40 Years Ago...

[Captain Bacardi]

I just realized that August marked the 40th anniversary of the birth of A&M Records, when "The Lonely Bull" by "The Tijuana Brass featuring Herb Alpert" 45 was first released. My, how times have changed since then. In 1962 pop music was going through major changes, "art" was still vital to music, and small labels somewhat flourished wherever they were. Today, music is stagnant, "Art" is probably one of the A&R guys stagnating the music, and small labels are gobbled up by corporations. It seems that A&M really went against the grain as far as what other labels were doing at the time, yet succeeded anyway.

Since A&M is now defunct (for all practical purposes), maybe it's time to rate the importance of the company among the rest of the industry. We all obviously have our biases (we're fanatics - there, I said it! ), but a lot of labels had great music as well. How did A&M stack up with the rest over the years? How will history look at A&M 50 years from now? What were the most important records that A&M put out? Is it possible today for another A&M-type company to start and survive on its own? Your thoughts?


Capt. Bacardi
...who marked my 16th year at the PO on Friday (what the hell was I thinking back then??? )

 

[jimac51]

Cap'n-Thanks for passing out the blue books and two #2 pencils-this looks like an interesting essay question. Answering at random-1962 was not the best of times for pop music. "American Bandstand" had a stranglehold on radio and there was a lot of payola produced pap being shoved down our throats. A parallel to the success and artistic merits can be made for Frankie Avalon,Fabian,etc. and Britney,Backstreet Boys,etc. Elvis out of the Army was making a string of mediocre movies and mostly forgettable soundtracks for those movies. The Beach Boys were just starting. Same for Motown-another indi label who would affect a generation,but not quite yet. An occasional Phil Spector-produced recording surfaced nationally to bring some relief to the charts. It would take the assasination of JFK a year later to pave the way for the Beatles to take America in 1964. A major factor was the baby boom about to reach an important level-those born in 1946 would turn 16 in 1962-able to drive,get jobs,have some spending money of their own and make decisions that would change all areas of the entertainment industry. More to come.... Mac

 

[Harry]

What better way to look back forty years than in the words of the principals who were there. Here's the story of the year 1962, taken from A&M Records - The First Ten Years - (A Fairy Tale) by Chuck Casell, a promotional book published on the 10 year anniversary of the label:

1962
EARLY DAYS OF A CARNIVAL

1962 began to make its mark.

John Glenn, after four hours and 56 minutes, became the first American to orbit the Earth; the Pittsburgh Pirates, the perennial cellar team, won the World Series; Chubby Checker started one of the biggest dance crazes this country has ever seen: The Twist; and Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss became good friends.

"When Jerry and I met," Herb recalls, he was handling eight or ten lines and he was the most important independent promotion man on the West coast.''

Jerry remembers the formative days. "Our relationship had gotten to the point where we used to hang out together at night, go to different piano bars on La Cienega or Sunset, and he'd sit in with the horn. It was just as evening. 'Let's sit in over there tonight.' And I would just sit and see what was happening at the bar: 'Yeah, that's my friend, he plays the horn.' I was really getting involved with Herbie's trumpet. He communicated beautifully with that horn.''

Around this same time, Jerry decided to produce a song called "Love Is Back In Style.'' It had an instrumental break and he thought it would he great if Herb played the trumpet on it. He did.

The record eventually cost Jerry $500 to produce. "I went over to Herbie's apartment after I mixed it, and played him the record. At the same time, he played me a record he produced for about $500, called 'Tell It To The Birds' by Dore Alpert." That was that, for a while.

Herb and Jerry used to go out to the beach a lot. Jerry remembers that it was either at the beach or in a steam bath, the conversation came up again as Jerry says, 'I forget which one of us brought it up, but it went something like, 'You've got $500 in your record and I've got $500 in my record. Why don't we make a little company out of it and see where it goes, see what happens.' And at the time I sort of needed that, and I guess he felt, 'Well, what the hell, it's Get-Rich-Quick-Idea #3425 and if that doesn't work in six months, let's go on to the next one.'

Jerry continues: 'So we put $100 each into a checking account and called the company Carnival Records. There was a show on Broadway at the time called 'Carnival,' and the advertising was in Music City, thus 'Carnival Records.'

"We then released the first record (July 25, 1962), called "'Tell It To The Birds," a vocal by Herbie, under the name of Dore Al pert.

The record started to take off a little bit in L.A. It eventually sold between 12-15,000 copies in L.A.

"Wink Martindale, at the time, was in the A&R Dept. at Dot Records and was very interested in purchasing 'Tell It To The Birds' as a master purchase. He offered us $750 for the record.

