🎵 AotW GREATEST HITS - Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass

If you've owned or heard this album, how would you rate it?

  • * * * * * (Best)

    Votes: 4 23.5%
  • * * * *

    Votes: 8 47.1%
  • * * * (Average)

    Votes: 2 11.8%
  • * *

    Votes: 3 17.6%
  • * (Worst)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Haven't heard this album

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    17

Harry

Charter A&M Corner Member
Staff member
Site Admin
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GREATEST HITS
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
SP 4245

Released on CD as CD 3267
Produced by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss
RIAA certified Gold (4/12/71)
Album released 1970

Track Listing:

1 Lonely Bull (from The Lonely Bull)
2 Spanish Flea (from !!Going Places!!)
3 Getting Sentimental Over You (from !!Going Places!!)
4 Love Potion #9 (from Whipped Cream & Other Delights)
5 Never On Sunday (from The Lonely Bull)
6 Mexican Shuffle (from South Of The Border)
7 Taste of Honey (from Whipped Cream & Other Delights)
8 Tijuana Taxi (from !!Going Places!!)
9 South Of The Border (from South Of The Border)
10 America (from Volume Two)
11 Whipped Cream (from Whipped Cream & Other Delights)
12 Zorba The Greek (from !!Going Places!!)
 
Here's the track list from the German version, (1 LP 2320 003):

Lonely Bull/ Tijuana Taxi/ Spanish Flea/ Wade in the Water/ Mame/ Zorba the Greek (side one);

Taste of Honey/ Hello Dolly/ This Guy's in love with you/ A Banda/ If I were a rich man/ Marjorine (side two).

Inner gatefold has close-up Herb photo at left, 12 TJB Lps' cover art at right. German LONELY BULL has photo of band standing on bleachers; VOL 2 cover shows band leaning on stair rail.

JB
 
I've decided to go ahead and start our next weekly AOTW topic a bit early. I'll be out of town next week, and don't yet know if I'll be online. Since Herb & the boys are rather important to our overall experience here, I don't think anyone will mind if we give them a bit more time. (My apologies to all of the many Willie Bobo fans out there!)

Initially I had a bit of mixed feelings about GREATEST HITS when it was released in 1970. On the up side, here was a chance to get new clean copies of all of the early favorite TJB tracks. On the down side, the rumors were flying that the TJB had broken up and there would be no more albums, and that I already did own all of these tracks -- almost. Until this album came out, I'd not yet heard "The Lonely Bull", "Never On Sunday", and "America" in stereo. My copies of those first two LPs were still mono, so there was *some* justification for buying this album.

Of course, like other fans, I scanned the track list and instantly noticed that nothing from WHAT NOW MY LOVE forward was represented on this LP. "A-ha, a GREATEST HITS VOLUME 2 was surely down the road," I concluded. I guess I was right, but SOLID BRASS came along first to stand as a Volume 2 to this one.

As has been noted here before, the spine of the LP actually spells out "Herb Albert", a fact that HAD to really irk Herb at the time -- maybe to this day!

I've mentioned it before, but I'll say it again here. The mastering on the CD version of this album is among the best A&M ever released on Compact Disc. The highs are crisp and the dropouts are kept to a minimum. I hope that any subsequent releases can be this good.

One other note, while I don't own many store-bought cassettes, I DO own this one, and the track list is jumbled a bit. I'm told that was standard practice in those days to equalize the timing of the two sides of an album.

Harry
...noting that someone's already replied before I got THIS posted!, online...
 
I remember some early A&M tapes would rearrange tracks to even out the timing. Others didn't. My first two A&M cassettes, Summertime (TJB) and As Time Goes By (BMB) were rearranged from what I was familiar with on the LPs, and timings were usually within a minute from side to side.

Reel tapes were odd--some remained the same, like Whipped Cream, which had a silence at the beginning of the tape that lasted a few minutes, and yet kept the same track order. Fool On The Hill (B66) rearranges the tracks. Crystal Illusions kept the order. We And The Sea (Tamba 4) starts side two with the title track (rather than ending side 1 with it), then edits a couple of minutes out of "Consolation"...this never made sense. (And what a shock it was to hear the LP with an additional section I'd never heard before--I owned the reel first!)

