A&M Gold Series

[Rim Kasputis]

Hi Everyone,
Does anyone know anything about the Herb Alpert CD manufactured in Germany: A&M Gold series Includes tunes like This Guys in Love, Mexican Roadrace, South of the Border Caberet etc. Thanks Rim.

 

[Harry]

Hey Rim,

See: http://www.amcorner.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3158

Or my review on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cu...30330?_encoding=UTF8&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=music

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

Half of a good compilation, March 26, 2004
Reviewer: "hgn2001" (North Wales, PA USA) - See all my reviews

Others have expressed surprise at some of the song choices on this import CD called GOLD SERIES 2 for Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. Looked at by itself, it IS rather surprising to see such choices as "Mexican Road Race" and "Third Man Theme." These were not hits after all, so what are they doing on a hits compilation?
Well they ARE great tunes - and this disc is only half of a two-disc set as originally conceived. In 1991, PolyGram, the new owners of the A&M Records back catalog, decided to mine those older records by putting out a series of discs called the GOLD SERIES in Europe and Japan. Australia got a similar series called STARTRAX.

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, originators of the A&M label, got two discs, since I suppose one wasn't felt to be long enough to hold all of the great songs. Somehow though, in label consolidation and titles going in and out of print since then, this title, Volume #2 in the set survived. Perhaps it was the more popular of the two, since it contains Herb's standout vocal on "This Guy's In Love With You." Though it was indeed Volume 2, nowhere on this disc is that designation found. Thus it seems that the powers that be decided it was good enough to stand on its own.

For the curious, the rarer and harder-to-find Volume 1 contained these tracks: The Lonely Bull / What Now My Love / Tijuana Taxi / The Maltese Melody / Bittersweet Samba / Casino Royale / Flamingo / Zorba The Greek / Our Day Will Come / The Girl From Ipanema / My Favorite Things / Wade In The Water / Spanish Harlem / So What's New / Without Her.

Harry from amcorner.com

Harry
NP: A&M Gold Series 2

[edit: Topic moved to proper forum]

 

[Harry]

An old thread, but I thought it could use an update as I finally got hold of the Japanese Vol. 2 in the set. I wanted it, even though it's identical to the European Gold Series disc. Something about these GOLD SERIES discs fascinate me, probably because it all happened without my knowledge at all. So here's a little pictorial tutorial, if you will.

Here's the deal as best I can reconstruct it. A&M Records in Japan, sometime in the mid-late '80s, issued a series of special compilations and called them A&M GOLD SERIES. I happen to have two in the series for Carpenters, and one for Herb Alpert. The Alpert one is a mixture of TjB and solo tracks and looks like this:

D32Y3049

[1] A Taste Of Honey
[2] The Lonely Bull
[3] Tijuana Taxi
[4] The Work Song
[5] The Maltese Melody
[6] Bittersweet Samba
[7]This Guy's In Love With You
[8] Rise
[9] Beyond
[10] Fandango
[11] Red Hot
[12] Magic Man
[13] Route 101

OK, so there's an A&M GOLD SERIES in Japan in the mid-late '80s. It wasn't released in the US, and I don't believe it was released in Europe.

_______________________________

PolyGram then acquires A&M Records and immediately sets out to put out some of their new catalog under fresh titles, a typical ploy of record companies. So in 1990, they create what they want to call a GOLD SERIES in Japan, but someone must've figured out that there already WAS a GOLD SERIES in Japan just recently, so, everything's better when it's NEW, right? (Madison Ave. has told us so for years), so this series would be known as the A&M NEW GOLD SERIES. The two Tijuana Brass titles in this release were of course Volume 1 and Volume 2. The cover art would be white backgrounds with gold printing with a smallish inset picture over some gold music staves, I suppose. Here are the two TJB entries in the Japanese NEW GOLD SERIES:

PCCY-10087

[1] THE LONELY BULL
[2] WHAT NOW MY LOVE
[3] TIJUANA TAXI
[4] THE MALTESE MELODY
[5] BITTERSWEET SAMBA
[6] CASINO ROYALE
[7] FLAMINGO
[8] ZORBA THE GREEK
[9] OUR DAY WILL COME
[10] THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA
[11] MY FAVORITE THINGS
[12] WADE IN THE WATER
[13] SPANISH HARLEM
[14] SO WHAT'S NEW
[15] WITHOUT HER

