A&M 114
Producers: Herb Alpert & Jerry Moss
Track listing: What Now My Love / Freckless / Memories of Madrid / It Was a Very Good Year / So What’s New/ Plucky / Magic Trumpet / Catalina Blue / Brasilia / If I Were a Rich Man / Five Minutes More / The Shadow of Your Smile
May 28, 1966
9 weeks (nonconsecutive)
The week before What Now My Love hit Number One, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass had five albums in the top 20 of the Top LP’s chart, with What Now My Love at number two, Going Places at number four, Whipped Cream & Other Delights at number eight, South of the Border at number 17, and The Lonely Bull at number 20. With the TJB, as they popularly known, all over the album chart, it was no surprise that it took Alpert a mere three weeks to rack up his third consecutive Number One.
And Alpert was among the least surprised of all. “I was in the studio and my partner Jerry Moss called and said we had orders for something like 1,300,000 albums while I was still working on What Now My Love,” he says. “It was a good news-bad news story. It was good news and worthy of getting excited about, but at the same time I felt a little prejudged. I like people to buy the product because they enjoy the record.”
The title track was inspired by a walk on the beach in Waikiki, Hawaii. “I heard some horns honking. It sounded like ‘toot toot beep beep.’ So, I completed the phrase, ‘toot toot beep beep bop,’ and the arrangement developed itself,” Alpert says.
Within three takes, Alpert nailed his trumpet parts on the cut. “I took home the rough mix of it, which to me was exactly what I was looking for,” he says. “We went back to do the master mix for the single and we couldn’t get back to the feeling we had on the rough mix, so we actually used the rough mix as the final mix, which appeared on the single and the album. Released as a single, with “Spanish Flea” as the B-side, “What Now My Love” reached number 24 on the Hot 100. The song also earned Alpert Grammy awards for best non-jazz instrumental performance and best instrumental arrangement of 1966.
What Now My Love was recorded in less time than the TJB’s earlier efforts, with the album completed in less than two months. “I had all the songs, so we were rolling,” Alpert says. “My fastball was humming.”
The track “So What’s New?” was written by TJB guitarist John Pisano and soon became the theme song for The Lloyd Thaxton Show, a syndicated pop music show similar to American Bandstand.
Alpert recorded “If I Were a Rich Man,” from Fiddler on the Roof, because it was one of his father’s favorite songs. “He liked it a lot,” Alpert says. “He was a big fan of the Brass.”
The elder Alpert wasn’t alone, as the TJB managed to garner a wide demographic of fans, both young and old. “It was pretty amazing to see little kids and older people at the same concert,” Alpert says.
It was also amazing that the TJB was one of only two acts to have two Number One albums in 1966. The other? The Beatles, who had three.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of May 28, 1966
1. What Now My Love, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
2. If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, Mamas and the Papas
3. Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass), Rolling Stones
4. Color Me Barbra, Barbra Streisand
5. The Sound of Music, Soundtrack