Does Herb know every A&M item released?

[Steven J. Gross]

With the huge amount of product that A&M released, do you think Herb is aware of every album released on his label? It is really hard to imagine, but I think most of us feel if it was an A&M product, it must have had his stamp of approval. I suspect Jerry Moss was in on every release, but what about Herb?

 

[DAN BOLTON]

That's a good question...unfortunately, only Herb could possibly answer it.
It would be very difficult to keep track of everything that went on at A&M, especially during the later years just before MCA...there were literally hundreds of projects going on. I imagine SOMEBODY had to approve of everything that went on, and Jerry would have been a more likely candidate for that position, if for no other reason than that he didn't perform...he DID at least co-write a couple of songs for the TJ in the early days[Tijuana Saurkraut and Surfin' Senorita come to mind...]


I wonder just how many A&M releases there actually were...I don't know.

Also, don't forget Gil Friesen...he was a big wheel at A&M, too...

I don't know about Creed Taylor, either...he might have had a relatively free hand in his production work.

This is an interesting topic.

Dan

 

[alpertfan]

The answer to this question would probably be, yes. I say this for two reasons. One, I'm no music exec, but I do know that when an album is "in the can" (music biz lingo meaning, "finished" of course,) the tracks are played to label executives, among whom is the president of the label. If they like what they hear, it's released and if not, the musicians and producer either go back in the studio and redo the whole thing, or the execs might decide to shelve it altogether.
Second, I kind of get the idea that that's what Herb Alpert did from watching a few Carpenters' documentaries. It seems as if whoever was producing at the time (be it Richard Carpenter or Phil Ramone, or whoever) would call a meeting of A&M executives and they'd hear the finished product and ultimately decide if it was good enough for release. And it seems Mr. Alpert was present during most of these "listening tests". (The only time The Carpenters themselves weren't in the same room with him that I know of is when their first demo tape in 1970 was sent to his office, which of course, led to their signing on A&M Records.)

A&M was an artist-friendly label. Those types of record companies I'm told, never "mold" their artists into the image that they want, but let them have their own individuality. They're signed to such labels if the people running them like their style, but they don't say, "Okay, we'll sign you if you do such and such". Another words, if they don't like it, the person or persons just don't get a record deal. Period. Sometimes, the artist are left to decide for themselves if what they're doing will please the label. If you read the DEFINITIVE HITS linear notes, such was the case with Burt Bacharach. Once he finished a song, went to Alpert and said that he didn't like the way it was done. He was told, "So go back in there. Get it right!"

 

[Captain Bacardi]

With the huge amount of product that A&M released, do you think Herb is aware of every album released on his label?

I'd say "no". I say that because of a couple of interviews he did. One was on BET's Video Soul, where he couldn't remember how many albums he put out himself! Another interview had him saying that he had his own biases in music, and that his A&R staff had signed quite a few performers that he really didn't know much about. A&M put out so many albums that I doubt that anybody could just rattle them off without the help of some cheat-sheet.


Capt. Bacardi

 

[Rudy]

I'm also thinking that there were some albums (like Procol Harum) or entire foreign labels that were "licensed" for distribution on A&M here in the US. No doubt in the early days he knew everything that was going on...without his outlook, A&M never would have been. But the sheer volume of recordings in the 70's and 80's would have been overwhelming for any one person to listen to. He was probably well aware of all of the blockbusters, the big artists on A&M....but I wonder if he'd ever heard of Rosie Vela, even to this day?

 

[LPJim]

I think Herb & Jerry's instincts were terrific, but I doubt that either is familiar with every record A&M released. In the early days I think they were directly involved with every album. (For example, there's the story about Herb telling the Sandpipers to 'come back in a few months' because he was busy at the time with his own and a select few other artsits' projects.
Many of the earliest 45s had outside producers and were one or two-shot deals. As stated earlier, A&M's British invasion of 1968-70 (Procol Harum, the Move, Jimmy Cliff, Fairport Convention, Strawbs, etc.) were licensed by Island, Regal Zonophone and other U.K. labels.
Being numerically oriented, I've often wondered why the first 45 single was numbered "701" and what happened to albums which were assigned a 4100 series number and weren't released. Were they recorded and shelved, or just never recorded at all?
JB

 

[DAN BOLTON]

How many albums did A&M release? Does anybody have an accurate estimate? My guess is several thousand...and that would be impossible to keep track of...even for Superman.


Dan, not saying that the MAGIC MAN isn't super, as well...

 

[Mr Bill]

Being numerically oriented, I've often wondered why the first 45 single was numbered "701" and what happened to albums which were assigned a 4100 series number and weren't released. Were they recorded and shelved, or just never recorded at all?
JB

We know the answers to a LOT of the 4100 (and other series) that never got released. As for 701...

Somewhere (maybe in the A&M book) Jerry explained the 701 was a ploy to make the label not look like a new label or a self-produced "one-shot" (though it could have easily been). If it had been simply #1 there's a chance DJs would've ignored the record as home made. A lot of new labels of the time did the same thing.

--Mr Bill
figuring the "7" in the hundredss place referred to the size of the record -- 7 inches...

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Somewhere (maybe in the A&M book) Jerry explained the 701 was a ploy to make the label not look like a new label or a self-produced "one-shot" (though it could have easily been).