"By then, we were really starting to sell more records in L.A., so Herbie and I made a deal with Wink. He could have the record for the world with the exception of California. We'd distribute the record on Carnival in California." And they did.

"We now had $750 plus the receipts of around 12,000 records in L.A., which meant that we had about $3-4,000. Our company was getting into some capitalization."

With this first burst of progress, they released Jerry's record (the one with Herbie playing the horn break) and nothing happened. "Nice record, Jerry, but..."

But the momentum was still there. And they started fooling around in the studio with another song. It was an instrumental that Herb had gotten from a guy he used to play casuals with by the name of Sol Lake. The song was titled "Twinkle Star." During this time, Herb had converted his garage into a recording studio, sound room and began playing around with this song, playing all the parts on the horn and doubling the horn, getting the song to take shape.

The following week, on a Sunday afternoon, Herb and Jerry went to a bullfight in Tijuana. They saw Carlos Arruza, one of the great rejoneodors, fighters on horseback. Herb remembers it clearly: "I was very intrigued by the whole feeling, the colors, the sounds and the spirit of Mexico. It was the first time I was exposed to any thing that resembled Mexican music. The band that was playing in the stands was not a Mariachi band, but it was definitely Mexican style." (The storm begins to brew.)

"So when we got back to Los Angeles, I started fooling with this song in more of a Latin mood, not trying to capture the sounds that I heard, but more of the colors and spirit of it all. It was very up, positive and bright, and had a lot of bravado to it. So I adapted that concept to this song and we recorded it. It came out well and had a nice feeling but seemed to be lacking something that would make it really appealing to somebody listening to it for the first time. We were very conscious of the first 10 or 20 seconds when a program director puts a record on.

"I remember walking down Sunset Boulevard with Jerry and getting a flash of an idea to incorporate the sounds of the crowd in Tijuana that we heard, the Ole! Ole! on top of the intro that we had, which was the entrance of the bull as he entered the ring, that horn.''

So this friend, Ted Keep, the engineer happened to have a tape library of sound effects in which he had sounds that were actually captured in the bullring in Tijuana. So we overlaid that on this track, which at the time was called 'Twinkle Star.' The minute we put it on it took a whole new direction. It was kind of a real visual feeling by listening. It was something that reallv added to the spirit of the song. It became 'The Lonely Bull.' I don't remember whose title that was, probably Jerry's. And when we played it for disk jockey friends and everybody we knew in the record business, they flipped over it! They loved the sound! They thought it was something special."

In August of '62, Herb and Jerry decided to release "The Lonely Bull" single. But by this time it was discovered that there was prior usage of the name "Carnival," so they now had to find another name for their new company.

After going through a series of meaningless names, they finally arrived at a miraculous solution: they just took an "A" and an "M" and called it "A&M Records." Geniuses!

Also, by this time, "The Lonely Bull" had been held up awaiting a label. But the label came through. It read: "The Tijuana Brass featuring Herb Alpert." Incidentally, Jerry came up with "The Tijuana Brass." (Not bad for his first week or two on the job.)

"The Lonely Bull" immediately started happening in Los Angeles, San Francisco and all up and down the West coast.

At that point, Jerry was still handling his independent lines while working on "The Lonely Bull," the first single on A&M.

A&M Records was in Herb's garage in the back of his house on Westbourne. Jerry remembers: We had a desk, piano, piano stool, a couch, coffee table and two phone lines. And from that the two of us worked out very well, because we could go over the songs on the piano, and make phone calls to the distributors. We also had an answering service at the time. I'd do all my own billing.

"At this time we had only singles to worry about so it was no big thing. As the records started coming out, Herbie would take care of the parts. He'd take the tape out of the studio, make a master out of it, deliver the master, and pick up every record. Every record, we went to Monarch, listened to it and made sure it was fine."

Marv Bornstein, who was then in Quality Control at Monarch, remembers when Herb came in during the days of "The Lonely Bull": "Not too long after the single, they decided to make an album and we used to press all our mono albums in a plastic called styrene. It made kind of a nice record, except that if you didn't have a real good needle, it was good for like two plays. Well, we had some very big labels that accepted it that way." Not Herb. "We ended up pressing "The Lonely Bull" mono albums on vinyl, which until that time was only used for stereo."

Jerry remembers when "The Lonely Bull" single started to happen: "I mean it really started to take off. And by this time I felt, this is really a record, and I think I better tell my other accounts that I can't work for them anymore, I'm quitting, my whole stake is with A&M at this stage of the game."

