Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sense Podcast.

My guest today is a true legend, Herb Albert, who's been on a sold out tour.

It's going to play the Hollywood Bowl this coming summer.

Herb, what's the difference between being on the road today as opposed to in the sixties.

You know, I think I'm having more fun, believe it or not.

At ninety I never thought I'd be doing this.

I just got into a new groove here.

I mean, all of a sudden, I think my music is back in vogue.

So being a nomagenarian, being ninety years old, what perspective have you gotten on life that younger people don't know?

Oh?

Man, what a question?

What younger people don't know?

How to relax, how to be honest, how to be true to yourself?

Okay, and how's your health?

You're ninety now, but how are your numbers?

Etc?

Or do you know something I don't?

No, I don't lately, Bob, what is the deal here?

No, I'm good.

I'm feeling pretty darn good at this time of my life.

Actually, I'm having more fun now than I did like thirty years ago.

Playing the trumpet.

You know, when COVID hit for some reason.

I was down.

We had to cancel you all are our concert tour.

And I spent that time like reliving some of the teachers that I had through the years that taught me certain things that really didn't hang on all the way.

So I started all of a sudden, I found out how to blow the trumpet, how to make this sound?

Or what happened?

How do you make that sound?

I never thought about that.

I started playing when I was eight years old, so the sound was just it was there, and it was talking for me because I you know, I'm a card carrying introvert, so at that age did that The horn was saying things I couldn't get out of my mouth.

So I never thought about how do you play the darn thing?

So I went through the whole history of the people that I spent time with, and I found out a lot of interesting tidbits that I didn't really think about.

Can you tell us some of those tidbits?

Oh?

Absolutely nothing, Are you kidding me?

Oh?

Yeah?

Sure.

First off, you have to relax.

For one, you definitely have to practice while you're while you're sleeping, somebody else is practicing.

Who wants the same thing you do.

There are images, you know, that I could give you that might not translate to you know, the average person listening.

But to blow the trumpet, you need to You need air, obviously, and so where's that air come from.

It comes from a deep place.

It comes from your diaphragm.

And the image that one of the teachers gave me was that if you're skiing behind a boat and you're going at a certain speed and the boat all of a sudden slows down, you're going to slow down into the water.

So when you do that, you're slowing down into your lips.

And if you keep the speed constant, the air constant, you know, you have a better chance of producing what you know, the sound you want to produce.

So how'd you pick up the trumpet?

At age eight?

Luckily I was in a school that had a music appreciation class and they had a table filled with instruments.

I could have picked up the tuba, the clarinet, of flute, didn't matter.

Happened to pick up the trumpet and I couldn't make a sound out of it.

I thought you just blow hot air into it, and that did didn't work.

But when I finally started making a sound the talk.

It was talking for me.

It was saying things I couldn't get out of my mouth, and one thing led to another.

I started having, you know, great luck playing because I was enjoying the process.

And luckily enough, I had a teacher.

I had several teachers, but one teacher in particular was an old.

He was the first trumpet player with the San Francisco Symphony and he was Russian.

Happened to have been run he happened to be Russian.

And he told me one afternoon when I was playing an an atude that he asked me to learn.

I played it for him and I looked over.

I said how it was, and the guy was he was in tear.

He had a tear rolling down his face.

I said, what's happening?

He said, you sound so beautiful.

I said, well, thank you very much.

And that was I think I was fourteen at the time, maybe twelve, thirteen, fourteen, maybe fifteen, and I thought, well, gee, maybe I do have something.

I never thought of becoming a professional at that time.

I was just you know, playing the horn.

And when I got into high school, we had a little band, a little trio, and at that time there was this television show called High Talent Battle that was pitting the different high schools in the Los Angeles area, and we entered the show.

It was the early stages of television, and we won about eight weeks in a row.

So from that point on, we you know, started playing parties and little affairs, and I had a lot of fun playing the horn.

I got some good feedback from people saying, I'm alect the way you play.

So one thing led to another.

Okay, you were in that band.

Was that an instrumental band or was there a singer?

No, it was just a little group.

It was piano, drums, occasionally bass and trumpet.

Okay, you started playing the trumpet at age eight.

Did your parents push you into music before that, like piano lessons or anything like that.

No.

No, My dad was from Kiev, born in Kiev, little town outside of Kiev, actually, and he brought his mandolin with him and he played by ear.

You know, he could play some interesting little ditties with not knowing what he was playing or what chord or what note he was on.

But he had a great feeling, and you know, to take this whole thing forward with feeling.

To me, I think all our forms and our music and all acting, poetry, whatever happens to be.

I think it's all about a feel.

It's that feel, and that feel is hard to describe.

What is that thing?

It could be magical to some people and doesn't mean anything to others.

But it has to be the person who's putting it out there.

You have to you have to live it, you have to be it.

And this is what keeps me so enthused about making music.

I just love to blow the horn and make find good songs.

And it's about a song.

I think it's about melodies.

If you find a great melody and you can can couch it in something that's interesting to listen to.

It's always fun for me to play it, and if it's fun for me to play it, I think it might be fun for someone else to listen to it.

Where did your mother come from it?

How did your parents meet?

Well, my mother was born in the Lower East Side of New York.

She played violin.

They met in Chicago, and my father, God bless him, he was a hero.

He came to this country when he was sixteen years old, not speaking a word of English, and he didn't speak Russian because in a little staddle outside of Kiev.

He was speaking Yiddish.

He communicated in Yiddish, and Albert was the name that was it wasn't it wasn't translated into another name at ls Island when he landed there.

And he was a hard worker and he you know, he spent a lot of time, you know, learning a craft that he was a schneider.

He was made ladies coats and suits, and little by little, you know, he brought his whole family back to the United States from Russia.

So he landed in Elos Island.

How did he end up in Chicago and how did they end up in Los Angeles?

Yeah, that's a bit of a mystery for me.

I kind of left out.

You know.

There were times when I just said, man, I should have asked him so many different questions when when he was around, and I didn't.

I didn't get the nitty in that and that particular question.

I would have liked to know how he got there and who helped him along the way in that period.

Do you have any brothers or sisters.

Yeah, I have a sister and a brother.

My sister played piano.

My brother was a professional drummer, and we played occasionally you know, parties and a few other events.

But he it wasn't in his bones.

It wasn't something he had to do.

I have to make music.

This is my this is my calling, Bob.

And how did they handle your incredible success?

You know, my dad wasn't sure, you know, the Tijuana brass.

He didn't know what the heck that was.

But that means, who are you know?

Uh?

So he was a little He wasn't discouraging me.

He wasn't encouraging.

And he you know, he'd listened to the records and he he loved when I played If I were a rich man, That was the song got to his heart.

My mom was more encouraging.

She she was really there when the neighbors used to, you know, yell from across the street or wherever they were, shut up, don't play so loud, so she would yelled back at them.

She was very encouraging.

She was there every moment for.

Me and your siblings.

How did they deal with your success?

Well, my brother when we bought A and M Studios, the Chaplain Studios, he was an integral part of that because we started with you know, this whole thing with A and M.

My partner Jerry Moss, God bless them.

It started in my garage in nineteen sixty two and it was just the two of us, and there were three and four and five, And then we moved to a little office on Sunset Boulevard and had some success with the Tijuana Brass Records enough to make an offer on this property that was being sold by CBS.

And Jerry had big thoughts, you know, he thought we were going all the way and I was a little reluctant with that, but I loved him so much.

He was a great guy.

He was just he wasn't a musician, but he was musical, you know.

He had a really good sense of songs, and obviously he was great dealing with people.

And I learned a lot from him and we had a wonderful career on a handshake.

I know this sounds a little corny, but we shook hands in nineteen sixty two when we put out The Lonely Bull, and then little by little we became super successful and sold the company in nineteen ninety and never had an agreement between us.

We never signed an agreement.

It was just on a handshake, and that gives me a chill bumps.

Just to think about it.

But that's what happened.

How'd you meet Jerry.

A friend of mine?

I did a record Lou Adler with Lou Adler.

Wait, let's stop there for a second.

Yeah, how'd you meet Lou Adler?

Okay, Lou Adler man.

Okay, ex wives, we're talking now, Okay.

I was in the army.

I gradual, I waited in nineteen fifty five for the army, and I was married to a lady whose best friend was married to Lou Adler.

At that time, Lou was in the clothing business.

He was, you know, selling T shirts and jackets and suits.

I don't know what he was doing exactly, but and we became friends.

We had an instant liking for each other, and he knew I was a musician.

And one point he showed me some poetry that he had written, and I said, I can put some music to that poetry.

Let's see what happened.

So I put poetry to about six of the songs, these songs, and then we made some demos.

And I'm being a very quiet introvert.

Luke kind of had to step forward for me because he was an introvert as well.

But he knew he wasn't as serious as I was, but he had this knock on any door type of attitude which helped us a lot.

So we took these songs around to various places publishing companies, and then we landed.

We had this one place in Imperial Records with Don Sunset Bulliver.

