🥂 50th WARM - Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass (SP-4190)

[Michael Hagerty]

Notice how the ad doesn't mention the Tijuana Brass (except on the album cover image). They were positioning Herb more as a solo performer and a singer, especially considering there were 3 vocal tracks on the album that were all released as singles.

I think I've mentioned it somewhere on here in 20+ years, but I always thought of WARM as a sort of Herb solo album---only his photo on the front and back covers and for that matter the poster offer on the inner sleeve, as well as several tracks where it's clearly just Herb and some studio session players.

They needed to keep the TJB name alive---there was still a TV special on the books ("The Brass Are Comin''), so it's "...and the Tijuana Brass" on the cover and label---but

 

[Harry]

Some WARM-era ads.

 

[Rudy]

I think I've mentioned it somewhere on here in 20+ years, but I always thought of WARM as a sort of Herb solo album

I have as well albeit in recent years, I don't think it's a very good one. Too many weak cuts IMHO. But it's a first step nonetheless and given how tired his horn sounded on Beat, it's not surprising he wanted a change. It led to much better things like the Herb/Hugh records.

 

[Bobberman]

But it's a first step nonetheless and given how tired his horn sounded on Beat, it's not surprising he wanted a change. It led to much better things like the Herb/Hugh records.

He had to start somewhere somehow and someway I thought Warm And Summertime were kind of Transitional albums of sorts as well as the two Mid 70S T.J.B albums onward He was slowly but surely Evolving and moving away from what most people came to expect Herb even said in interviews "People were wanting the Tijuana Brass forever but he wanted to move on. I admire him for that however I will never have a problem or issue with him revisiting his TJB style every now and then

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Given some of his recent musical choices, I can't help but think there is still one TJB album in him that's trying to get out. I wish he would let it happen.

 

[Bobberman]

Given some of his recent musical choices, I can't help but think there is still one TJB album in him that's trying to get out. I wish he would let it happen.

I happen to agree with you Mike. Let's Hope.

 

[Rudy]

"People were wanting the Tijuana Brass forever but he wanted to move on.

Most record buyers would have been happy with Going Places every six months until they got tired of it and moved on. It feels like Warm was a tentative first step, but Coney Island was the real move towards a solo project as it wasn't the hodge podge that Summertime and You Smile felt like. Even those two T.J.B. albums pushed away from "Tijuana Brass" as the group name, although in hindsight it didn't matter as the public still attached Herb's name to the old group. Coney would have sold even fewer copies with only Herb named as the artist, unfortunately.

He really seemed revitalized working with Hugh, though, and that also allowed him to finally shed the Tijuana Brass and T.J.B. names permanently. It just took a handful of albums before he seemed comfortable musically with the results. (To me, anyway, Coney and Herb/Hugh feel the most confident of anything recorded since he first topped the charts. The bands were top notch, and they felt more cohesive as singly-recorded projects rather than assemblage of tracks recorded at different times, often with different musicians.)

It also shows how hard it is to shed one image for a new one. That was something he seemed to want to do since around the time Warm was recorded. Lani's comment "this isn't you" back then was right on the money. More so than they both realized at the time!

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Most record buyers would have been happy with Going Places every six months until they got tired of it and moved on.

Worth noting, the TJB slump had already begun. NINTH was the worst-performing album since SOUTH OF THE BORDER and God only knows how BEAT OF THE BRASS would have fared if "This Guy's In Love With You" hadn't been recorded.

 

[martin]

Worst and worst... Ninth went to no 4 on the Billboard album chart and spent 18 weeks there... That is not a bad performance anyway you see it. It is only natural that an artist's output varies a bit when it comes to sales and chart performance... The really big slump came with The Brass Are Comin'. It was the end of a decade, and the TJB was tired. Even Warm went gold very quickly and Christmas Album was HUGE ( and still is...)

- greetings from the North -
Martin

 

[rockdoctor]

Worst and worst... Ninth went to no 4 on the Billboard album chart and spent 18 weeks there... That is not a bad performance anyway you see it. It is only natural that an artist's output varies a bit when it comes to sales and chart performance... The really big slump came with The Brass Are Comin'. It was the end of a decade, and the TJB was tired. Even Warm went gold very quickly and Christmas Album was HUGE ( and still is...)

