What would have happened if Herb Alpert hadn't existed?

[Yazmin_Salinas]

I would have started a record label with Jerry Moss and formed a band called the Tijuana Brass.

Kenny and the Tijuana Brass??? Ha ha ha!!!

NP: "El presidente" (The Korea Brass)

 

[Mike Blakesley]

No, he could have still called the band "Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass" because if Herb didn't exist, it would be no problem. The name DOES have a nice ring to it, after all.

 

[Dave]

...The Soundtrack for the movie, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, would be written by someone else...Neil Diamond? Bob Dylan?

Somehow I don't see that "course of History" changing... Dionne Warwick, Burt's main client would have been famous for Raindrops Keep Fallin' On my Head, though given that B.J Thomas had sung it on Scepter records, I think he would've done the song and album there as he had; there just wouldn't be the Soundtrack that exists on..., on...? --A&M!!!

Or better yet, given the many versions, which that song saw, it could easily be Andy Williams who'd have had a Hit with it (he did soooo MANY Movie Themes) and his version and album are soooo underrated, too! (Though somehow I've grown tired of the Medley on Side 2, that I sadly no longer listen to it... Yes it became a Frankenrecord--Bobby Goldsboro's Tenth Anniversary Album, Side 3 is taped onto the underside...)

John Davidson, Ed Ames, Peggy Lee, and I think even Vikki Carr did Raindrops..., so it's interesting to wonder if they'd have had a crack at it, too! (Though the male singer at Burt Bacharach's concert, I thought had done the B.J. Thomas version, though I could've sworn the two female singers had sung it there, too, ala Andre Kostalentz [his version is real tearjerker, too] so all that was needed was the "different arrangement"....)



Dave

 

[Captaindave]

Michael's post is excellent and well thought out.

JB

I agree - very good analysis.

I myself would have lacked many social and musical experiences of my youth; specifically the high school years in the later sixties. Without going into detail, that to which I refer owed its existence in my life - either directly or indirectly - to TJB music from that time period. It served as a "platform" for many opportunities and circumstances which had various profound effects in my life; some of which still do today.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

But Dave...my theory is that the lack of a Herb Alpert would have meant a rock takeover of the charts and airwaves in 1966 (about four years earlier than actually happened).

Without huge record sales for Alfie, Message To Michael, Trains and Boats and Planes, Casino Royale (no Herb), The Look Of Love, The Windows Of The World, I Say A Little Prayer, This Guy's In Love With You, Do You Know The Way To San Jose, Promises, Promises, and The April Fools,
Bacharach likely wouldn't have ever held the title of America's top songwriter.

Had that happened, by 1969, what interest would the filmmakers have had in Burt Bacharach or Andy Williams? Is it that far-fetched to think that, with a four-year head start, Neil Diamond's first movie soundtrack would be Butch Cassidy instead of Johnathon Livingston Seagull?

---Michael Hagerty

 

[Dave]

OK, Mike, I agree with you... I guess I got a "little far-fetched" in my theory... Yes, we DID need the Music which I have once scorned in favor of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, KISS, etc., to which is nowadays, THE ONLY STUFF I LISTEN TO! --Yes, EZ-Listening (and some Jazz and Beatles-like Pop, while they were still--mostly as a GROUP--still relevent...)

And incidentally, weren't you the one who actually got to see the A&M Lot and met a lot of its main adversaries who were in the studio at that time you were there?

I rest my case, as your theory seems to speak the God's Honest Truth, but couldn't help but throw some ideas around, though without really thinking about that last "angle" I overlooked...!

Thanks, Mike! --Your quote was too enoumous to put here, but informative and meaningful...! inkshield:



Dave

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Dave: Yep...lucky enough to get a gig in radio at 15...lucky enough to be a music director at 16 and lucky enough to have the first record promotion person to give me record service be Jan Basham at A&M. On my next visit to L.A. (I had just turned 17), I was invited to visit. Parked in Karen Carpenter's space and walked around open-mouthed as Paul Williams played a piano, Cheech and Chong worked on some material sitting on a sofa, and a fella named "Herbie" came walking our way along the hall outside the recording studios. Heady stuff at any age. I'll never forget it as long as I live...and I'd been a huge A&M fan for many years by that point (1973).

---Mcihael Hagerty

 

[manifan]

Who would've sung "This Guy's in Love With You"???

If Herb hadn't existed I would have missed out on having him as my first crush...there would have been no exciting instrumental group of the 60s...and I doubt seriously if the Carpenters would have been successful, because Herb was the only one who believed in them. And that in itself would have been a tragedy, because Karen Carpenter is my favorite female singer of all time.

It's all too sad to ponder...

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Someone would have sung it...but if Herb hadn't been around (or if he hadn't been the success he was) in 1965 and 1966, by 1968, it likely wouldn't have gotten sufficient record label support, airplay or sales for you to have heard it.

And you're right about the Carpenters. By 1969, the culture within A&M Records had changed so radically that it was only because of Herb that they given any kind of support promotionally. A lot of people at the label were hoping for them to fail.

