Revisiting A&M Records No. 27
Various artists: ‘Million Dollar Sound Sampler’ (Nov ’67)
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass: ‘Herb Alpert’s Ninth’ (Dec ’67)
This is somewhat a housekeeping post as we near the end of the most crucial year yet in my more-or-less chronological look at A&M’s history. Certainly won’t be the last time we encounter Mr. A as a recording artist or take stock of these assortments his label compiled to entice buyers, but both topics have been addressed in previous installments.
So I’ll try to avoid rehashing.
Especially since Herbie’s ‘Ninth’ is far from the strongest entry in his discography, with or without the TJB.
There’s a side’s worth that ranks among his finest up to this point — right off the bat, too, with the galloping ‘A Banda’ and a dreamy bossa-pop take on Cole Porter’s My Heart Belongs to Daddy.’ His handling of ‘The Happening’ is quintessential kitsch, recommended for your next podcast recounting lurid tales from ‘The Dating Game.’ And it’s hard to refuse the fun of the ‘Carmen’ suite, no matter how silly the variations.
Most memorable by far is a Bacharachian beauty called ‘Love So Fine’ and penned by Tony Asher (fresh from co-writing much of the Beach Boys’s ‘Pet Sounds’) and an exceptional newcomer named Roger Nichols. A peppier version will appear one month later on Nichols’s own A&M debut, which will bomb commercially but lead to a more potent role at the label.
(More on that soon.)
Too many bits, however, fail to match the cleverness of the cover collage containing them. ‘The Trolley Song’ should never be rendered so lachrymosely, for starters, while the uninspired reading of ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ sounds like it was dashed off in an afternoon.
As for the sampler, it’s curious that so many of its 10 tracks were culled from ’65 rather than the previous 12 months; tastes and trends changed fast back then. But it gels nicely enough, and I’m grateful it adds to my collection a couple ditties by Lucille Starr and the Canadian Sweethearts, among them her version of ‘Dominique.’