🎵 AotW Classics Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass FOURSIDER (SP-3521)

How would you rate FOURSIDER as a compilation?

  • ***** Perfect

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • **** Very Good

    Votes: 10 62.5%
  • *** Good

    Votes: 6 37.5%
  • ** Poor

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • * Extremely Poor

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I've never heard of it

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    16

Harry

Charter A&M Corner Member
Staff member
Site Admin
HERB ALPERT AND
THE TIJUANA BRASS
FOURSIDER
A&M SP-3521
FoursiderAlpert.jpg

Released as SP-3251, later renumbered SP-6011, and issued on CD as CD-6011

Track listing:

Side One
1. THE LONELY BULL (Sol Lake) 2:14
2. MORE (Ortalana-Oliviero) 2:26
3. THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA (Gimbel-Jobim-De Moraes) 2:36
4. HELLO DOLLY (Jerry Herman) 1:55
5. A TASTE OF HONEY (Scott-Marlow) 2:42
6. WHIPPED CREAM (Naomi Neville) 2:32

Side Two
7. TIJUANA TAXI (Ervan Coleman) 2:05
8. ZORBA THE GREEK (Mikis Theodorakis) 4:23
9. IF I WERE A RICH MAN (Harnick-Bock) 2:34
10. WHAT NOW MY LOVE (Becaud-Sigman) 2:15
11. THE SHADOW OF YOUR SMILE (Mandel-Webster) 3:29

Side Three
12. MAME (Jerry Herman) 2:07
13. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS (J.Lennon-P.McCartney) 2:44
14. CASINO ROYALE (B.Bacharach-H.David) 2:35
15. CABARET (J. Kander-F.Ebb) 2:40
16. THIS GUY'S IN LOVE WITH YOU (B.Bacharach-H.David) 3:59

Side Four
17. MOON RIVER (Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer) 2:55
18. SUNNY (Bobby Hebb) 3:09
19. WARM (Julius Wechter) 2:32
20. WITHOUT HER (Harry Nilsson) 3:22
21. LAST TANGO IN PARIS (Gato Barbieri) 2:46


ALL SELECTIONS PRODUCED BY
HERB ALPERT AND JERRY MOSS


Compiled and edited by
Claire Baren and Richard Burns
Art Direction by Roland Young
Concept and Design by Junie Osaki
Illustrations by Jim Gilbert

A&M Records, Inc.
P.O.Box 782, Beverly Hills, Calif. 90213
Printed in U.S.A.
 
Incredibly, we've never had a thread or threads devoted to the FOURSIDER series, so in this 50th Anniversary year, I thought it was a good time to look back at them, using our Classic Album Of The Week format.

The copyright date on my Alpert FOURSIDER is 1973, so I'm assuming that's the year it came out. I have a CD of this title, as well as an SP-6011 LP and an SP-3521 LP. All three have the angled track listing on the front cover, though I've seen some FOURSIDER images where the titles are not printed - just plain black. My LPs of Baja, Mendes, and Sandpipers are all 35xx series, all are die-cut promotional, and none have angled titles on the front. My Mendes CD (6012) has the angled titles.

I always thought highly of the Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass FOURSIDER. As a CD, it provided us with digital tracks not found elsewhere.

Harry
 
My Foursider was an early pressing, and does not have the track titles on the front.

Most notable was the curious (at the time) appearance of "Last Tango in Paris." Little did we know that a new TJB album would follow just a short time later.
 
My Foursider was an early pressing, and does not have the track titles on the front.

Is that the chain of events? First the titles were missing, and later they appeared? I guess that makes sense - I've got three promo versions with no titles, and my stock Alpert HAS titles.

Harry
 
It is surprising to me that Spanish Flea didn't make it onto this album.

Perhaps Herb omitted "Spanish Flea", saving it instead for Julius' entry in the series since he wrote it. It's interesting to note that while Herb's FOURSIDER is in pretty close to chronological order, none of the others are.

Harry
 
Yes, I have always thought of it as a chronologically built collection that avoided some of the really big hits, maybe because "Greatest Hits" was still in print and also most of the TJB catalog?
In these years several collections of TJB material came out here in Europe, like "This Guy's In Love With You" (1971) and "Cabaret" (1973) on budget labels (A & M "Mayfair" and "Karusell") and these tended also to mix a few of the big hits with lesser known material.

- greetings from the north -
Martin
 
"Spanish Flea" (combined with "One Note Samba") also appears on the Mendes FOURSIDER.
 
My Foursider was an early pressing, and does not have the track titles on the front.

I got this when it first came out. On my copy the titles were on a removable little sleeve on the bottom of the LP. I've been very careful in keeping that sleeve preserved over the years.

Some of these titles marked the first time that I heard these, particularly the tracks from Ninth, Warm and Brass Are Comin'. I soon received BAC for Christmas after getting this compilation.


Capt. Bacardi
 
On my copy the titles were on a removable little sleeve on the bottom of the LP.

Interesting. It's like these were released without hammering out all of the artwork details.