---Michael Hagerty

 

[Dave]

And if Herb Alpert didn't exist, you would not have had Vin Cardinal, who made a couple of A&M '45's, one of which, was a version of Ben E. King's Let The Water Run Down, which Herb Produced!

And the other a Donovan song, of which Vin also did a Psychedelic Version of, Season Of The Witch... Of which, the only OTHER Psychedelic versions of, would'a otherwise only been done by Al Kooper and also by Vanilla Fudge...

Look on a number of those '45's of A&M "One Shots"; there are a LOT of 'em! Of which if not for A&M, and the "A" being Herb, would'a never have come to be! inkshield:



Dave

...Sad to Ponder is RIGHT!

 

[Andrew T.]

If Herb Alpert didn't exist, Rudy would have fewer websites to run.

 

[Yazmin_Salinas]

If Herb Alpert didn't exist, Rudy would have fewer websites to run.

Rudy? Who's Rudy?

NP: "Keep your eye on me" (the Korea Brass)

 

[Mike Blakesley]

A guy who runs some websites.

Actually he's an obscure American trumpeter who covered a few Herb Alpert songs in the 1960s. He called his outfit "Herb Talbot and the Tijuana Tin." They actually appeared on a TV show called "Get Smart." After flopping in the music business, he turned to web design and started A&M Corner.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Just a reminder that not all of us have been around since this place was called "Rudy's A&M Corner".

---Michael Hagerty

 

[seashorepiano]

Every so often Rudy hooks up an echoplex to his trumpet, just to take a trip down memory lane, when this other guy, known only as Mike B., plays xylophone.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

If the mods here formed a TJB cover band, I think Mr. Bill would be on marimba (not xylophone.) (Or is it Captain Bacardi? One of them is a marimba player!) I myself would have to be on piano, since I can actually play it a little.

 

[seashorepiano]

Who's Captain Bacardi?

 

[Mr Bill]

Yep. I'm the marimba player and Capt B is the trombone player... I hear he blows a mean bone when he visits the Bay Area!

Mike B would provide the venue for this supposed band in his Montana theatre.

--Mr Bill
I kid, I kid! Hoooboy, must be the heat over here...

 

[Yazmin_Salinas]

And I would be the guest vocalist on some songs...

 

[David Kirkpatrick]

Once again,

* Lani Hall was not discovered by Herb; she was discovered by Sergio Mendes in Chicago, and was a successful singer long before she even met Herb. (Gee Yasmin, I thought you were a fan...you didn't know this?)

* Sergio Mendes was also well-known before he met Herb. Sergio had several albums on the Atlantic label before he knew Herb, and Brasil '66 could have easily signed with any number of other labels.

* A&M Records wouldn't have existed? I might have to give you that one, although Jerry Moss would have probably gotten into the business with some other artist if he hadn't hooked up with Herb.

But would he have made it with a label named "&M" ? And if he teamed of with Sergio Mendes instead how would that affect the history of white Rap music?

The fact that no imitator of the TJB sound seemed to be able to capture the magic suggests that the greatest tragedy (Dore and Aria Alpert might disagree with me on this one) would be the loss of the part of the A&M catalogue with Herb Alpert on the cover. Beyond that there do seem to be some A&M performers who had a slow start and who might have given up on the music business if the non-A&M music business gave up on them.

Another counterfactual: what if Herb got his inspiration from not a Tijuana bullfight, but a gallery of black velvet paintings?

David

 

[Dave]

Another counterfactual: What if Herb got his inspiration from not a Tijuana bullfight, but a gallery of black velvet paintings?

David

Simple: He would still be famous as a Painter and Sculpturer! And maybe he'd still have established his Herb Alpert Foundation for the Arts, there, too...



Dave

 

[Mr Bill]

Or we'd get articles over the last 10 years or so that read:

60's abstract impressionist painter and sculptor Herb Alpert is adding another feather to his artistic cap as he dabbles in music. The painter turned musician admits he's always played trumpet having taken lessons as a child, eventually playing in local bands for weddings and barmitvahs while in his teens. He claims that the late pop psychologist and radiio counselor Julius Wechter and he were briefly bandmates with one another.

He even played trumpet for the US Army but "got burned out on it playing taps at funerals a dozen times a week." He says he found painting and sculpting as a "means of escaping the routine humdrum of playing trumpet day in and day out." He didn't give up music without a fight though...

Before his impressive gallery debut in 1964 took the art world by storm, he actually recorded a few "bubble gum pop" sides under the name Dore Alpert, but never broke the niche that was trailblazed by Paul Anka, Pat Boone, Frankie Avalon and so many others of the era.

His debut CD, A Taste of Mexico, which was inspired by his recent gallery debut in Mexico City, comes out Tuesday on M&M Records...

--Mr Bill

 

[Mr Bill]

I think were it not for Herb Alpert, Gene Roddenberry and Walt Disney (my 3 biggest personal heroes), I'd be a rocket scientist at best or a homeless drug addict living in a cardboard box under a freeway overpass at worse...

--Mr Bill
...or as Mr Gross would say, " Awesome!"

 

[lonely bull]

Mr Bill - sorry for being so ignorant but who is Gene Roddenberry?

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Gene Roddenberry = creator of Star Trek.