10 Things to Know About Music Titan Herb Alpert

By mid-1968, Perry Como, Gene Pitney, Bobby Vinton, Dionne Warwick, Jackie DeShannon and Tom Jones had all notched top 10 hits with songs written by the peerless team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, but Alpert was the first artist to take a Bacharach/David song (or any Bacharach song, for that matter) to No. 1. It happened in June and July 1968 when Alpert’s tender vocal version of “This Guy’s in Love With You” topped the chart for four consecutive weeks.

Alpert also played a big part in the creation of the second Bacharach/David song to reach No. 1. Alpert personally gave the Carpenters, who he had signed in 1969, the lead sheet to a little-known Bacharach/David song, “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” which had been floating around for seven years without making much of a mark. Two all-time great pop singers, Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield, had taken a stab at it, without much success. Richard Carpenter was and is a Bacharach devotee, but he hadn’t heard this song – and truth be told, at first he didn’t love it. But Alpert was sure it was right for the duo. Richard gave it another listen, and came up just the right arrangement to make it work. Their recording was Billboard’s Song of the Summer for 1970 and received a Grammy nod for record of the year. Moral of the story: It pays to listen to your boss.

Fittingly, these two great teams – Alpert & Moss and Bacharach & David – received trustees awards from the Recording Academy the same year (1997).

Eleven years after “This Guy’s in Love With You” reached No. 1 on the Hot 100, Alpert returned to the top spot with an instrumental smash, “Rise.” Alpert is, to this day, the only individual artist to top the Hot 100 with both a vocal hit and an instrumental hit.

Two other artists, Rick Derringer and Barry White, deserve mention. As a member of The McCoys, Derringer reached No. 1 in 1965 with the vocal hit, “Hang on Sloopy.” Eight years later, as a member of the Edgar Winter Group, he reached No. 1 with the instrumental hit “Frankenstein.” Derringer also produced the latter hit.

White reached No. 1 in 1974 with a vocal hit, “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe.” The R&B maestro composed and produced the smash. He also composed and produced the Love Unlimited Orchestra’s instrumental smash “Love’s Theme,” which had hit No. 1 earlier that same year. But he didn’t play an instrument on “Love’s Theme.”

“Rise” is probably best known to younger music fans for its sample in The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize,” which topped the Hot 100 in May 1997.

Alpert and the Tijuana Brass headed the Billboard 200 for 18 weeks in 1966, compared to 17 weeks for The Beatles and eight for The Monkees.

Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’ “A Taste of Honey” (1965) and Percy Faith’s “The Theme From ‘A Summer Place’” (1960) are the only two instrumental hits to win the Grammy for record of the year. Though they were released just five years apart, they sound like they are from entirely different eras. Faith’s shimmering instrumental evokes the 1950s (the song’s composer Max Steiner was a top film scorer dating back to the 1930s), while “A Taste of Honey” has the faster pace and more urban sound of the 1960s.

A&M was known as an artist-friendly label, taking such disparate artists as Joe Cocker and the Carpenters and turning them loose, trusting their instincts. It proved to be a winning approach: The label’s many other hit acts included Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66, Quincy Jones, Brothers Johnson, Peter Frampton, Rita Coolidge, Supertramp, The Police, Sting, Janet Jackson and Amy Grant.

A&M was initially named Carnival Records, but the name had already been taken, forcing a switch. (Thank goodness!)

In 1966, Alpert signed Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66. He even took a presenter credit on their debut album, Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66. The album was released in August 1966 when Alpert’s name on the front cover of an album was worth its weight in gold. (The album, which included the ensemble’s breakthrough hit “Mas que nada,” was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012.)

In December 1973, he married the ensemble’s lead singer, Lani Hall. They are still married and occasionally record and perform together.

Alpert teamed with Lou Adler, another up-and-comer in the L.A. music scene, to co-produce Jan & Dean’s “Baby Talk,” which reached No. 10 on the Hot 100 in September 1959, and co-write Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World,” which reached No. 12 in June 1960. (The latter song has made the top 20 two other times – for Herman’s Hermits in 1965 and Art Garfunkel with James Taylor and Paul Simon in 1978).

Alpert and Adler would team again, and make history together, in the 1970s when A&M Records distributed Adler’s Ode Records, which was home to such artists as Carole King and Cheech & Chong. King’s 1971 classic Tapestry was one of the landmark albums of the 1970s.

Alpert topped the Hot Black Singles chart (as today’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs was then called) in 1987 with “Diamonds,” which featured vocals by Janet Jackson, who was then signed to A&M, and Lisa Keith. Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis wrote and produced the smash.

Alpert won Tony Awards as a producer of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and its sequel, Angels in America: Perestroika, which won best play in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Alpert was also nominated as a producer of Jelly’s Last Jam, a best musical nominee in 1992, and Seven Guitars by August Wilson, a best play nominee in 1996.

Alpert’s first TV special, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding music or variety program (1968). The nomination went to the show’s producers, Gary Smith and Dwight Hemion (who also produced specials for Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Bette Midler and many more.)

The following year, Alpert was personally nominated for outstanding individual achievement in music for The Beat of the Brass (on which he sang “This Guy’s in Love With You”).