What is your favorite A&M Record?
- Thread starter Steven J. Gross
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DAN BOLTON
Well-Known Member
Well, mine would have to be Herb Alpert& the Tijuana Brass SRO...the best album they ever made, and the best A&M release ever. The group was just hitting it's stride...this was the definitive icon of '60's culture to me...that photo of them on the staircase just oozes '60's style and elegance to me...and the highlight of the album is Herb's take on "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"...THAT'S the way I like to remember the TJB.
Dan, thinking that the boys looked like they were ready to go to a country club after the cover shot...check out those jodphurs...I HAD to have a pair after I saw that cover...
Dan, thinking that the boys looked like they were ready to go to a country club after the cover shot...check out those jodphurs...I HAD to have a pair after I saw that cover...
Steven J. Gross
Well-Known Member
Steven J. Gross
Well-Known Member
I am going to say Herb Alpert and The TJB- "Warm". It is interesting that it was probably the biggest dissapointment in terms of TJB sales at the time of release. How this album never made it to CD is a mystery, especially when you think of the TJB stuff out there on CD. I once asked an A&M regular, Richard Warner, what his favorite TJB albums were, and his answer stuck with me- "just about every TJB album not put out on CD"!
To have "Colors" and boring "Definative" in the racks while 9th, SRO, What Now, Brass are Comin, Sounds Like are sitting in vaults, is truly bizzare, and Herb and Jerry, the guys who could have released them at will, chose not to.
To have "Colors" and boring "Definative" in the racks while 9th, SRO, What Now, Brass are Comin, Sounds Like are sitting in vaults, is truly bizzare, and Herb and Jerry, the guys who could have released them at will, chose not to.
Steven J. Gross said:
I think if you asked me this question a few years ago, I might have jumped at the answer of Warm, most especially because it WASN'T available on CD. I think I fell for the old trap of wanting being a greater thing than having. Warm wasn't available on CD (still isn't!), so I'd make tapes and wish for it to come out in the CD format. Later on I was able to make my own CD, which now gave it equal footing alongside the other TJB albums that I DID have. I still love the album, but now don't know if I'd rate it the highest of all possible A&M product. I might -- but then again I might not.
I felt similarly toward other unreleased-on-CD albums too, like most of Lani Hall's catalog, much of the Mendes catalog (until recently), and a nominee like Primal Roots isn't out of the question. But is Primal Roots really better than an Equinox or a Fool On The Hill? I'm not so sure anymore. Is Warm all that much better than Going Places? Or is it just that our desires make it seem so.
Above are a few of the albums I'm pondering. Going Places, Warm, Fool On The Hill, Primal Roots and quite a few others. I can't ignore candidates from Carpenters, Roger Nichols, Burt Bacharach, Baja Marimba Band, and even new-found favorites like Phil Ochs or even Veronique, though I'm reasonbly certain that those latter two are just current passing fancies, and that later on, the old stand-bys will one again make their way to the top.
Maybe my answer will be a homemade 50-disc compilation set of my favorites!
Harry
...not facing the hard choice yet, online,,,
I'd always wanted to put a Desert Island Disc feature up on the Corner. Maybe something to think about after the first of the year, or it could be as easy as a post-only (no-reply) forum section set up for that purpose.
I can pick one favorite from each artist, but from day to day, I'd pick a different favorite A&M album.
I would approach the question like this: which A&M album would I want to pick as the one most representative of the label, or which is the most important to A&M's success? If that were the case, I'd lean toward TJB's Whipped Cream. IMHO, it's the album that put A&M on the map.
I can pick one favorite from each artist, but from day to day, I'd pick a different favorite A&M album.
I would approach the question like this: which A&M album would I want to pick as the one most representative of the label, or which is the most important to A&M's success? If that were the case, I'd lean toward TJB's Whipped Cream. IMHO, it's the album that put A&M on the map.
Steven J. Gross
Well-Known Member
Another good poll would be to list the albums that would be considered A&M's 10 most influential. Something like Whipped Cream put the label on the map. Another, like Synchronicity by The Police, was IMHO the commercial and artistic high point of that band, as well as Sting...and spawned A&M's longest-running #1 hit, "Every Breath You Take."
That's a tough one, but if I had to take one LP to a desert isle and listen to it repeatedly it would be A. C. Jobim's WAVE (SP 3002). The songs on that one have so many dimensions there's a new level to be discovered with each play. Yet there's plenty of 'space' in each tune to keep the imagine occupied.
Since favorite Herb/TJB albums have been polled in the past, I think it would be fun to poll non-Herb A&M favorites. For the "record," my favorite Herb/TJB album is SOUNDS LIKE and favorite tune is "Treasure of San Miguel." Plenty of other wonderful numbers as well, especially "The Charmer," "Casino Royale" and "Wade in the Water."
JB
Since favorite Herb/TJB albums have been polled in the past, I think it would be fun to poll non-Herb A&M favorites. For the "record," my favorite Herb/TJB album is SOUNDS LIKE and favorite tune is "Treasure of San Miguel." Plenty of other wonderful numbers as well, especially "The Charmer," "Casino Royale" and "Wade in the Water."
JB
venturaguy49
Member
Very good choices there, J.B., and so I'll stretch the rules somewhat, and offer two albums, that for whatever reason, somehow defined the T.J.B. ...albums that just had a certain quality that one felt right at home with from the gitgo, and those gems are "S.R.O." and "Herb Alpert's Ninth". I'm not sure to this day why those two productions do so much for me, but they do.
Lol, maybe it was the fact that both were issued during Christmas that may have lent a certain magic, but be that as it may, those are my two faves...then me thinks of "South Of The Border", and how much I love it, and then "lonely Bull", and that cool eclectic mix of tunes....or the somewhat murky appeal of 'Volume 2', which is also a 'shoo-in'.
Oh well, when it comes to T.J.B. albums, I've loved them all, but if one must choose, based opon what just knocked them out on first hearing, the pair that I've submitted will have to be 'it'...but followed very closely by all the other fine T.J.B. albums, as there isn't one that I haven't listened to zillions of times over to, and enjoyed thoroughly, but haven said that, I also must agree with J.B.'s choice in the superb Jobim, but allow me place Carlos in the definative setting, with Astrid Gilberto and Stan Getz, 'cuz when one thinks of it, were'nt Astud and Stan the individuals most closely associated with A.C.J.?
Warm Wishes,
Steve
Lol, maybe it was the fact that both were issued during Christmas that may have lent a certain magic, but be that as it may, those are my two faves...then me thinks of "South Of The Border", and how much I love it, and then "lonely Bull", and that cool eclectic mix of tunes....or the somewhat murky appeal of 'Volume 2', which is also a 'shoo-in'.
Oh well, when it comes to T.J.B. albums, I've loved them all, but if one must choose, based opon what just knocked them out on first hearing, the pair that I've submitted will have to be 'it'...but followed very closely by all the other fine T.J.B. albums, as there isn't one that I haven't listened to zillions of times over to, and enjoyed thoroughly, but haven said that, I also must agree with J.B.'s choice in the superb Jobim, but allow me place Carlos in the definative setting, with Astrid Gilberto and Stan Getz, 'cuz when one thinks of it, were'nt Astud and Stan the individuals most closely associated with A.C.J.?
Warm Wishes,
Steve
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