To Herb, it's unforgettable: "I don't think we had any intentions of starting our own label, it's just that this record was flying, we didn't have time to think about that. And fortunately enough, we had a good friend, Nate Duroff, at Monarch, who was pressing the records for us because we didn't have any money to do that. The record was selling by the thousands! San Francisco would order 10,000, Minneapolis 20,000; they were just flying in like that. I remember Jerry kept asking me, 'Well, what should I do? Should I quit my gig?' And I said, 'I don't know, this thing could stop instantly.' So it really got to the point where it was more than he could handle part time, so I said, 'Stop, let's take a chance and go with it.' So Jerry quit his independent promotion work and devoted full time to the record.

Jerry reminisces: "So there we were, 'A&M Records.' From that August (1962) through that January (1963) we were in the garage. We used to spend all the time in that place. The phones and the ordering and the windows, everything, was just hysterical. Great, great times."

"The Lonely Bull" eventually sold about 700,000 copies and went to #6 nationally, four months after its release.

With the success of "The Lonely Bull," Herb and Jerry' started producing some new artists they had found. Herb remembers: "We recorded a guy named George McCurn and had a moderate success with a tune called “I’m Just A Country Boy.” And then a group called the Kenjolairs. (Three guys named Kenny, Joe, and Larry.) We just kept going. We really didn’t have time to relax and think about what was happening, it was just happening.”

Then, in December of ’62, A&M released its first album, also titled “The Lonely Bull.” Jerry recalls, “Nobody covered the single, but on the album they really came down very hard. In all, there were about 8 or 9 cover versions.”

They both realized then that they had to move out of the garage and also, they needed someone to help them. Jerry reflects: "For me to do the billing was now getting ridiculous. Every night I spent poring over the credits." Except for one night: "I was at The La Brea Inn, and happened to say that we were going to need a girl pretty soon. Jolene Burton was there and overheard this. Jolene was one of the top girls at Liberty at the time, and I knew her because I used to go over there. This was 1962 and she was making $150 a week, which was big dollars. She'd been in the record business 5 years already.

"So she called me the next day and said, 'I heard you mention that you were looking for a girl. I'd like to be the girl!

I said, 'Well, I don't think we can afford you.'

She said, ‘You really don't know that.'

I said, 'Well, we can afford to pay $100 a week.'

She said, ‘I'll take it. Because when I started with Liberty Records they didn't start much bigger than this, and I could use the excitement. Besides, I think you guys are going to be around for a long time, and I'll save you money. I know how to order records, merchandise, paper, how to bill, I know all those things. I'm a bookkeeper, secretary.’

I just said, ‘Terrific.’”

©1972 A&M Records, Inc.

I was fortunate enough to find this book, and wanted to share a portion of it here with those who've never had the opportunity to see it.

Harry

 

[Tom Wallace]

Harry,

Thanks for posting the excerpt. Fascinating.

Tom

 

[Rudy]

OK, Harry, one year down, 40 more to go!

-= N =-
...gotta find a copy of that book for myself...

 

[Rudy]

Since A&M is now defunct (for all practical purposes), maybe it's time to rate the importance of the company among the rest of the industry. We all obviously have our biases (we're fanatics - there, I said it! ), but a lot of labels had great music as well. How did A&M stack up with the rest over the years?

I'd never rate any one single label "best", since in that era and beyond, a lot of labels were great! In fact, three of my favorite labels (A&M, RCA and Verve) all had big successes in the 60's, and I like the music all three labels made. And yet, these labels all had a different history. A&M, we all know the story of. Verve was one of Norman Granz's labels, Granz being in the music industry (tied to Jazz at the Philharmonic, and some other early record labels). RCA was Corporate America...not only did RCA have a record label (and a famously good one at that!), they were also into electronics, recording, even television. These labels all had their niche, and there were hundreds of great albums and singles that came out of them! A&M's own particular niche was quite unique. Verve recorded jazz...but so did a lot of other labels. RCA had movie soundtracks, easy listening and some jazz...and so did many other labels. But A&M? How can you classify music like "The Lonely Bull"? Their own niche was part novelty, part long-shot, and part grit, determination, hard work and damned good lucked...and look what it grew into! (And to "A" and "M"'s credit, they did not sell out until 1989, when other labels had already found suitors.) The old Warner/Reprise, Atlantic and Elektra ("WEA") labels are also a big favorite of mine--I never realized, until recently, how much a role the WEA labels had played in my own listening experiences over the years.

Each label holds fond memories for me.

How will history look at A&M 50 years from now?

To be honest, A&M may be more of a distant memory (provided I even have a memory by then), but I can just about guess that the music we know as "A&M music", which was recorded from 1962 through the end of the 70's, will be remembered as the best and most influential of all A&M music. (Of course, not overlooking later big name artists like The Police, Sting, Janet Jackson, etc.) In the post-Polygram era, A&M will be forgettable.