At the time, Sonny Bono was their an R chief and he listened to these records.

I never met Sonny before.

He listened to these records and looked at us and said, hey, yeah, I think you guys better get out of the bid before it's too late.

So obviously we thanked him and moved on.

And then Jerry Well, well, no, this was still And then little by little we uh landed a job at Keene Records and Sam Cook was the star artists there, and we were hired by Bumps Blackwell, who produced Sam's records, and Bumps liked us and liked some of the songs that we wrote.

But our job for him was to listen to all the tapes of recordings that he makes with Sam and other artists and and and review the tapes and and you know, one by one you would say, he wants he want to know if you like the first verse or the second verse, the fourth verse, which verst was better if there's multi tape tracks of a particular song.

So that's what Lou and I used to do for him, which was, you know, a great experience, you know, listening that closely to the songs.

You said that you were making these things.

How did you get associated with King Records, which was in Ohio.

Lou knocked on the door and played this the songs that we had, and then Bumps liked him and he thought we would be in a nice audition to his rosters, so he'd creates some music for some of the artists that they had.

So did you make records that came out on King Records?

Oh?

Yeah, sure we did.

We wrote a Wonderful World with Sam.

Don't know much about history.

Oh yeah you wrote that?

Yes?

Wait wait wait stop that tell me how you wrote that?

Well, we Lou and I wrote a song called all My Life, and there was Looks and there was a that was a song that Sam had recorded, and there was another song that Sam took a fancy to that he really liked, and we kind of he took that song and then we added whatever we had to add but the beauty of that song is, Man, this is an amazing story because that song was We finished that song and Sam wanted to just see if the song was worthy of putting it out, so he did a rough demo.

He had a couple of amateur musicians with him that made this demo.

I think one the drummer, I think might have been recording drummer or actual recording professional drummer.

And it was put on the shelf at Keene Records.

They know, they didn't release it.

And so after Sam had this you know, really beautiful career at RCA, when he left Keene Records, the only thing they had Keene had was this one track of Sam singing Wonderful World.

So they put that out just as maybe and it's the biggest record Sam had, which was crazy that it wasn't crazy, but it really gives you the aha that you know, nobody knows what a hit record sounds like until it really gets out there.

So that record surprised everyone, including Sam.

Can you take us into the room and how the song was written?

Well, Lou Adler and I and Sam we just kind of, you know, threw ideas out and one thing led to another.

You know, it just kind of developed.

Now Herman's Hermit's ended up having a huge hit with it a few years later.

Was that surprising to you?

Oh sure, Yeah, the whole thing is surprising to me.

Okay, you're working with lou Is Lou still in the schmata business or is he now in the music business?

Lou No, Lo's a wonderful producer.

He's produced some great records.

And you know, we did the Jan and Dean records.

I did the arrangements for Baha, you know, baby Talk, which was a young kid.

And so after that, you know, I was still playing the trumpet and Plague got weekends with various groups.

I got a little tired of that.

I I really wanted to be an artist, and I really wanted to explore my own, uh way of making records.

So Lou and I parted as friends, and lou happened to be one of my best friends.

Now I took the the the record player and he took something else, and then we split on a handshake.

Oh but before that, we did do the cover record, which was a big record in New York and on these coast of Elle oop elae oop oop oop oop by Dante and the Evergreens.

And that was an eye opener for us because it sold around two hundred and forty thousand something, I mean, just an enormous amount of records in one area, but we never got paid for it.

Somehow they were able to find that more money was spent making the record or doing something that they didn't know us any money.

So I wanted to get out of that and move on to doing other things.

While you were working with loub were you making your money solely from music or did you have a day job.

No.

I was making music.

I was playing on weekends.

I made a good living in high school, displaying parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs, whatever you had.

You know, a triple scale on New Year's Night, Man, that was a big deal.

Yeah, okay, so you break up with Luke, you get the record player.

What's the next step after that?

You want to be an artist?

No, I wasn't that sure about that.

I was writing songs and I did this one song called Gonna Get a Girl, and I thought it would be good for Gogie Grant, who just had a hit record called the Wayward Wind or something like that.

So I called the people at RCA, and they recognized my name because the Yale Oops and the Baby Talk records.

So I made an appointment there and I spoke with I forgot who Bob Yorke I think his name was, and I sat down on the piano and started singing this song and playing it and he said, I, how about recording it with you?

I said, with me, I'm not a singer.

He said yeah, but I like the way you sound.

Anyways, I signed with ARCTA and Shorty Rogers was my ANR producer who was a great jazz musician and who I adored because I used to go listen to his group in that particular period.

