SH Spotlight Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass Whipped Cream Video 1966: See the old Charlie Chaplin Studios

My pleasure to share.

 

Does the special gold record still exist, floyd? That must have been awesome, any record would be cool but a gold disc with a label as legendary as A&M..!

 

Great thread Steve. (and great story above!)

Some more cool info on the site here..... http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/charlie-chaplin-studio.htm


And the A&M SOUNDSTAGE/CHAPLIN SOUNDSTAGE

"Parts of the Tijuana Brass television specials were filmed on the soundstage. Alpert would later record with Hugh Masekela The Main Event Live album here. The Carpenters with the Overbudget Orchestra (Los Angeles Philharmonic) recorded "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" in front of an audience of music journalists.

The size of the soundstage and its versatility lent it to tour rehearsals. Probably the most famous tour rehearsal was Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen . The soundstage also hosted countless listening parties for new A&M products as well as other events.

Many A&M promotional films and music videos were shot on the soundstage. Among the promotional films, the earliest Carpenters performance videos, "Every Breath You Take" by The Police in 1983, Jeff Beck's "Ambitious" and Michael Jackson's "Liberian Girl."

 

Yes it hangs in my mom's bedroom.

 

What a beautiful thing to have in the family.

 

In the early 80s I used to live about two blocks away from A&M Studios on Detroit St. near Fountain St. I used to eat 3 or 4 times a week at a place called "Top Taco" on La Brea which was right across the street from A&M. A guy worked there named Jimmy, used to give us starving musicians much more than our money's worth. Great guy, in fact Van Halen's song "Top Jimmy" on 1984 was written about him.

Anyway, Jimmy said that all kinds of cats used to come over from A&M and grab stuff to eat, lots of session guys even some of the top artists including Herb Alpert himself. He said they were always nice guys, down to earth and friendly.. and good tippers! I had to laugh at the idea that guys who could certainly afford some of the best dining in LA would just run across La Brea to grab a couple of quick tacos.

 

Great thread, thanks for all these stories... "Whipped Cream" sounded wonderful in that video, and brought back memories. My dad used to play Herb Alpert and the Tia Juana Brass LPs for me and my siblings when we were little, some of the first music I remember liking.

 

I love the stories being shared here. Great stuff!

 

Just this past May, I was visiting LA, and stopped by to take a few pictures of the old A&M Studios. The security guard at the front gate kept giving me an angry look, but I got a few nice pictures anyway.

Years ago, in my radio programming days, I got the full inside tour of A&M....offices, studios, sound stages, rehearsal halls, etc. Seeing this video from 1966 really brought back a lot of memories. Thanks for sharing that, Steve!

A&M was a real LA icon. Too bad it couldn't continue on as we remember it.

 

Good clean fun for the whole family! Thanks for the link and insight.

 

That is so cool! What wonderful memories to have.

 

Just amazing that stuff like that was still there.


And stuff like this!!

"In February 1954, the Chaplin Studio on La Brea boulevard in Hollywood was handed over to its new owners, who planned to outfit it for TV productions. The faithful Rollie Totheroh had shipped many negatives and prints over to Switzerland, but much still remained. The new owners threw out the contents of the prop room, where among hunderds of other items, the gaint wooden gears from Modern Times (1936) were stored, and they emptied out the film vaults, where the outtakes from nearly forty years were stored.
(from the book The death of cinema by Paolo Cherchi Usai.)"

.

 

I wonder if that's why the extras on my Chaplin DVDs are not very intetesting.

 

I just watched the final Perry Mason episode, Case of The Final Fadeout, where a murder takes place at a movie studio. There are lots of behind-the-scenes views and I think it all took place at this studio.

 

Turner Classics Movies cable channel has a filler short that shows weekend host Ben Mankiewicz tooling around Hollywood with a friend and offering some tour tidbits. They drive by the Chaplin studios and remark about "We Are The World" being recorded there,as well as the old Superman TV show.

 

What a terrific place. I was told that Red Skelton actually owned the studio for a few years in the early 1960s, and he also owned a video mobile truck company that did some work for his old CBS variety show. I'm curious if Red was the guy who sold the stages to Alpert, or if there was some kind of intermediate company. [minutes pass] Ah, this Wikipedia link reveals that Red Skelton did own the place for a few years, but sold it in 1962 to CBS.

It's amazing, the history of that place. I walked around Studio A (the big stage) when I did some work for music video director Jerry Kramer in the 1980s, and you could really feel the atmosphere in there. A lottttttttta hits came outta that room. And A&M also had some great-sounding tracking rooms. A really first-class facility from top to bottom. I'm glad that the Henson people are keeping it up. But it's definitely a real seedy neighborhood around there nowadays.

 

That was a lot of fun to watch!

This may sound weird, but about a minute into this clip I became transfixed by the cars driving by on the street-----------3 years before I was born, frozen in time.

Where were these people going? Are they still alive? What was going on in their lives at this exact moment? Were they going to work, picking their kids up from school?

I've always been fascinated by old films, photos, or videos that capture these candid, random moments of everyday life.

 

I did also, but for a different reason. I live near there and was amazed at how different day-to-day life appeared at Sunset & LaBrea back then. Drove right by there not more than two hours ago and OY! has it changed.

 

Thanks for sharing Steve.

 

I do that with music films, like Magical Zzzztery Tour, I look at a scene and there's pedestrians or vehicles with people oblivious to being in the film, and an illogical voice says to me "Argh!! Turn around, stop the car, the bloody Beatles in 1967 are behind you!!"

 

Great stuff. Two wonderful artists, each of their own time. Herb certainly had all the right respect for the history of the facility he was occupying.
I must tour the place sometime.
And oh, the loveliest of Edna publicity stills.
Tiny observation: a minute or so in, one of the many Chaplins is manning a movie camera...with no crank? So when did hand-cranked motion picture cameras disappear, anyway?