Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935, in Los Angeles, California) is an American trumpeter who led the Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. Alpert has recorded 28 albums that have landed on the Billboard 200 chart, five of which became No. 1 albums; he has had 14 platinum albums and 15 gold albums. Alpert is the only musician to hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 as both a vocalist (“This Guy’s in Love with You”, 1968) and an instrumentalist (“Rise”, 1979).
Alpert has reportedly sold 72 million records worldwide. He has received many accolades, including a Tony Award, and eight Grammy Awards, as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, he was inducted as into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Alpert was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama in 2013. (wikipedia)
Sounds Like… is a 1967 album by the instrumental group Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, the group’s eighth.
According to liner notes in the 2006 Shout!Factory CD release, the title theme for the 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale was originally recorded with vocals, but Bacharach was dissatisfied with the recording. He sent the tapes to Herb Alpert, who overdubbed some trumpets and some Tijuana Brass instruments (most prominently marimba and percussion) and sent the song back to Bacharach. This version, with the Bacharach orchestra, rather than the Brass members, providing most of the backing, is the one included on the Sounds Like… album.
The song “Wade in the Water” was also a popular concert number, according to Alpert, and was featured in the group’s first television special in 1967 (wikipedia)
For one week in June 1967, Sounds Like was able to break the Monkees’ 31-week hammerlock on the number one slot on the charts — just two weeks before the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper took over and changed the world. This shows, lest you forget — and many have — just how popular Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass were, still spanning the generations during the Summer of Love, still putting out records as fresh and musical and downright joyous as this one. Though not as jazz-flavored as S.R.O., Sounds Like does preserve the feeling, particularly in the extended vamps on an updated slave song, “Wade in the Water” (a hit single). “Gotta Lotta Livin’ to Do” settles you into the record with nothing but a long vamp — a daring production decision. Yet Alpert was on a roll; everything he tried in the TJB’s heyday seemed to work. The lesser-known tunes back-loaded on side two are a string of pearls — John Pisano’s appropriately titled bossa nova “The Charmer,” Roger Nichols’ tense “Treasure of San Miguel,” Ervan Coleman’s catchy “Miss Frenchy Brown.” Finally, Alpert takes a flyer and concludes the LP with an extravagant Burt Bacharach orchestration of his theme from the film Casino Royale — an artifact of ’60s pop culture, to be sure, but still a perfectly structured record. (by Richard S. Ginell)
Personnel:
Herb Alpert (trumpet, vocals)
Nick Ceroli (drums, percussion)
Bob Edmondson (trombone)
Tonni Kalash (trumpet)
Lou Pagani (keyboards)
John Pisano (guitar, mandolin)
Pat Senatore (bass)
Single front + backcover:
Tracklist:
01. Gotta Lotta Livin’ To Do (Strouse/Adams) 2.48
02. Lady Godiva (Leander/Mills) 2.07
03. Bo-Bo (Lake) 3.04
04. Shades Of Blue (Wechter) 2.44
05. In A Little Spanish Town (Wayne/Lewis/Young) 1.54
06. Wade In The Water (Alpert/Edmondson/Pisano) 3.04
07. Town Without Pity (Tiomkin/Washington) 2.15
08. The Charmer (Pisano) 2.13
09. Treasure Of San Miguel (Nichols) 2.14
10. Miss Frenchy Brown (Coleman) 2.27
11. Casino Royale (David/Bacharach) 2.35
The inlets:
More from Herb Alpert:
The official website: