Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass Shout! Factory Reissues and "Lost Treasures"

Yeah, I was thinking that too.

 

If Shout Factory is distributed by Sony, it should be available widely, far as I can tell.

 

Any Herb Alpert recording that isn't on A&M wouldn't seem right to me. But then I only like "Greatest Hits" anyway.

P.S. How come Herb Alpert couldn't stick to his own record company? Did he have a disagreement with himself or something?

 

Ted Jensen, the same guy who remastered the Beatles' Capitol Box Set and many other excellent sounding reissues.

This is indeed a great news!

For more information, go to http://www.tijuanabrass.com/

Let's buy them all so that Universal/Shout! Factory will release the whole Tijuana Brass discography.

 

FYI, Universal has nothing to with these reissues, as discussed previously ... as Herb Alpert owns his owns masters and is licensing to Shout! Factory, which is distributed by Sony (for the moment, anyway .... remember Rhino?)

 

I too miss A&M but whaddayagonnado?

BTW--EVERY TJB album has something special on it that goes beyond the greatest hits. I'm a Sol Lake nut so I have to have'em all!!!

 

A&M sold out to Polygram in 1989, then Polygram was absorbed by Universal. And I don't know the full legal details, but apparently Universal mishandled some part of the agreement and Alpert and Moss separated themselves from the company. Herb got his masters, Herb and Jerry got a settlement or two (I know they got some kind of bonus when Uni's stock stayed below a certain level for an extended period of time), and they've long since parted company. Alpert and Moss founded Almo Sounds, but that also fell under Universal's umbrella (through Geffen and/or Interscope). "Definitive Hits", we feel, was one of those "final agreements" where Herb gave them one last compilation, and pulled everything else off the market...which also created built-up demand for the album reissues.

 

I'm hoping to get that page a little more updated than it currently is. A bit embarassing right now. I'm also waiting to see if I can get anything further out of Shout Factory, but so far, nothing.

 

Sony is what I mean. I made a mistake because of too much excitement.

 

Thanks for that wonderful website.

 

I see Shout Factory product all over the place (and they did the Groucho DVD's over the last couple of years as well), we should have no problem finding the TJB reissues.

 

These are going to be super short CDs. Surprisingly so even if they were released twenty years ago. There's something about putting a CD into the player and have it read 27:13, or whatever, and feel great about that. I'll still get them but it's cheap not to make them two for ones, although purists might not like that.

 

I'd rather have the albums released individually from a nostalgia standpoint. However, 27-minute albums leave plenty of room for bonus material, if there is any.

 

If it were up to me, I'd have put both stereo and mono versions of the album on one disc, especially since there were a couple of unique mixes on mono. Apparently any B-sides will be on "Lost Treasures" since, from what I heard, they are not putting bonuses on the album CDs.

From what I recall, the TJB albums worked out to about 30-33 minutes on average, having 12 songs each. A couple of the Brasil '66 albums were shorter since they had only 10 songs each. (And since I bought a lot of those Brasil '66s on CD from Japan, I paid $17.99 each for less than a half hour of music. ) At least the TJB reissues are at a lower list price, to keep them affordable. Nice gesture, since I believe when this music was with A&M (even in pre-Polygram days), there was stipulation that Alpert's music never be released on a budget or midline series.

And for more info, my original post from a couple months ago:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=37525

 

I got a holiday greeting e-mail from Shout Factory this morning with a peek at the Lost Treasures cover art:

 

Here's the press release that went with the cover art teaser:

 

Not true. Not sure if they plan on mentioning it but they recorded parts for the albums as well. Ask Larry Levine

 

If it were up to me, I'd have put these things together like the Beach Boys reissues: album twofers *plus* singles mixes, B-sides, and other appropriate bonus tracks. But straight reissues are better than nothing at all, and at least they're giving us expanded booklets (although those will probably offend the "purists" as well).

 

One thing I like about this strategy is that the bonus stuff will be on a separate CD, so those who want these tracks don't have to buy 14 CDs to get them all. I'd probably have liked two-fers also, but on the other hand, these are going to be replicas of the original album packaging, and doing single albums is the only way to preserve it. At least the prices for the album reissues are going to be $12.99 list, so we can buy them without going broke. (To be honest, I'll be burning backup copies and stashing the originals...and I'll probably do exactly as you mentioned: two-fers, with the appropriate bonus tracks from that era.) Ideally too, I'd have liked to have had the same setup as the recent Beatles reissues, with both stereo and mono versions of the album on one disc. We're all thankful that he's going to be releasing these on CD, period...this could be a once in a lifetime chance here!

I'd love to see a "Singles" collection that has all the single mixes in mono, but I don't know if Herb ever got those out of A&M. Steve has mentioned before that A&M's singles were stored on large compilation reels with other artists' singles. No idea if the single mixes exist in any other format.

 

BTW, one of my A&M Corner members posted a song listing for "Lost Treasures":

1. Up Cherry Street
2. Lazy Day
3. Wailing Of The Willow
4. Fire And Rain
5. And I Love Her
6. I Can’t Go On Living, Baby, Without You
7. (They Long To Be) Close To You
8. Promises Promises
9. Happy Hour
10. Julius And Me
11. I Might Frighten Her Away
12. Alone Again (Naturally)
13. Tennessee Waltz
14. Tradewinds
15. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
16. Flowers On The Wall
17. Popcorn
18. Chris
19. Killing Me Softly
20. I’ll Never Fall In Love Again
21. Speakeasy
22. Whistlestar

 

Sure, it will be very LOUD!!

 

I'll send you a PM this evening...

 

Just noticed something: two B-sides are NOT on "Lost Treasures." Held off for a future volume perhaps? Anyhow, the B-side "El Bimbo" is not present, and neither is "Mexican Drummer Man", which is a Spector-gasmic wall of sound B-side to "The Great Manolette" that actually made a chart appearance!

Interesting, too, is that "Lost Treasures" also includes five songs from the TJB "reunion" album from about 1973-74: "You Smile--The Song Begins." I'm hoping they're alternate arrangements, earlier recordings or live versions...including them as is on "Lost Treasures" makes me wonder if the 70s albums will be part of the reissue project or not.

 

I sure wish we could get the actual "hit" mixes...

Bob

 

"Promises Promises" sounds like it would make a great TJB track.

It will be nice to get all the TJB lps on Cd, finally!!!