8-tracks were always rearranged to split the tape into four nearly equal programs, if possible. The TJB Greatest Hits I once heard back then did have a different track order.

Later A&M cassettes (circa late 70's) kept things equal to the LP.

This is probably my favorite TJB compilation, albeit one of the shortest. The only song I would remove is "Never On Sunday", since that has never been a song I've liked, no matter who does it. It's the only compilation that seemingly doesn't overlook the Volume 2 album ("America" has always been a favorite track of mine). IMHO, "What Now My Love" could have been slipped into the set in place of "Never On Sunday" (which, IIRC, wasn't even a hit) and it still would have fallen into the early-album theme.

What's interesting is that this package was released after The Brass Are Comin', and yet only includes tracks up through Going Places. Possibly to rekindle interest in the TJB? For that matter, at this point in the TJB's career, a double-album would have been easy to fill...although it would have conflicted with the more recently released albums.

My own custom Greatest Hits relegates "Lonely Bull" to a different spot in the lineup, and instead starts with "Tijuana Taxi". And "Sunday" is axed. :D Then most of the 2nd Greatest Hits follows, and is padded with some favorites from Foursider. Makes for a nice 80 minute CD.
 
Harry said:
(My apologies to all of the many Willie Bobo fans out there!)

Willie WHO? :wink:

Actually, Willie Bobo had played on many of Cal Tjader's sessions, and a few other Latin recordings that I have. But beyond that, I'm not at all familiar with his own recordings. Such is the story with Mongo Santamaria, another percussionist who has played with almost everyone, and yet all I own is a two-CD Rhino retrospective, and a Fantasy Greatest Hits LP. As a whole, there are few "percussionist" musicians that I can listen to an entire album of, unless they are a bandleader like Tito Puente. (Not referring to melodic percussion like vibraphone or marimba, though.)
 
Rudy said:
The TJB Greatest Hits I once heard back then did have a different track order.

I rescued the sealed new cassette from a cheap bin in a record store. It looked like it needed a home. :)

The order on this cassette is:

Program 1:

Lonely Bull
Tijuana Taxi
America
Love Potion #9
Never On Sunday
Whipped Cream

Program 2:

A Taste Of Honey
Spanish Flea
South Of The Border
Getting Sentimental Over You
Mexican Shuffle
Zorba The Greek

I just thought of a new term for this re-ordering: the Mexican shuffle. :) Nah!

Rudy said:
What's interesting is that this package was released after The Brass Are Comin', and yet only includes tracks up through Going Places. Possibly to rekindle interest in the TJB? For that matter, at this point in the TJB's career, a double-album would have been easy to fill...although it would have conflicted with the more recently released albums.

I just automatically assumed that somewhere down the line, a Volume 2 would be issued. In fact I recall attempting to figure out what tracks would be put onto a Volume 2. I wouldn't be surprised to find that list inside an album jacket somewhere...

Harry
NP: radio at work
 
As it turned out, Greatest Hits Volume 2 worked out to be an album of Herb Alpert's favorite things, vs. actual "hits". And to be honest, I probably like his own selections better than what actually were hits. :)

-= N =-
 
Like Harry,I,too,was apprehensive about a TJB "Greatest Hits" collection and the series in general. The label was expanding from an MOR sound and was experiencing success with rock(Joe Cocker's first album immediately comes to mind). This was a label beyond "hits"-who cared what was playing on the radio as long as a new collection of Herb,Sergio or Julius was around the corner. It looked now that "hits " really did mean something to them(and it did). Innocence lost....Because of the redundancy of material,I never picked up any of these collections sealed but picked them up second hand as years went by. Strange that even when the packaging of SP4245 was changed from the cheapo gatefold to a cheapo regular sleeve that the" Herb Albert" error remained. But it only took Columbia about 40 years to change Cannonball "Adderly" to "Adderley" on Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue". Mac
 
