currently the top selling CD at CD Universe, beating Bruce Springsteen and Rob Thomas.

Of course! The world has not gone mad, they've gone Herb!

 

[walterphil]

oh i don't know...
i'm sure my art department could've done a cracker jack job
at making a beautiful poster from the original photo.
(whether they still had the original negative or not)

we work miracles on much worse, blurry old things.

walt, "the blurry old thing"

(ps. would have loved to see the outtakes from that session!)

NP: "million dollar bash"-fairport convention

 

[Harry]

(ps. would have loved to see the outtakes from that session!)

Well here's one alternate shot, anyway:

I seem to recall seeing some others somewhere as well.

Harry