The trumpet-led easy listening juggernaut that outsold The Beatles and the Rolling Stones in 1966 with brass, mariachi flair, and cool.
MOODS · breezy · festive · brassy · retro · upbeat · sunny · nostalgic · playful · easy listening · celebratory
BIOGRAPHY
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass formed around trumpeter Herb Alpert, born March 31, 1935, who also co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. The project began with the song 'The Lonely Bull,' reworked after Alpert saw a mariachi band at a Tijuana bullfight, and became A&M's debut release. Early recordings featured Alpert overdubbing his own trumpet, with later work backed by Los Angeles session players known as the Wrecking Crew.
Their 1965 album Whipped Cream & Other Delights became the top-selling album of 1966, and in April of that year the group held the #1, #2, and #3 spots on the Billboard chart simultaneously. Guinness recognized them for selling 13.7 million copies across six albums in a single year.
WHY THEY'RE COOL
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass are a rare case of instrumental pop reaching true mass-culture saturation, briefly outselling The Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined. Their sound, blending pop-jazz, mariachi color, and skiffle-band boogie, defined a distinct mid-1960s mood. The group's 'A Taste of Honey' won three Grammys, and an animated short built around their music won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Alpert himself remains the only artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 both as a vocalist and as an instrumentalist, and he later entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, cementing a legacy built on genre-crossing horn-driven pop.
GEORGE'S PLAYS
First time on the station.
PLAYED ON WOKE1
