Herb Alpert

Herb Alpert sold America the sound of Mexico in the 1960s, scored a string of hit records, wrote the Sam Cooke classic Wonderful World and started one of the world's most successful record companies - not bad for a humble trumpet player from Los Angeles. First picking up the instrument at eight, he was a star turn at South Californian clubs by the time he was 15 and, after serving in the army, became a songwriter for Keen Records and founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss in 1962. Inspired by hearing mariachi bands while watching bull fights in Mexico, he used overdubs to capture the sound and atmosphere of the crowd and had his first Top 10 hit The Lonely Bull under the name Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. He recruited a group of session musicians to evolve the project into a distinct mix of Latin, jazz and pop sounds and the hits Zorba The Greek, A Taste Of Honey and Spanish Flea made him the biggest selling artist of 1966 ahead of The Beatles and Frank Sinatra. TV specials and Grammy Awards followed and he became the only artist to ever have five albums simultaneously in the US Top 20, including the classics Whipped Cream & Other Delights (1965) and Going Places (1965), and the first to score Number 1 singles with both a vocal track (This Guy's In Love With You in 1968) and an instrumental (Rise in 1979). He went on to discover, sign and work with The Carpenters, Sergio Mendes, Burt Bacharach and Janet Jackson, with whom he scored his last major hit Diamonds with in 1987. He was later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2012 was honoured by President Obama with a National Medal of Arts.

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