Today is my birthday, so I thought it would be fun to listen to the album that held #1 spot on the Billboard albums chart on the day I was born. Not only did Alpert & the TJB have the top album in that week's issue (June 11, 1966), they had three albums in the top five! I never realized how huge they were back then; I usually naïvely think of the late '60s being all Stones and Beatles, peace and love, baby. But I guess a lot of cocktail parties needed hours of background music and the TJB was there.
I ordered this CD for my birthday last year, but it was back-ordered and I didn't receive it until July so I've saved it in its cellophane until today. The album is characteristic of the TJB's typical "Ameriachi" sound with lots of trumpet duets, strings, and marimba over a samba-ish beat. However, instead of Mexican-themed originals, this album's songs were chosen from the pop charts and Broadway shows. As written in the liner notes, "the album is more piano bar than Tijuana bullring." But, simply put, if you like other music from this group, you'll like this album, too.
Today's trivia: the attractive woman on the album with Alpert is is Sandra Moss, wife of Herb's A&M Records partner Jerry Moss.
Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #1 (9 weeks between May 28 - Sept 3, 1966)
Tracks: It's a very brief album, 12 tracks in only 32 minutes. The better cuts are the title track, Memories of Madrid, So What's New (which was used as the theme music for the syndicated pop music television program of the 1960s, The Lloyd Thaxton Show) and Brasilia (which was used as the theme music for the short-lived game show, The Face is Familiar). A few of the songs fall short, including Freckles, It Was A Very Good Year, and The Magic Trumpet. The title track was the album's only Top 40 single, peaking at #24 on the pop chart and #2 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It also won the Grammy award for Best Instrumental Arrangement.
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None
Previously revisited for the blog:
Classics, Volume 1 (1987)
Rise (1979)
Guess someone was feeling particularly horny on their birthday?
ReplyDeleteLike you, I was born under a Herb Alpert Number One album though in my case, just six weeks prior to yours, it was Going Places which was still ranked at #4 when you were hatched. Alpert's chart domination found him with 4 of the Top 15 albums that week. (Zeppelin holds the distinction of having most albums simultaneously on charts when all nine of their albums charted in October 1979 and not becuase anyone had died!)
ReplyDeleteYou were right in your thesis that, at the time, more adults were buying albums to soundtrack their cocktail parties while their kids gobbled up 45s like candy. That would change the following year with the release of The Beatles Sgt Pepper, among other seminal rock albums.
Hope you have a Happy Brthday!