And a seperate note about Willie Bobo-His 1968 "New Dimensions" is included with those Verve mini-LP CDs released with Sergio's "Equinox". A&M ties abound. Tunes include "Look of Love" and "This Guy's in Love with You" as well as future duet partner for Herb, Hugh Masekela's "Grazin' in the Grass". Don Sebesky arranges. Personnel includes Jimmy Owens and Phil "Brass Ring" Bodner. By the time the A&M album would have been released,Verve was in a financial downward spiral as MGM went South. Looks like A&M would have been the perfect place for Willie. Mac
 
IIRC, this AOTW may have been the very first TJB album I bought myself. My parents could never figure this out--we already owned all of the songs, so why did I want them again? First of all, ours were all mono LPs, and this was my first one in stereo (for my very own record player :D ). Ironically, I got less resistance for the BMB Greatest Hits since we didn't yet have all of the albums, and a couple years later I also bought Solid Brass with only the slightest amount of flack. Foursider was a no-brainer by this point--I ended up getting it as an Xmas gift.

-= N =-
 
Harry said:
Since Herb & the boys are rather important to our overall experience here, I don't think anyone will mind if we give them a bit more time. (My apologies to all of the many Willie Bobo fans out there!)

Apology accepted! :D Actually, I highly recommend a Verve twofer CD that pairs the LPs Spanish Grease and Uno Dos Tres. More economical than the recently released mini-LP, and probably better musically as well.


As for the AOTW at hand, I've never heard it. I've heard all of the tracks, of course, but not in this order. I'm rather like Rudy's parents in that respect. If I already have all the tunes on the original albums, there's a 0% chance I'll buy them again on a compilation. I'm a completist in the musical sense rather than in the numerical sense.


- William
 
William said:
As for the AOTW at hand, I've never heard it. I've heard all of the tracks, of course, but not in this order. I'm rather like Neil's parents in that respect. If I already have all the tunes on the original albums, there's a 0% chance I'll buy them again on a compilation. I'm a completist in the musical sense rather than in the numerical sense.

It appears I've picked up (inherited?) that habit, since I also collect for musical reasons, not to own every variation of compilation that is released. There are exceptions, of course, since I apparently own most of the domestic TJB compilations anyway. But for most other artists that I collect in "deep catalog", I'll occasionally buy a box set if it's available, plus individual albums, but as a rule will avoid a hits collection unless it has a "must-have" song that's not on any other CD. (I really have to want it, too...usually, a clean LP copy is good enough.)

Plus, if you have all the songs and really like a compilation, it's 25 cents and 20 minutes to drop it onto a CD-R. :)
 
I remember well when GH were released up here. It was in May or June 1970. I was an eleven year old fan and while I was thrilled over the photos and the cover, I was disappointed to find that I already had all the songs on other LPs. Spending money on GH at that time was out of the question.
LP Jim's info is not totally correct in that the German pressing released here was exactly the same as the US version. Same cover, same tracks. But a year or so later the other version came out of A & M London.
Only a month after GH, another full price TJB compilation was released here:
"Down Mexico Way". It was probably intended as a "salute" to the World Soccer Championship taking place in Mexico City that summer with a photo collage in the shape of a soccer ball and a background photo of the soccer arena in Mexico City.

- greetings from the warm and sunny north -

Martin
 
GREATEST HITS was the second Tijuana Brass album I bought myself on 8 track.

I had bought the GOING PLACES LP for my mom for Mother's Day, and had bought WHAT NOW MY LOVE for myslef, and I had previously been given an 8T of GOING PLACES. I was shocked to find that on that tape, almost of the "slow" part of "Zorba the Greek" was edited out. (The beginning, with the guitar strums was left in, but where Herb should have started the slow trumpet part, it skipped ahead to the "DAH-da-da-da...." part where it starts to speed back up.)

Then when I got the tape of GREATEST HITS, not only was Zorba edited (although not as drastically as on my GP 8track) but "America" was shortened as well. The whole second half of the bridge (where the kids are singing along) was cut out. It wasn't until I had an 8track of VOLUME 2 that I heard the whole version of that song.

