THE HERB ALPERT SIGNATURE SERIES
Featuring Lost Treaures, an all-new compilation of rarities & unreleased gems, plus deluxe remastered editions of Alpert's album classics

          In his liner notes for Lost Treasures, the compilation of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass rarities and previously unissued tracks that is among the initial three releases in Shout! Factory's historic Herb Alpert Signature Series, music writer Josh Kun points out:

          "There was someone named Elvis Presley and some band called The Beatles, but the truth about music in the 1960s is that we were a Herb Alpert nation. The patented Tijuana Brass sound of trumpets and marimbas swinging through chirpy blends of Dixieland jazz and Mexican mariachi were everywhere."

          As a musical force, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass--and Herb Alpert solo--far outlived the '60s, but the TJB sound reached a pinnacle in the middle of that decade, and will forever remain a truly iconic sound of the era. Among other highlights, TJB toured the world, earned massive ratings for network television specials chronicling their globe-trotting performances, were spoofed on Get Smart, played at the White House, and sent their music into space onboard Apollo 8. Everywhere, indeed.

          And the records themselves burned up the airwaves soared up the charts time and time again, racking up statistics and setting precedents that remain historic. Case in point: in 1966 alone, The Tijuana Brass achieved the distinction of simultaneously having four different albums in the Top 10 on Billboard's Pop album chart, and five in the Top 20. This since-unmatched feat will likely never be topped because of the profound shift in the pace at which artists release records today, as compared with previous decades.

          That same year, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass laid claim to the #1 spot on Billboard's Pop album chart for a remarkable eighteen weeks, during four of which, they also held the #2 position. Coming in second with a seventeen week total were the aforementioned Beatles, who at one point were outsold 2-to-1 by the Brass. From '62 to '69, TJB had fourteen Top 40 Pop singles, including the GRAMMY®-winners "A Taste Of Honey" and "What Now My Love," and the 1968 #1 smash "This Guy's In Love With You," boasting a rare lead vocal by Herb himself. Vibrant, soulful and energetic, the Brass's music tapped into the popular zeitgeist of the day with a spirited sound that was both accessible and exotic, and as the '60s ended, they remained the fourth best-selling act of the entire decade.

          The Herb Alpert Signature Series from Shout! Factory kicks off by exploring this artistically fertile period of Alpert's career with deluxe, remastered versions of two early and legendary albums, the 1962 Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass debut The Lonely Bull and 1964's South Of The Border. Mining the richness of the TJB legacy with a more overarching focus is the new compilation Lost Treasures, collecting previously unreleased gems and choice rarities from 1963-1974. Every release in the Series-which will eventually encompass all of Alpert's classic albums, both with the Brass and solo-feature expanded booklets with all-new liner notes, newly penned personal commentary from Herb, and rarely-seen archival photos.

          Lost Treasures came into being when Alpert was awestruck by his discovery of the sheer volume of unreleased tracks that existed from the Tijuana Brass period. "When I started to listen to all of the well-preserved tapes," Alpert recently commented, "the music gave me goose bumps." On a few unfinished cuts, he went into the studio to complete, or re-record his trumpet parts, and make the tracks whole. "I got back into the groove," Alpert says. "I must admit, I had a good time doing that. I wanted to keep the tracks in the genre that I had recorded them in during that period. It's actually the same trumpet that I've used for years…"
          Previously unissued recordings making their way onto Lost Treasures include signature Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass takes on James Taylor's "Fire And Rain"-a funky down-tempo cover that Josh Kun predicts is "bound to find its way into DJ chill sets"--and "Killing Me Softly," a version that Kun writes, "imagines Roberta Flack on a Mexican vacation, napping in a hammock..." Alpert explains, "When recording recognizable songs, my goal has always been to do them in a way that is different than the original recording, and to always try and express the song through the trumpet as if I were singing the lyric."
          Other inspired musical reworkings on the 22-song collection include TJB renditions of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David immortals "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" and "(They Long To Be) Close To You," Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again (Naturally)," Cat Stevens' "The Whistle Star," the Patti Page hit "Tennessee Waltz," and the early '70s cult favorite "Popcorn."