So they had a nice little introduction to one of my favorite musicians.

I did a few records with RCA there for about a year and a half.

I did this one record where I wanted to put the trumpet on this uh in the middle of the song.

I thought it would be a good idea, and that they said it's against the union rules or something like that.

Anyway, I was listening to a playback of the song and I wanted also to hear more bass.

I wanted to hit, have it hit a little bit harder, So I go over to the board and I lift up the bass track and the guy slaps my hand.

It was a Union guy had a button on, you know, with Union numbers.

He said, don't ever touch that board again.

And I looked at him, thinking like, wow, isn't that interesting.

He shouldn't a record company be revolving around an artist.

You know, I didn't like that I was being treated.

You know, they ever treated me like a number.

I didn't even have a name there at the recording session.

It was, you know, three eight seven five five five four three two take one.

So I filed all this and I didn't have dreams of starting my own record company.

But I just remember thinking, if I did ever have had a chance to have my own company, I certainly treat artists in a different way.

And the rest his history.

Okay, you're making these records for RCA.

Do you have a contract.

What happens next?

Do you record by yourself or do you meet Jerry?

Do you have to get out of your deal with RCA?

What are the mechanics there?

No?

I left RCA and I met Jerry around nineteen sixty one.

I think Jerry was in coming from New York in his little Volkswagen Bug and we met.

I was introduced to him by a friend, a New York friend, Ted Fagan, who was working for Madison Records at the time, who had also worked for Liberty Records, and met Jerry and took a liking to him.

He's just he's just a regular guy, and he had a wonderful person not only personality, but he had a wonderful resume of promoting certain records.

I can't think of the name right now.

It was on scepter.

You'd probably remember that one, not.

Off the top of my head, but yeah, okay.

So anyways, Jerry had an actor friend who wanted to record, and I had a song I wanted to record it called tell It to the Birds, and I said I'd help him record his actor friend, Charlie Robinson actually was his name.

It just came to my mind.

I can't believe I remember the name.

So we did that recording, and this Tell It to the Birds record that I did made some noise.

We released it under the label of Carnival Records, and it's sold in Los Angeles and San Francisco, not a lot, but enough to some companies were interested in distributing it bigger companies, so we sold the rights to Dot Records.

Wink Martindale was the an R producer at the company at the time, and with that money, I think they gave us six hundred dollars, we recorded the Lonely Bull.

Okay, a little bit slower.

How'd you write the Lonely Bull?

And where did you record it?

Well?

I didn't write it.

I wrote a couple passages of it.

Didn't take credit for it, but that's all right.

The song was already there.

The song was great with or without what I did.

It was written by Saul Lake.

He was a fellow that I now and then would play some casual parties with.

He played piano.

It wasn't a great piano player, but he wrote some really interesting songs.

He had a field for melody, and he presented this song to me.

It was like in a very high pitched like a music box.

It was in that type of production that he gave it.

And when I heard that melody, it just said that melody might translate to this idea I had about trying to do something that would satisfy my experiences that I had at the bullfight in Tijuana.

Because I never listened to mariachi music.

But there was a band in the stands at the Tijuana Arena Krita I think they call it, and they were playing the like the introduction of the different events that happened in a bullfighter.

The bull come I mean, the bull comes out, and they do that one and they do another fanfare for them, Manador has come in, the horses come in, you know.

So I got intrigued with that.

I tried to put that feeling down on this song that I eventually, you know, fell in love with that.

My partner Jerry called the low label.

How did he come up with a name?

How did he come up with the name God?

I don't think I ever asked him that.

Okay, and where did you record the song?

It was recorded at Conway Recorders on Sunset Boulevarn.

Okay, At what point in this story do you decide to be partners?

Have you already decided or when the record is recorded?

Well, the record was recorded.

We were just releasing a record.

We didn't didn't think about a company or we released it under the label originally Carnival Records, and then we found out there was prior usage of that name, so we came up with several different choices.

A and M was like our third choice, and that was the only choice that went through to clear through the copyright.

So we went with A and M to release The Lonely Bull.

And then we were getting calls.

Jerry, quickly, you got a bunch of distributors around the world.

People were calling us when the minute that record came out.

We were getting calls from Australia and Germany and everybody wanted that record.

So he put that all together and put together the people that were distributing the record here in the United States.

Yeah.

No, so we were not thinking about it recording keeping a record company going.

But since a lot of the vivers called us and said, man, why don't you guys just take the money and run.

You got lucky man.

You guys live near Tijuana, you live close by, and it's just one of those you know, an instrumental record doesn't last.