Anyway, I finally wised up and got the LP, and managed to snag the CD just before it went out of print a while ago. Harry's right, the sound on it is great. And, it is the only TJB album to provide track-by-track comments (on the LP liner), something I hope is carried through to future reissues.
 
And those liner notes (courtesy of my OCR software with the scanner) are:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Champlin said:
When the blahs and the turmoils of the 1960s eventually fade away (as they will, really they will) and only our best memories remain, it will turn out that the soundtrack for the very finest of those memories was provided by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
Amusing, sophisticated, optimistic, faintly exotic yet All-American, upbeat and enthusiastic, impudent and romantic-Herb's TJB blend of two-beat and tortillas, of Dixieland and mariachi, trumpets and guitars, proved to have a freshness that won't quit.
This new album is drawn from the earlier TJB albums which by now have sold a phenomenal 35 million copies in the domestic market alone and additional millions abroad. The Brass sound, international in flavor to begin with, has proved instantly appealing to international audiences everywhere, as the TJB's SRO concerts abroad have confirmed.
Listening again to this lovely dozen, I think you will be newly impressed at the range Herb and the Brass covered without losing that strong, light, engaging and unmistakable beat. I think you will also be astonished-pleasantly-at how much a part of all our lives these songs have become.

SIDE ONE
The Lonely Bull. The tune which began it all, recorded in 1962. Herb Alpert searched for a bullring sound that would somehow fit a haunting melody a friend of his had written. He found it, and the TJB was born.

Spanish Flea. Recorded in 1965, this one of the two most famous sides the TJB have ever done. It provided half the soundtrack of an Academy Award-winning cartoon by John and Faith Hubley. The infectious melody is unforgettable.

I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. Herb's tribute to the late, great bandleader Tommy Dorsey took his slow ballad theme way uptempo, with a marvelous lilt, and great respect.

Love Potion #9. A stand-out personal appearance crowd request item, it's a stompin', sexy bit of music to watch an ecdysiast by. From the Whipped Cream album, a 7 million seller.

Never On Sunday. Another of the earliest TJB classics, recorded in 1962, it's become the most familiar of all the versions of the famous movie theme.

Mexican Shuffle. One of the first great Tijuana Brass hits, helped to fame by being part of a chewing gum commercial. It was recorded in 1964 at the Gold Star recording studio in Hollywood, site of many of the monumental TJB sessions engineered by Larry Levine.


SIDE TWO
A Taste of Honey. This gigantic hit, the epitome of the Brass sound, propulsive and exciting, won the Grammy award from NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) as the record of the year for 1965.

Tijuana Taxi. This is the second of the TJB sides which threatened to become the new national anthem. It provided the other half of the soundtrack for that Oscar-winning cartoon. It helped make 1965 a vintage year for taxi horns, Herb, the Brass and their listeners.

South of the Border. This is early (1963) Alpert, melodic, plaintive, rhythmic but lyrical and romantic. The sweet side of the group at its best.

America. Another early favorite, from 1963, a rollicking showtune which showed another side of the TJB style.

Whipped Cream. The swinging title song from the best-selling of all the Brass albums, it was still another of the catchy originals which Herb and the group.discovered and made their own. It was one of their 1964 hits.

Zorba the Greek. With its changing tempos and rhythmic complexities, this 1966 hit has been one of the most ambitious arrangements in the TJB repertoire. In fact, the sessions at which it was recorded lasted 17 hours before Herb, a perfectionist, was absolutely satisfied.

All in all, it's an impressive slice of popular musical history you hold in your hand. And it retains its flavor, which is a test of good art, popular or classical. - CHARLES CHAMPLIN Los Angeles Times

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harry
...noting that the scanner came up with "Mexican Shuttle", online...
 
That last line of Champlin's says it all, doesn't it? I'd like to start a poll...who was/is the artist who "speaks" for the decade or generation? In the '20's and '30's, one could argue for George Gershwin: for the '40's, I'd pick Glenn Miller-with Benny Goodman close behind: the '50's would have to be divided between Elvis and Shorty Rogers: the '60's would have to be the TJB with a nod to the Beatles...but then it gets harder, maybe because the lines between artists' categories seemed to get blurred...there was certainly more variety,and artists didn't dominate the charts for as long...do the BeeGees set the tone for the '70's? I don't know...Jacko for the '80's? Who for the '90's? Eminem or Nelly for the '00's[I HOPE not...]? What do some of you think?