I'm guessing I must have bought the Alpert FOURSIDER pretty late in the game. My better-condition purchased copy is the SP-6011 version. It's got plain-white innersleeves, and the record labels are the silver-and-tan scheme.

My other copy I think came in an eBay lot. It's got a chewed up jacket at the top. plain brown, glossy innersleeves with only an A&M logo and SP 3521 on them. The labels on that one are stock ochre.

Both have angled track titles printed right on the front in brown-on-black.

Harry
 
The first pressings would have inner sleeves that match the color on the front cover; I have at least two on vinyl (TJB and Sandpipers), and both are like this, and neither have the tracks listed on the front cover IIRC. Tan labels, of course.
 
Now the plain black borders make a little more sense if a paper obi-like cover were used under the shrink-wrap.
 
I am guessing the added song titles were a marketing gimmick. Having familiar songs listed on the front may have sparked more sales. I like the clean look without the titles (which IMHO make it look like an advertisement).
 
My copy has the song titles only on the back, but I don't remember any Obi-like sleeve with the titles. Maybe it was only added to the first run, or something. Then when they ran out of strips, they printed the titles on the cover.

I remember being disappointed that there was nothing in the way of liner notes inside. Avid reader that I was (and still am), I was hoping for some kind of writeup on the band, but just plain colored sleeves....it was nice to have something "special," but it was pretty boring! Understandable though, since liner notes had long gone out of fashion by then.

I have always thought of it as a chronologically built collection that avoided some of the really big hits, maybe because "Greatest Hits" was still in print and also most of the TJB catalog?

Greatest Hits was indeed still in print when Foursider came out so you could be right. Or another possibility I always considered: Somebody forgot! :wink:
 
Not a 'Perfect' set, nor anything I could consider 'Poor'... As for being a "must-have", it's the closest to a five-or-six record retrospective set by a certain Elvis, that you can say this is almost in a league with...

(Elvis Aron Presley, consisting of some rarities & some already-had songs, is what I'm referring to, here...)

Does what a typical 'Four Sider' of this breed, even for Herb would do, at least offering a few well-known songs, plus a rarity here and there, while not strictly making it 'All About Hits...!'...


-- Dave
 
I own the BMB "Foursider" and it came with the obi strip (which I also still have). That was the only one I bought on vinyl and I'm glad I did since it was the only "Foursider" that didn't make it to CD :sad: Any idea why the BMB "Foursider" got passed over?
 
I don't think that The Sandpipers FOURSIDER was ever issued on CD either. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

Here's a picture from a current eBay auction of that Sandpipers FOURSIDER LP with the lower obi-type strip:

foursidersandpipersobi.JPG

Harry
 
I never saw the Sandpipers Foursider on CD. Then again, one CD of theirs is enough audio valium for one sitting. :biglaugh:
 
Maybe the Sandpipers and the BMB Foursiders got passed over for CD issues? I don't recall that the Sandpipers got a volume in the A&M Classics series, either :tongue:
 
The unfortunate reality is that there probably wasn't much of a market for CD releases of these two here in the U.S.


Capt. Bacardi
 
The Baja and Sandpiper 4-Siders were neither released on CD nor reissued in the 6xxx series. When they were first released the songs weren't printed at an angle -- they were on an obi-like strip wrapped horizontally around the LP, as pictured on the Sandpipers image above. Oddly that pone has both the obi AND the words at an angle. I think it's either the result of going to press at a time they were transitioning fomr the obi to the printed song titles, or the seller has accidentall mixed the two versions together.

sp3521.jpg
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sp3522.jpg
sp3522alt.jpg

sp3523.jpg
sp3523alt.jpg
sp3524.jpg
sp3524alt.jpg


sp3525.jpg
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I've always sort of considered Phil Ochs' Chords of Fame double album on A&M (with half the tracks courtesy of Elektra Records) to be The Phil Ochs Foursider.
 
It would not surprise me if a dealer at some point swapped covers, sleeves and even the records.
 
I'm re-opening this old thread with something of a quandary. Over at the Steve Hoffman forum, Steve himself maintains that there's a stereo remix of "Tijuana Taxi" that Herb did for one of these GREATEST HITS-type albums. At first he thought it was the orange GH album, but later in the thread he changed it to the "one with the titles printed around the border" which we surmise to be FOURSIDER.

SH Spotlight - Compact Disc mastering: 1980's vs. "newly remastered"--Steve's thoughts in 2003 and 2018

I hear a difference between the LP of FOURSIDER's "Tijuana Taxi" and the one on the CD. Does anyone else hear anything that could be called a "remix"? One thing I'm convinced of - "Tijuana Taxi" on the LP of FOURSIDER sounds really good.

One thing I'm focusing on is the placement of the bassy kick-drum, particularly at the open. On most stereo versions on CD, I hear that bassy sound all coming from the left. On the FOURSIDER LP, I hear it more balanced between the left and right channels. Could this be the key to this "Herb remix"?
 
I don't think I've played the Foursider LP since the 70s, and I can't even remember if I bought the CD.

I know the Foursider Brasil 66 CD sounds terrible.
 
If you can, give a listen to the LP. It sounds like a pretty good mastering to me.
 
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