Herb Alpert "The Lonely Bull"

And for me,this when things really started getting good. Every TJB has at least one non-single track that I loved to play over and over.

 

IMHO, Going Places was the peak. They stayed on the crest for a few albums with monstrous hit after hit after hit. By the time you get to Beat of the Brass it has become pure Muzak and almost boring. I honestly cannot remember the last time I played Warm or The Brass Are Comin'.

 

I love GOING PLACES but find myself more drawn to WHAT NOW MY LOVE, the followup, which I view as the peak. Slight downhills for SRO and SOUNDS LIKE. NINTH had its moments but also some weaker spots. BEAT OF THE BRASS is solid for most of it, but suffers from the TV-related "Talk To The Animals".

When it comes to WARM, though, like many other fans, I find it to be irresistibly great from start to finish - though it's a different sound from the classic Tijuana Brass albums. Herb was definitely branching out here, particularly with the opening "The Sea Is My Soil".

THE BRASS ARE COMIN' suffers from two things: Herb's tireness shows in the playing, and the album is plagued with CSG processing. Undoing that processing makes it a bit better, and there are some great moments, but it was the final ride for the classic TjB.

Harry

 

Herb had zero voice as a singer. How "This Guy" was a smash hit is beyond me. He got it by his looks alone.

 

I love it!

 

Why filter them out? They ad to it!

 

Lonely bull was the ring tone on my cell phone for a long time.

 

From the liner notes to the Shout! reissue of THE BEAT OF THE BRASS by Josh Kun:

THE BEAT OF THE BRASS was Alpert's fifth #1 LP. It spent 28 weeks on the Top 40 and boasts the first Alpert-sans-Brass #1 single, "This Guy's In Love With You". Arranged by Burt Bacharach with Alpert on lead vocal, the song is anchored by a spare, minimalist lineup with the Brass' Nick Ceroli on drums and both Bacharach and jazz stalwart Pete Jolly on piano.

"That was one take, folks!" Alpert beams. "I went into the studio after I got the song to see how my voice sounded on the track. After singing it all the way through in one take, I walked into the control room and Burt was there, along with the singers and musicians on the track, and said, 'Great, man, don't touch a thing.' I was just warming up! But I left it alone, and it obviously touched some people. It has a wonderful lyric, 'Who looks at you the way I do?' That's a pretty powerful statement. The vocal treatment was real. It wasn't like a great vocalist singing this song. It was like the guy next door singing this song. I never thought of myself as a singer, but if you communicate a lyric and a feeling, that's what it's all about."

There was never an intent to put out "This Guy's In Love With You" as a single. But the song's dramatic role at the end of the TV special caused enough of an audience stir to push for a quick release. The song was nearly a separate film, a music video unto itself. We see Alpert back in bucolic California, singing the romantic weeper - with all of its piano drizzles and teary, big screen crescendos of strings and cherub choirs - to his first wife. They stroll past babbling brooks and forest bends until they end up arm-in-arm walking down Malibu Beach at sunset.



Harry

 

Have any Herb Alpert mono mixes appeared on CD (legitimately)?

 

Yes and no. Mostly no.

"The Lonely Bull" appeared on DEFINITIVE HITS in a mono mix derived, I believe, by using only the right channel of the stereo mix. It was claimed that the mono mix was lost at the time.

"Mexican Shuffle" has never been a real stereo song, and on the Shout! version of SOUTH OF THE BORDER, it was finally issued on CD in true mono.

Harry

 

I note with interest that all Herb and Lani Hall albums and TJB are now in HD in all the usual places....new remasters too...

 

Not true. The song was recorded at Conway Recorders. Now Herb did experiment with a couple of tape machines to get the genesis of the TJB sound in his garage, and the idea for "Lonely Bull" was created in the garage, but not the actual recording. Of course, A&M did start in the garage.

 

The Lonely Bull album has some nice things on it. Overall it's a very sparse LP, nothing major arrangement-wise. Other than the title cut I really enjoy the two jazz tunes, "Desafinado" and "Crawfish" (the mono LP has a comepletely different trumpet solo on "Crawfish"). I've always enjoyed "A Quiet Tear" as well. Volume 2 has a rather metallic sound to it, but there's some nice performances on it. I enjoy "Swinger From Seville", "Surfin' Senorita" and "America". Once Larry Levine became the engineer with South Of The Border and beyond those albums really took on a life of their own. Even if you aren't crazy about the music you have to love the sound of those albums.

 

Herb & Tijuana Brass Alpert - The Lonely Bull + 4 Bonus Tracks - Amazon.com Music »

 

That is an unauthorized Euro public domain release. There are others as well.

 

I was up in Quebec last week and came thisclose to buying a Canadian pressing of "Whipped Cream" because, well, just because!

 

The music is kitchy and fun, with an inherent awareness of its own silliness, and performed very competently. One can be entertained by the TJ Brass in the same way that one enjoys, say, the original Batman TV show, which is similarly kitchy and fun in that distinctly mid '60s way.

 

VOL. 2 has "Swinger from Seville" and "A-mer-i-ca" on it (the rest...not so great).

 

On top of that.the True Stereo Masters have either been Erased or have been MIA For Decades! Whatever,the Mono mixes are Dynamite!

 

Mine is "Herb Alpert's Ninth"-"A Banda" Still Sends Me!

 

"Surfin' Seniorita" is my all time favorite TJB song. Say what you will about Vol 2, that song redeems it as far as I'm concerned.

 

On "The Lonely Bull" and "A Banda" they were mono only tracks to begin with. When the single hit big, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss overdubbed extra parts to make these two tracks Stereo for release on "The Lonely Bull" LP. The rest of the LP is Stereo. Update, the original A&M Herb Alpert Stereo masters are intact, Herb Alpert owns them and got their ownership when A&M Records was sold, now available on the Herb Alpert Presents label. The mono masters are largely missing or in unusable condition. Best option for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass mono singles mixes, is the rare promo only mono version of the "Dee Jay Sampler", check and make sure it is mono, there is also a Stereo version of it too, I own the latter, the only copy I ever saw in person.

 

The urban myth is Jan & Dean gave Herb Alpert some money to arrange a version of Heart and Soul for them to record (they'd just signed to Liberty but , for some obscure reason, were doing H&S as a one shot). Herb thought no way it was going to be a hit so took the money and recorded The Lonely Bull.

 

Close. But I need to correct the notion of "A Banda" being mono. "A Banda" was a track that was later recorded for HERB ALPERT'S NINTH and exists in glorious stereo.

I believe that you meant "Acapulco 1922" as the second mono-only track, and that's true. It was the b-side to "The Lonely Bull". And both were mono recordings that were altered for the stereo album.

"The Lonely Bull" was made stereo by Herb adding another trumpet track on the left channel, while the single played on the right channel. It makes for an uncomfortable experience with headphones unless you find one of the slightly narrowed stereo versions.

"Acapulco 1922" was made stereo with the addition of some extra percussion tracks - wood blocks and cymbals on one channel or the other.

I own a copy of the DEE JAY SAMPLER in mono and it mostly does contain the mono single mixes of the tracks it contains. It's also known by its more official title of THE BEST FROM HERB ALPERT AND THE TIJUANA BRASS, but that verbiage is dwarfed on the cover by the giant words, DEE JAY SAMPLER.



The mono version will have a sticker to indicate that it is indeed mono, even though it may have as SP-19004 designation in the cover corner.

 

I always enjoyed "Going Places". I found a VG+ copy of "#9" yesterday at a thrift store. Another good one!