I'll recap and complete my list...

teens'- Scott Joplin

'20's- George Gershwin

'30's Gershwin again

'40's- Glenn Miller[honorable mention-Benny Goodman]

'50's- Elvis Presley/Shorty Rogers[honorable mention-Buddy Holly]??/??

'60's- Herb Alpert/TJB[honorable mention-The Beatles]

'70's- BeeGees

'80's- Michael Jackson

'90's- ???


I'm sure this will end up being another thread, and that's okay...please feel obliged to differ with this list, also...there are others I'd like to put somewhere, but I'm not sure they really speak for the particular decade...The Doobies? Steely Dan? Nirvana? Celine Dion? Gloria Estefan? Did Paul McCartney influence the music scene in the '70's as much as the BeeGees did? How about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys? Could they be as important as the TJB or Beatles?

Over the years, who really speaks for each decade? Who stands the test of time and emerges as the dominant artist for each decade?


Dan
 
Well, while I have all the love and respect for the Tijuana Brass, I would have to say the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys and the Who are the most definitive 60s bands, with (in my view) the Beatles occupying the top of the heap. After all, they are still getting played on the radio today...the TJB, by and large, is not. Which is a shame! but a fact.

The 70s? I would have to go with Elton John and the Eagles, with honorable mention to Fleetwood Mac and the Bee Gees. EJ hit his peak through the whole decade and remains popular; the Eagles have the best selling album of all time (THEIR GREATEST HITS) and are still a popular concert draw. Fleetwood Mac had the most successful album of the decade (RUMOURS) plus the preceding album which rode the charts for a year before finally hitting #1. The Bee Gees, for better or worse, introduced Dance music to the masses (notice I didn't say disco...the BGs were NOT a disco band!) but it wasn't until the late part of the decade that they became massive.

The 80s? Yep, gotta be Michael Jackson. He's a freak now, but at that time, everyone and their dog was buying that THRILLER album (I know, cause I was selling'em by the boxload!)

The 90s, I would have to say was defined more by a genre (rap) than by a single artist. I'll leave that subject to others to comment on, even though I don't like the stuff any more than most of the rest here.
 
Hmmm...60's, yes, I'd actually give the nod to the British Invasion--from Beatles to the Rolling Stones and The Who (along with the very early rumblings of Led Zeppelin, aka New Yardbirds). The Beach Boys did have their niche of "surf music".

70's I'd tip the hat to Fleetwood Mac, and of course, would include Bee Gees solely for the explosion that Saturday Night Live created. (It was irrelevant that the movie itself sucked--the film could have lost money and still been offset by selling those millions of copies of the soundtrack.) Hard rock, definitely, would be Led Zeppelin as far as influence, since their star shone throughout the 70's. I still have yet to hear any of the harder rock bands NOT steal a Jimmy Page lick or pick up on the influences Led Zep had in their music--everything from American blues to middle-eastern.

The 80's, of course, stolen by Michael Jackson in his pre-freak era. I would also honor U2, especially for their masterpiece The Joshua Tree, as well as all the fine albums that preceded it. They were a precursor to what would happen in the 90's.

For the 90's, I would say one of the most influential bands would have been Nirvana, which not only became the de-facto leader of the grunge movement, but also signalled the beginning of what became known as "alternative rock." Pearl Jam was also there at the beginning, but IMHO, they didn't have the same immediacy that Nirvana did.

Although some can't stand his 10-gallon hat, or 100-gallon ego, Garth Brooks did for "young country" music in the 90's what the Bee Gees did for disco in 1978. Without Garth, there would have been no Alan Jackson, no Brooks & Dunn, no Shania Twang, etc.