What were the most important records that A&M put out?

Off the top of my head:

• The single "The Lonely Bull", and the album of the same name.
• The album "Whipped Cream & Other Delights" (a cultural icon of its day)
• The Carpenters single "Close To You" (for many reasons, most notably its "against the odds" chance for success)
• The Police single "Every Breath You Take", A&M's biggest #1 chart success (eight weeks at #1, Billboard)

There are other important albums and artists for A&M--Joe Cocker and Cat Stevens, Nazareth, Styx, Janet Jackson...gads, I could go on!

Is it possible today for another A&M-type company to start and survive on its own?

I have no doubt this is possible. The big labels have grown too large and cumbersome, and can't survive on albums that sell in small numbers. A small label with a Herb, a Jerry and a Jolene can turn a profit much more quickly, and can be more reactive and receptive to new talent, as well as giving "old" (should say "established") talent the freedom to record what they want. More established artists are moving to smaller, independent labels, or self-producing their own recordings. And the lesser-known artists have been self-releasing or using indies for years now. I just wonder how long it will take for the big labels to implode and run themselves out of business. With the crap they churn out, the sooner, the better!

-= N =-

 

[W.B.]

I see, looking at that 10th anniversary piece, that A&M's product had been pressed by Monarch Record Mfg. ("Circle MR") from Point Go. As for other plants: In its first year, the alternate to Monarch was RCA Custom Records in Rockaway, N.J.; Indianapolis, Ind.; and Hollywood, Calif. (RCA Rockaway typesetters inserted the "A&M 1005" on the label copy for their pressings of the "Lonely Bull" side in place of the "CAR-1005" that had been typeset at Monarch.) By the fall of '63, RCA had ceased to press for A&M (and wouldn't again on a regular -- non-record club -- basis until 1979 when it agreed to handle the distribution end of A&M product while the company remained autonomous), while the rival "big-boy" custom service Columbia Record Productions had added the fledgling label of Mr. Alpert and Mr. Moss as a client. I recently purchased, at a record convention, a copy of one of the earliest, if not THE earliest, Columbia pressings of an A&M single -- "Tiptoes" b/w "Bobby's Boogie #1" by Bobby Wayne (#716), pressed in Terre Haute, Ind. -- and see that as late as that it was still the cream label background with dark brown print that characterized the first year's worth of labels, though the now-famous logo, albeit initially sans round-edge box surrounding same, had by then taken effect (at the 12 o'clock position on LP's, and 9 o'clock on 45's). It likely wasn't until around Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass's "Spanish Harlem"/"A-me-ri-ca" (#721) that the ochre label design began to take hold. (See the "A&M Colors & Fonts" thread for a discussion on that; but suffice to say that the introduction of the ochre design had coincided with that of the Pantone color system.)

I too would rate A&M as among my favorite labels, for the acts mentioned by all. Other labels with acts which remain near and dear to my heart to this day (as relating to the time of A&M's founding) include not only Verve and RCA, but also Columbia, Capitol, ABC-Paramount, Liberty, MGM (or, if you prefer, M-G-M) and Mercury, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Decca. (Just a partial list, mind you.) This was when the airwaves were far more open to different product than they are today, and competition was encouraged instead of smothered. The A&M of Herb and Jerry's reign certainly benefited from this pre-Reagan-era openness, and for that we are all the richer culturally. (Not just TJB, but BMB, B'66/77/etc., Cocker, Carpenters, Supertramp, Styx et al.)

I too toast a glass to the 40th anniversary of A&M's beginnings. Saaa-lute!

 

[bob knack]

ANOTHER LABEL I GOT A BIG KICK OUT OF WAS DOT RECORDS, ESPECIALLY FROM THE FIFTIES AND EARLY SIXTIES. I UNDERSTAND "STEVE ALLEN SINGS" IS GOING FOR BIG BUCKS NOW ON E-BAY...MAYBE TO JAYNIE-BIRD! BUT ALL SERIOUSNESS ASIDE, DOT HAD A GOOD JAZZ SERIES CALLED 'JAZZ HORIZONS', 'WORD JAZZ' BY KEN NORDINE, 'THE HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS' BY EDDIE COSTA, HARRY JAMES BASIE-STYLE BIG BAND, AND THE FIRST RECORD BY A GREAT CHICAGO PIANIST NAMED LARRY NOVAK... PRODUCED BY DONN TRENNER. AND, ALL THOSE STEVERINO RECORDS FROM HIS WESTINGHOUSE TALK SHOW. SCHMOCK! SCHMOCK!