PCCY-10088

[1] A TASTE OF HONEY
[2] THIS GUY'S IN LOVE WITH YOU
[3] THE WORK SONG
[4] SPANISH FLEA
[5] MAME
[6] THE HAPPENING
[7] MEXICAN ROAD RACE
[8] THIRD MAN THEME
[9] SOUTH OF THE BORDER
[10] A BANDA
[11] HELLO DOLLY
[12] MARCHING THROUGH MADRID
[13] WHIPPED CREAM
[14] MEXICAN SHUFFLE
[15] CABARET

________________________________

A year later, other parts of the world were to get something similar. In Europe, I suppose since they never had a GOLD SERIES before, they just called these A&M GOLD SERIES, used the same artwork, except the covers were all solid colors instead of white. Someone there decided that the Tijuana Brass only needed a single disc, so what had been "Volume 2" over in Japan, just became the A&M GOLD SERIES single disc in Europe. This compilation is still available today, by the way, and can be found in great numbers on the used market. It's the one with the green cover:

397082-2

[1] A TASTE OF HONEY
[2] THIS GUY'S IN LOVE WITH YOU
[3] THE WORK SONG
[4] SPANISH FLEA
[5] MAME
[6] THE HAPPENING
[7] MEXICAN ROAD RACE
[8] THIRD MAN THEME
[9] SOUTH OF THE BORDER
[10] A BANDA
[11] HELLO DOLLY
[12] MARCHING THROUGH MADRID
[13] WHIPPED CREAM
[14] MEXICAN SHUFFLE
[15] CABARET

It's exactly identical to its counterpart in Japan above.

_______________________________

Meanwhile, to confuse matters, Australia's Polydor got in on this round of compilations too, only they decided that they would make the discs "OVER 60 MINUTES OF MUSIC" and called the series STARTRAX. The artwork and color scheme mimicked the Euro releases, but some artists got a beefed-up track list.

397128-2

1. A Taste Of Honey
2. This Guy's In Love With You
3. The Work Song
4. Spanish Flea
5. Mame
6. The Happening
7. Mexican Road Race
8. Third Man Theme
9. South Of The Border
10. A Banda
11. Hello Dolly
12. Marching Through Madrid
13. Whipped Cream
14. Mexican Shuffle
15. Cabaret
16. Tijuana Taxi
17. Theme From Zorba The Greek
18. Casino Royale
19. The Lonely Bull
20. The Girl From Ipanema
21. A Walk In The Black Forest
22. Acapulco 1922
23. I'm Getting Sentimental Over You
24. More & More Amor

You would think that this would be a combo of the two Japanese Volumes 1 and 2, but in fact, it grabs five from volume 1, and tacks on four more tracks which made neither 1 or 2 in the NEW GOLD SERIES.

One thing seemingly endemic to these are the title misprints:

The first one in Japan lists "Bitter Sweet Samba"
The second set in Japan lists "Third Man's Theme" and "A Bamba"
The Euro Gold Disc lists "Abanda"
Startrax lists" Mexican Road Dance" ,"Abanda", and "More and More Amou"

Some of those are nearly forgivable (I'm not 100% sure that "A Banda" couldn't also correctly be "Abanda" - perhaps our linguists know.)

Harry

 

[martin]

Thanks for the info, Harry... Fun and interesting!

 

[martin]

But there is a Herb Alpert "solo" volume in the European Gold Series also..

With his solotracks from Rise to Strangers On The Shore.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/a-m-gold-series-1991-mw0001502609

- greetings from the north -
Martin

 

[Harry]

Yes there is, and I believe it too had separate releases in Japan and Australia with "New Gold Series" and "Startrax" titles.

Harry

 

[Harry]

I finally managed to track down one of these from Germany at a bargain price.

397081-2

Tracklist
1 Rise 7:37
2 Fandango 3:41
3 Rotation 5:12
4 Magic Man 5:33
5 I Need You 4:09
6 Beyond 5:53
7 Red Hot 4:45
8 "8" Ball 4:48
9 Maniac 3:46
10 Wild Romance 4:10
11 Bullish 4:45
12 Fragile 2:59
13 Making Love In The Rain 5:53
14 Stranger On The Shore 2:53

It wasn't something I desperately needed as I have all of these tracks elsewhere, but as part of the A&M Gold Series, I thought I should have it with the others. The collector's impulse...

 

[Harry]

Something just occurred to me. On that early D32Y A&M Gold Series:

...the picture includes two Baja Marimba Band albums. Never noticed that before.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Interesting that "Fragile" is on the Herb Alpert compilation. I don't think we've seen that song anthologized before, have we? That's a favorite of mine.