What Made You A Mendes Fan?

[Mr Bill]

Well, I've delayed responding to this topic because of the limited free-time I've had lately. Plus most of the "senior regulars" (aka "The Corner Elites" in some circles) know the story...

Until I was twelve -- in 1972 -- I wasn't really into music. At twelve I started taking my movie-making seriously and was looking for music to play with my 8mm epics of hamsters and clay animated dinosaurs. My mom used to watch The Ben Hunter Show on LA's channel 11. Ben would show classic movies and at the commercial breaks tell anecdotes about the film, its cast or crew, much as AMC channel does today. Well, Ben's theme was just the thing I was looking for for my latest 8mm film. I asked my mom if she knew the song and she said she thought it was by Herb Alpert.

I immediately went to Mom and Dad's record collection and found all the TJB albums. None featured Ben's theme song, but I found a song that worked just as well (it was "Whipped Cream")... I was immediately taken by the music and loved all I heard. Curious, I looked at the pictures across the back of the LPs and perused the collection for others on A&M. I found I liked it all and even made some movies just to fit some songs! While I did find Sergio's debut I dismissed it intially as I was looking for instruemntal music for my films.

My dad, not happy I was playing with his vinyl, took me to a used record shop nearby called "Pal's Records" where I soon completed my TJB and BMB collections. I was also fortunate to find several 19000 series samplers and by age 15 was into Sergio, Claudine, Sandpipers, Montez, Ochs and the CTi label. The Sergio tune that hooked me was "Pretty World" as I had fallen in love with the TJB version off Warm and was curious as to what the words may be. To this day I'm not sure which I prefer -- Herb's or Sergio's...

Rock music would continue to turn me off (I even considered Carpenters "too hard" for my tastes) until the punk/new wave era. That era's reliance less on guitars and more on keyboards/synths and horns hooked em and I grew in my appreciation of rock music, sort of working my way backwards thru time to Elvis and Buddy Holly (whom I became fascinated with after Phil Ochs' Gunfight At Carnegie Hall).

Along the way I learned clarinet, marimba and drums and am happy to play marimba in my church praise band -- the first time I've played with others in nearly two decades. So I consider Herb Alpert and Julius Wechter the people responsible for the music side of creative soul (for film it's Walt Disney and Gene Roddenberry and for writing it's Robert Heinlein and Ogden Nash -- but those are stories for another time and place).

--Mr Bill
By the way -- the song Ben Hunter used was BMB's "Big Red" composed by BMB drummer Frank DeVito...

 

[Brasil_Nut]

What a sensational story, Bill. You ought to write a book about your love of film, how it came to be and how you came to like the music. Heck! I'd buy it!!

I also began my "A&M" collecting with most of the 19000 samplers, short of FAMILY PICNIC, which I bought many years later. MUSIC BOX and AMAZING SOUND SAMPLER were the first two that I bought.

Interesting take on Herb's version of "Pretty World". It was the other way around for me. I had somehow managed to miss adding WARM to my collection until I was in high school. I found it in a used record store. My Father, who had a 'complete' Herb Alpert & The TJB collection on reel-to-reel, had also managed to miss WARM along with SOUNDS LIKE. Both came into the fold when I bought them as Lps many years later.

I like Sergio's "Pretty World" better than Herb's -- not because I'm a Mendes fan, per se. It's just that I had expected Herb's version to be more upbeat than it was. I remember hearing it for the first time and thinking, "OK, Herb...when is it going to take off?" It grew on me with time, but I still prefer Sergio's version in the end.

I'm also particluar when it comes to Rock music, and always have been. It has to be a certain type of Rock to get my attention. Acts such as Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago appealed to me because they fused Rock, Jazz and Blues.

Jon

 

[JMK]

Re: BS&T. Did you catch last night's Simpsons? It had a hilarious cameo by David Clayton-Thomas singing the end of Spinning Wheel. The emcee then comes up and says "Thanks to Blood and Tears. So sorry to hear about Sweat."

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Simple...tuned in to the radio one night at the tender age of 11 and heard "For Me". That did it. Right there. Sergio (and especially Lani)!

---Michael Hagerty

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I remember when I first got into Mendes, I really liked the fast songs best but hated the slow ones. It wasn't until I "grew up" (well, sort of) that I realized how cool the slow songs can be. (Except "When Summer Turns to Snow" and "I Know You.")

Alpert was the same way for me. Loved the fast stuff, snored through the slow, but now some of the slow ones are my favorites.

 

[aymnostalgico]

My introduction to Mendes was by way of my older brother. Our parents had the "Look around" album for years before I listened to it, circa 1979. The album was at least 13 yrs old by then, but it caught my interest at the tender age of 8. For me, I think what did it was the vocal arrangements and the fact that some of the grooves actually gave you that floating feel. Roda was the song that opened it wide open for me and Sergio!