Rap started in the late 70's...and unfortunately hasn't died out yet. :mad: Although I refuse to call it "music" anyway, more like a social disease. :confused:

We're too early to tell what's going to happen this decade...but musically, I haven't heard anything new yet, other than a pathetic overall blandness. :confused:

-= N =-
 
I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to pop/rock music after the sixties - it seems like I sort of quit listening after about 1970 or so. In my opinion, there hasn't been much really interesting going on in the last 30 years or so.
There have been a lot of individuals and groups selling lots of records - but they didn't sell any to me.Just didn't care for what most of them were doing.
I'm familiar with some of the post sixties stuff mostly just because I was alive and breathing while it was going on - not because I was or am a fan of any of it.
Maybe I've just gotten older - but most of it simply doesn't appeal to me - I'd rather hear the thirties and forties music than the seventies and on to the present.
The word "rap" rhymes with "crap" and that's where all that is - as far as I am concerned. I do believe that rap has a destructive influence on the listener far more than is commonly thought. Believe it or not, I have witnessed first hand some of the destructive effects that rap has produced in the minds of many listeners. It is definitely something that is a scourge on the culture and those who listen to it. We are definitely worse off for the rap-crap.
I agree unfortunately that Herb Alpert and the TJB don't have the status of a "defining" influence in the 60s, and probably the other groups mentioned,especially the Beatles,Rolling Stones, and Beach Boys are more in that category.But I think that Herb/TJB are definitely a substantial contributor to the overall musical environment and atmosphere of the 60s. Maybe not exactly defining, but surely significant when all is considered. If I were making a "soundtrack" of the times, Herb/TJB would be featured throughout.
 
And to expand on Captaindave's comments: ever since the Beatles hit the chart, instrumental music had just about been cut off completely from the music charts. The TJB was perhaps one of the few instrumental bands able to sell records in the Beatles era. If you read Joel Whitburn's book of Billboard #1 hits, you'll notice that there were a lot more popular instrumental and "pop" artists hitting #1 before the Beatles than after.

Whitburn starts his book with the Bill Haley & The Comets single "Rock Around The Clock", since he feels that was the single that started (and legitimized) the rock and roll era. It's worth noting that Haley's single displaced Perez Prado's smash hit "Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White", which was on top of the charts for several weeks prior...something no instrumental track has ever done since, and was one of the last of the old-school instrumental pop songs to ever reach the top of the chart with that kind of success.
 
GREATEST HITS
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
SP 4245


This was the 2nd TJB album that I got, and I was 12 at the time, so I was pretty excited about this, especially with the liner notes and photos inside. One of my more vivid memories of this release was when "Mexican Shuffle" came on, and I was screaming "That's from that gum commercial!" to my folks, who kind of looked at me in an odd way. :D But that's how excited I was about the album. It seems these were more concert favorites than actual hits, but it gave a taste of the TJB sound. I played this album a zillion times at first, and it was this album where I learned how to play along with my horn, which helped developed my ear for tunes. I'm really surprised that the CD version didn't have all of the liner notes. Just another thing the powers that be can work on.


Capt. Bacardi
 
This was my Very first TJB title I ever owned ( a cassette version Of the album Given to me as a gift by my 5th grade teacher in Late 1978 and got tons of play in my very first Cassette player recorder sadly I wore the tape out but eventually replaced it with the Vinyl version and Later CD and I still have my pristine CD copy I bought in 1988 for $10 ( back then it was a bargain for a CD) and still retains sentimental value. To this day
 
This is the cassette version I have of this title. I almost never bought cassettes, but this was floating around in one of those cheap tape bins in a record store so I gave it a home. Note the different track running order from the standard.

1595592219407.png1595592256721.png
 
I should have looked back to see that I'd already pretty much detailed that story above. Oh well. At least the picture is new.

Meanwhile, in the ensuing years, I managed to pick up the UK edition of this title - an expanded version with 16 tracks and a white cover.

GHUK1sm.jpg
 
This is the cassette version I have of this title. I almost never bought cassettes, but this was floating around in one of those cheap tape bins in a record store so I gave it a home. Note the different track running order from the standard.

1595592219407.png1595592256721.png
Yes Harry that is the Exact Cassette I had except mine was A&M CS 4245 the exact playing order
 
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