- greetings from the North -
Martin

Ironically, Christmas Album never charted (according to Wikipedia) but had sold enough to get the gold status.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Ironically, Christmas Album never charted (according to Wikipedia) but had sold enough to get the gold status.

At the time, Billboard kept a separate Christmas albums chart and did not include them in the Top 200 Albums. If they had, there's no doubt the Christmas Album would have charted.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I can still see myself passing the "record department" of our local variety store the year the Christmas Album came out. They had a rack of random Christmas albums and I remember thinking, "I'm surprised there isn't a Tijuana Brass Christmas album." A second later, I saw it -- I hadn't even heard it was coming out. I can't remember if I bought it then and there or a few days later, but it wasn't long until I was driving my family crazy with TJB Christmas tunes. This was a year or two before we added the music department into our auto parts store -- at the time, all we had was a couple of 8-track decks and a small rack of tapes.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Worst and worst... Ninth went to no 4 on the Billboard album chart and spent 18 weeks there...

For clarity, it was 19 weeks between NINTH's debut on the Billboard album chart and it falling out of the top 30 LPs.

NINTH did peak at #4, but only for two weeks (its eighth and ninth weeks on the chart). It fell out of the top ten in its 14th week, out of the top 20 in its 15th, and out of the top 30 in its 18th.

That is not a bad performance anyway you see it. It is only natural that an artist's output varies a bit when it comes to sales and chart performance...

When four of an artist's last five albums go to #1, and the one that didn't goes to #2 (up against SERGEANT PEPPER), then a peak of #4 is a cause for concern.

There were also other signs.

WHIPPED CREAM spent 185 weeks on the Billboard album chart. GOING PLACES, 164. WHAT NOW MY LOVE, 129.

Chart longevity begins to suffer in 1967. SRO (peaked at #2) only lasts 85 weeks on the Billboard album chart. SOUNDS LIKE makes it to #1, but is gone in 53 weeks.

And NINTH, peaking at #4, is off the chart in 49 weeks.

And that goes back to my initial point---the machine had been slowing since SRO. If Herb had never released "This Guy's In Love With You", or did but didn't include it in BEAT OF THE BRASS, would that album have continued the trend of lower peaks and less chart time?

The really big slump came with The Brass Are Comin'. It was the end of a decade, and the TJB was tired. Even Warm went gold very quickly

Yeah, but that's game over. I'm talking about the identifiable slowdown that preceded it.

WARM peaked at #28, THE BRASS ARE COMIN' at #30. WARM only had six weeks more on the chart (26 to TBAC's 20).

The RIAA says WARM was certified Gold on March 26, 1970----that's eight months after release. BEAT OF THE BRASS went Gold in two months, and NINTH immediately upon release (did A&M invent "shipping Gold")?

Again, it's worth remembering that chart peaks and sales aren't related to each other. A chart peak is simply how a record did in relation to all the other records on its best week. And prior to the RIAA inventing Platinum, Gold didn't tell you much other than half a million albums got moved. Both WARM and WHIPPED CREAM are Gold.

 

[martin]

Well, if you had had inside knowledge of the music business, and how it worked in the 60's and early 70's you would have known that this was a totally normal development for an artist in those days. The output that artists did in the 60's were two albums a year, and lots of singles in between. No one really expected longevity. That improved a lot later, with more professional managements, and of course today it is totally different.

- greetings from the north -
Martin

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Well, if you had had inside knowledge of the music business, and how it worked in the 60's and early 70's you would have known that this was a totally normal development for an artist in those days. The output that artists did in the 60's were two albums a year, and lots of singles in between. No one really expected longevity. That improved a lot later, with more professional managements, and of course today it is totally different.

- greetings from the north -
Martin

Martin, my inside knowledge starts in 1971.

What's missing from that analysis is that Herb Alpert and the TJB outsold the Beatles in albums in 1966, and was the engine that pulled more than its own weight for the A&M label. Herb and Jerry wouldn't have bought the Chaplin Studios without it.

Yes, eventually everyone's plane lands. But, especially with that much riding on it, you look for signs of weakness.