According to a Video Soul interview that Herb did in 1989, it was Jerry's idea to start with #701. Herb asked why 701, and not just #1 or #101, and Jerry responded with "Let's start with #701, so that everybody will think we have 700 records out there." Herb went on to say that the record business was so much different back then, with some companies operating from the trunks of their car. It was easier to get a record played back then, when you could just take it to the radio station and they would play it that afternoon or the next day.


Capt. Bacardi
...wishing those days would return online...

 

[Rudy]

It was easier to get a record played back then, when you could just take it to the radio station and they would play it that afternoon or the next day.

That book "Exploding" by Stan Cornyn tells what it was like back then...and before payola became so commonplace, that was how the promo men operated. The good ones knew the DJs, and could get a record on the air.

The business is so BS'ed up now, it's not even funny.

I'm no big Tom Petty fan, but his latest album and single, "The Last DJ", pretty much sums it all up. I don't even think it's fair to call anyone a "disk jockey" anymore. Gone are the days of the pair of turntables and stacks of LPs and 45s ready to be played. Now it's automated and the "talking head" fills the space between songs and commercials.

Don't even get me started on the 6am to 10am wasteland called the 'typical morning radio show'.

 

[jimac51]

As bad as our local Clear(OK,Neil,Cheap)Channel Adult Top 40 here (I am forced to listen to it at work over a PA system)there was a bright spot during the last snowstorm. As an ongoing live Christmas music segment,Bob Dorough was a guest. Bob is a jazz oriented singer/songwriter known to the world as a major part of Schoolhouse Rock(Conjuction Junction). What a joy this guy is to listen to him singing "Winter Wonderland" while I was battling traffic at 15MPH-just proof of what a real artist can do to brighten a dreary day. Bob lives just a short distance in the Delaware Water Gap area with Phil Woods and other assorted ex-NYC jazzbos. For a few minutes,commercial radio was interesting again. Then it was time for Nelly 'n Kelly to bore me to death again. Mac

 

[Steven J. Gross]

I tend to think that nothing would be released without Herb and Jerry's knowledge and approval, after all, this was their company (and money).
I think that like any other profession, say, a salesman, might meet hundreds of people a year, and over time, thousands. The salesman would tend to remember a lot of people, just by nature. There were a ton of A&M recordings, and I would bet that yes, Herb does know them all.

 

[W.B.]

Being numerically oriented, I've often wondered why the first 45 single was numbered "701" and what happened to albums which were assigned a 4100 series number and weren't released. Were they recorded and shelved, or just never recorded at all?
JB

We know the answers to a LOT of the 4100 (and other series) that never got released. As for 701...

Somewhere (maybe in the A&M book) Jerry explained the 701 was a ploy to make the label not look like a new label or a self-produced "one-shot" (though it could have easily been). If it had been simply #1 there's a chance DJs would've ignored the record as home made. A lot of new labels of the time did the same thing.

--Mr Bill
figuring the "7" in the hundredss place referred to the size of the record -- 7 inches...

Might've been. (The 7" reference, that is; but if that were so, why was its first LP catalogued 101 instead of 1201?) But this was true -- giving three-, four- or five-digit numbers to starting-up labels even before Messrs. Alpert and Moss started A&M. Columbia, f'rinstance, inaugurated their "Red Label" way back in 1939 with what they called the "35000 series," even though the first release was numbered 35201 (that particular series ran until 1974, terminating at 4-46081; the 4- indicating a 45 RPM release), and when its Epic subsidiary was first launched in 1953, the debut single was catalogued (5-)9001. When Archie Bleyer first launched Cadence Records in 1953, its first 45 was catalogued 1230. Liberty Records (1955-1971) started its 45 series in the 55000 range. Such strategy has always been sound (no pun intended). One exception, of course, was the Buddah label -- its first single, back in 1967, was catalogued BDA-1 (though their album series was BDM 1000 mono, BDS 5000 stereo).

Scepter (of Shirelles, Dionne Warwick and B.J. Thomas fame) had a rather strange way of cataloguing, I.M.H.O. Its 45 series, for example, after 1299 came 12100, while on the LP front after SPS-599 followed SPS-5100. 45's on Wand (perhaps most famous for The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie") went from 199 to 1100 (and, later, from 1199 to 11200).

 

[Rudy]

Scepter (of Shirelles, Dionne Warwick and B.J. Thomas fame) had a rather strange way of cataloguing, I.M.H.O. Its 45 series, for example, after 1299 came 12100, while on the LP front after SPS-599 followed SPS-5100.

If you were to add an extra hyphen, it makes sense. 1299 = 12-99 and 12100 = 12-100. Software version numbers work similarly...rather odd if you're not familiar. (Still confuses me sometimes.) Version 1.3.8 of software is followed by 1.3.9, 1.3.10, 1.3.11, etc. Maybe above, the "12" was a series in their system.

One other numbering trick from the foggy banks of my memory cells--at one time, didn't some labels start to number their singles in descending order, in able to get them to display higher in a computer listing of new releases?

 

[W.B.]

One other numbering trick from the foggy banks of my memory cells--at one time, didn't some labels start to number their singles in descending order, in able to get them to display higher in a computer listing of new releases?

Oh, yes. That was Warners' batch of labels (Warner Bros., Elektra, Atlantic, et al.), starting in 1982. I noticed this most prominently with their singles. I believe one of the first big hits to utilize this system was Chicago's "Hard To Say I'm Sorry."