          The Lonely Bull, originally released in December, 1962, was not only the album debut for Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, it was the first album ever released on A&M Records, the then-fledgling label that Alpert had founded with partner Jerry Moss earlier in the year. The LP built on the extraordinary success of its title track-A&M's inaugural single-which climbed to #6 on Billboard's Pop singles chart, went on to sell a million copies, and helped keep the album-which peaked at #10--charting for three consecutive years.
          Alpert remembers, "In 1962, after experiencing my first bullfight in Tijuana, Mexico, I was inspired to find a way to musically express what I felt while watching and listening to the wild responses of the crowd in the stands, and hearing the group of brass musicians who introduced each new event with a rousing fanfare...my pursuit became to capture that on tape." Alpert's quest paid off, the excitement translated, and the Tijuana Brass sound became an instant, widespread musical and pop culture phenomenon. As Josh Kun writes in his notes, "What happened was that A&M Records, one of the most influential musical empires of the 20th century, was born in a Tijuana bullring."
          Indeed, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass' hold on the public's imagination began here, with the evocative and colorful Sol Lake-penned title track and eleven other cuts, including Lake's "Crawfish," a jazz-flavored interpretation of the bossa nova favorite "Desafinado," the hit "Never On Sunday," and the inimitable Alpert & Moss co-write, "Tijuana Sauerkraut." The bull may have been lonely, but the Brass was on a roll...

          South Of The Border debuted in 1964, and rose to #6 on Billboard's Pop albums chart, making it the Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass' biggest hit up to that point. During the sessions for it, Alpert recalls that, "I realized how important it is to be visual with instrumental music, so that each song, each arrangement, each presentation has a real visual image. It takes the place of that powerful lyric than an instrumental doesn't have."
          That process can be deeply felt on heavily Spanish-flavored numbers by composer Sol Lake-who had helped start it all with "The Lonely Bull"-including "El Presidente" and "Adios, Mi Corazon." Lake also penned the album's breakout hit, "The Mexican Shuffle," which Alpert re-recorded for the Clark Chewing Gum Company's use in an advertising campaign. Re-tooled as "The Teaberry Shuffle," the song's strains were a national finger-snapping, instantly recognizable sensation, and, as Kun notes, "the TV spot brought the Tijuana Brass to mass audiences the size Alpert had never dreamed of."
          Herb's approach also worked its magic on a diverse assortment of the fresh and inventive covers that fans came to expect from TJB. On South Of The Border, they interpret the Jobim classic "The Girl From Ipanema," The Beatles' "All My Loving," and the Lerner & Loewe My Fair Lady favorite "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face," among others. "At that point," says Alpert, "I felt that I just needed to find songs with strong melodies and put them in an interesting and honest setting." As with his desire to bring the passion of the bullring to the recording studio, once again, the artist rose to his own stated challenge, and channeled a sound, and a feeling, that connected with millions of fans everywhere. And things were still just beginning for Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass.

          Shout! Factory's roll-out of Herb Alpert's extraordinary catalogue offers an opportunity to revisit and savor this dynamic music, painstakingly remastered for optimal sound with Alpert's direct involvement. In conversations for the liner notes for the first wave of releases, Alpert said, "Deep down I would like younger audiences to dig these songs…I would boldly say that the reason my music worked then and could still work now is that it's not contrived. It's what really comes out of me. That's the way it is. I'm not screaming for anyone's attention."

For music lovers of every age, The Herb Alpert Signature Series is something to hear.

###

© 2005 by Jensen Communications, Inc. Reproduced with permission of Jensen Communications.

HERB ALPERT SIGNATURE SERIES PRESS RELEASES

Going Places, What Now My Love, and S.R.O.
Lost Treasures, The Lonely Bull and South of the Border
Whipped Cream and Other Delights
Sounds Like..., Herb Alpert's Ninth and The Beat of the Brass
Christmas Album
Rise

On A&M Records.com features the most information and photos about Herb Alpert.

For detailed profiles of Herb Alpert including his U.S. and international discographies, bibliographies, music awards, collectibles, concert dates, radio and television appearances, photos and more, click on these links:

HERB ALPERT ARTIST REPORT
HERB ALPERT AND HUGH MASEKELA ARTIST REPORT
HERB ALPERT & THE TIJUANA BRASS ARTIST REPORT

HERB ALPERT PHOTO GALLERY
HERB ALPERT AND HUGH MASEKELA PHOTO GALLERY
HERB ALPERT & THE TIJUANA BRASS PHOTO GALLERY

OFFICIAL HERB ALPERT BIOGRAPHY

Official biography of Herb Alpert