Again, the primary point I was making (the rest was context in support of it hoping to avoid misunderstanding) was:

(screen goes all wavy, harp music plays)

God only knows how BEAT OF THE BRASS would have fared if "This Guy's In Love With You" hadn't been recorded.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

You can put me squarely in the camp of "YES, the Beat of the Brass album would have done severely worse if Herb hadn't recorded "This Guy." Credit for this has to go to the TV special's director, who is the one who suggested to Herb that he sing a song on the special. Even then, haven't we established that the song wasn't planned for the album until the phone lines lit up after the special aired?

The reason I'm so confident in this opinion is simple: There were no big TJB hit singles after "This Guy." The Brass never saw the north side of the Hot 100 again. If Herb had scaled the upper reaches of the charts with "Monday Monday" or "Slick," then things might have been different. Instead, A&M kept releasing more vocal singles -- three off of the Warm album. They were clearly trying to exploit Herb's new-found vocal skills. What they didn't realize at the time was that it was a one-shot deal. A lightning strike. In a way, "This Guy" was a novelty record -- a vocal hit by a non-singer.

The TJB's decline may have also been helped along, in part, by the fact that they had so many albums out. I remember seeing John Denver on the Tonight Show once. He recalled asking a fan at a concert "Do you have my new album?" She said no, and he asked why. She said "I've already got six of your albums, I don't need another one."

 

[Michael Hagerty]

You can put me squarely in the camp of "YES, the Beat of the Brass album would have done severely worse if Herb hadn't recorded "This Guy." Credit for this has to go to the TV special's director, who is the one who suggested to Herb that he sing a song on the special. Even then, haven't we established that the song wasn't planned for the album until the phone lines lit up after the special aired?

The reason I'm so confident in this opinion is simple: There were no big TJB hit singles after "This Guy." The Brass never saw the north side of the Hot 100 again. If Herb had scaled the upper reaches of the charts with "Monday Monday" or "Slick," then things might have been different.

And since you've mentioned singles, there were signs of trouble there, too.

TJB albums rarely had the support of hit singles behind them---and songs we think of as TJB hits had relatively low chart peaks, apart from "A Taste of Honey" (#7---the highest peak before "This Guy's In Love With You") and "Zorba the Greek" (#11).

"Tijuana Taxi" stopped at #38. "Spanish Flea" at #27.

Even "Casino Royale" peaked at #27. And from there, right up until "This Guy", it was declining chart peaks for the singles:

"The Happening" #32, "A Banda" #35, "Carmen" #51, "Cabaret" #72.

Instead, A&M kept releasing more vocal singles -- three off of the Warm album. They were clearly trying to exploit Herb's new-found vocal skills. What they didn't realize at the time was that it was a one-shot deal. A lightning strike. In a way, "This Guy" was a novelty record -- a vocal hit by a non-singer.

But, if you're A&M, and you're in that horrible sales year of 1969, and you've been tracking the trajectory all along, it's logical. And "Zazueira", released between "To Wait For Love" and "Without Her", charted lower than the vocals (51/78/63).

The TJB's decline may have also been helped along, in part, by the fact that they had so many albums out. I remember seeing John Denver on the Tonight Show once. He recalled asking a fan at a concert "Do you have my new album?" She said no, and he asked why. She said "I've already got six of your albums, I don't need another one."

Oh, man...I can hear so many voices of my mom's generation in that answer. And that was a hazard for an artist who had adult fans and an established sound---they weren't waiting to hear what John Denver or Herb were going to do next. They expected more of the same, and when they were bored with it, that's it.

You can get around that, if you're lucky, by constantly evolving (see: Beatles), but even if you're that interesting, you're usually not also that commercial for that long.

 

[rockdoctor]

For clarity, it was 19 weeks between NINTH's debut on the Billboard album chart and it falling out of the top 30 LPs.

NINTH did peak at #4, but only for two weeks (its eighth and ninth weeks on the chart). It fell out of the top ten in its 14th week, out of the top 20 in its 15th, and out of the top 30 in its 18th.



When four of an artist's last five albums go to #1, and the one that didn't goes to #2 (up against SERGEANT PEPPER), then a peak of #4 is a cause for concern.

There were also other signs.

WHIPPED CREAM spent 185 weeks on the Billboard album chart. GOING PLACES, 164. WHAT NOW MY LOVE, 129.

Chart longevity begins to suffer in 1967. SRO (peaked at #2) only lasts 85 weeks on the Billboard album chart. SOUNDS LIKE makes it to #1, but is gone in 53 weeks.

And NINTH, peaking at #4, is off the chart in 49 weeks.

And that goes back to my initial point---the machine had been slowing since SRO. If Herb had never released "This Guy's In Love With You", or did but didn't include it in BEAT OF THE BRASS, would that album have continued the trend of lower peaks and less chart time?



Yeah, but that's game over. I'm talking about the identifiable slowdown that preceded it.

WARM peaked at #28, THE BRASS ARE COMIN' at #30. WARM only had six weeks more on the chart (26 to TBAC's 20).

The RIAA says WARM was certified Gold on March 26, 1970----that's eight months after release. BEAT OF THE BRASS went Gold in two months, and NINTH immediately upon release (did A&M invent "shipping Gold")?

Again, it's worth remembering that chart peaks and sales aren't related to each other. A chart peak is simply how a record did in relation to all the other records on its best week. And prior to the RIAA inventing Platinum, Gold didn't tell you much other than half a million albums got moved. Both WARM and WHIPPED CREAM are Gold.

Ironically, if you look at the RIAA website, only Volume Two and Ninth are listed as gold.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Maybe you have to pay to be listed there, the same way you have to pay to be certified.

And "Zazueira", released between "To Wait For Love" and "Without Her", charted lower than the vocals (51/78/63).

I guess I have always considered "Zazuiera" to be a vocal song, although I realize it has more "horn lines" than vocal ones. In that sense it really is an instrumental. But at least it sounds like a TJB record - you can't really say that about "To Wait for Love" or "Without Her."

 

[Harry]

I always though of "Zazueira" as a trade-off song with Sergio Mendes, while Sergio and company did "Pretty World", a TjB-ish song.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Ironically, if you look at the RIAA website, only Volume Two and Ninth are listed as gold.

Not sure what page you're looking at, but:

Gold & Platinum - RIAA

www.riaa.com

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Maybe you have to pay to be listed there, the same way you have to pay to be certified.

And that's how misinformation spreads online. You don't have to pay to be listed there. Rockdoctor was looking at the wrong page.

I guess I have always considered "Zazuiera" to be a vocal song, although I realize it has more "horn lines" than vocal ones. In that sense it really is an instrumental. But at least it sounds like a TJB record - you can't really say that about "To Wait for Love" or "Without Her."

Agree. When I first heard "Zazuiera" on the radio, my first thought was that the TJB had returned to form---and like CHRISTMAS ALBUM, had found a way to work a vocal group into the mix.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

I always though of "Zazueira" as a trade-off song with Sergio Mendes, while Sergio and company did "Pretty World", a TjB-ish song.

Interesting take. They're both Brazilian songs, and I was very surprised by Herb's arrangement of "Pretty World", but I love it.

 

[Harry]

Interesting take. They're both Brazilian songs, and I was very surprised by Herb's arrangement of "Pretty World", but I love it.

Yeah, on my listened-to radio station, bot "Zazueira" and "Pretty World" were played around the same time and it seemed to me that "Zazueira" would have been at home on a Brasil '66 record, and "Pretty World" with its Alpert-like trumpet backing could have been a TjB tune.

My theory proved sort-of correct when WARM came out and "Pretty World" was on it. But as always, Herb turned it sideways and came up with WARM's slow-burning version.

That radio station even had a PAMS jingle that mimicked "Pretty World".

 

[Rudy]

Oh, man...I can hear so many voices of my mom's generation in that answer. And that was a hazard for an artist who had adult fans and an established sound---they weren't waiting to hear what John Denver or Herb were going to do next. They expected more of the same, and when they were bored with it, that's it.

Yep, and that goes back to my point about the average record buyer. They'd be happy with variations on the same Going Places formula until they got tired of everything TJB and moved on. It wasn't the albums themselves they had an issue with, it was just the volume of music, and that "more of a good thing" feeling works for them...until it doesn't. And that's how we get millions of Whipped Cream records at the thrift stores.