So I was intrigued with that whole thing.

And so, but they did want a Lonely Bull album, which we gave to him.

And in that album, I did a bunch of different types of songs.

I wasn't trying to do the Lonely bull sideways, which was probably the typical thing to try to do.

I just try to When I heard that sound, the double trumpet sound that I came up with, I said, that feels good.

I like that feeling.

So I started, you know, fooling around with ways to incorporate that into other melodies.

So that album comes out and it's successful.

So at what point do you say, wait, we have a business here.

Oh that's true.

We had a period of it was just a tioue of brass.

We didn't have any other artists, and we signed another one vocal group that didn't do much, and I wasn't sure quite frankly, Bob, I wasn't sure I wanted to have a record company.

I just wanted to play.

I just wanted to, you know, be freer er.

And it wasn't until nineteen sixty four we signed Waylon Jennings who lived in Phoenix, and when I heard his voice, there was something about his voice that I really liked a lot.

He seemed like it had like that type of voice could sing anything and it would be a soulful sound.

So I went to Phoenix often recording him and I did this one recording called four Strong wins that was written, that was played.

I think there was a record by Bobby Bear.

Anyways, it became kind of successful, and chet Atkins happened to hear it.

He was the head honcho at RCA in Nashville, and he was like the messiah for country artists, and he made some overtures to Whalan that if he ever gets out of the A and M situation, he'd liked to talk to him, which she shouldn't have done, but he did.

Whalan told me about that, and I was really aware of Chet and his abilities, and he's wonderful musician on his own right.

And I wanted to take Whalen just a little bit more pop and Whalan really wanted to be a country artist.

That was his dream.

So he told us about his conversation with the chet Atkins and Jerry and I thought, well, in his best interest, check this out, man, this is a true story.

In Whalan's best interest, we should let him out of the contract so he can go with Chet.

And I was thinking, like man, Jerry said that, and I felt that as well, so we decided to let Whalen out of the contract.

I remember distinctly the day we signed his release Jerry signed his release.

I looked at him and said, man, this guy's going to be a big artist, and Jerry said, I know it.

And I thought, man, if we could be that honest with our artists and treat him that way, we're going to be a success.

And that was the time that it turned the corner for me, saying, man, I got to stick with this guy.

This is going to be worth the ride.

He's an honorable guy, he's honest, he's smart, and he can he can do things that I'm not capable of doing.

So that's when I really decided I wanted to, you know, keep the ball rolling.

And then the next major thing that happened with me and Jerry was when the Tierjuanner Brass started.

Well, I guess it was a taste of honey that really broke through.

And Guild Friesan, who was one of our key executives, he kept saying, man, you got to get a group together.

You got to get a group together.

I said, man, I don't want to get a group.

He says, you gotta.

That's how we can sell more records.

It's more exposed, get exposed better.

I finally caved and got a group together, and I was thinking to myself, well, man, this is an opportunity to make some money on the side.

I'll do these concerts and I'll make some money and it might be great.

And Jerry at that point kind of got wind of, you know, what I was thinking about.

He said, I'd like to have lunch with you and talk about something.

I said, absolutely.

So at lunch, Sherry said, look at if we're going to be partners, and we, like I said, we never signed an agreement.

If we're going to be partners, I want to be fifty to fifty with you.

What you do and what I do will just share.

And I was thinking, man, this is this was my thought process at the lunch.

I was thinking, oh, gee wiz, I get this opportunity to make some extra money without him, and he wants to have half of this thing.

And then something inside me said, man, don't blow this.

This is a good guy.

Stick with him.

I shook, I put up my hand and I said, you got it, man, we are partners.

And that was it.

That's when I decided, full blast.

It's let's see how far we can take this good fortune that we've had.

So you ultimately had this unbelievable run.

But who do you then sign?

What are your next successes?

You're outside of your own work at A and M.

Well, it took a while, you know, several years before the Tijuana Brass was feeding A in Americas.

In fact that it fed the Chacolin studios.

That's how we able to purchase that.

Actually, Sergio Mendez in Brazil sixty six was a big one, and then we had the man Man I can't think of their name.

You were on my mind that we fove the We five we signed that, We picked up a master that was the big record number one, and then Sergio and Brazil sixty six, which we got from our distributor in Seattle who said he heard this group he thought he we might like him, so we auditioned them in nineteen sixty six and fell in love with the sound and fell in love obviously with the lead singer.

But it was very fortuitous that we heard them, and know SiO was just kind of at wits end because he got the group together after he had a group called Brazil sixty five and he was just about ready to go back to Brazil and pack it in until he said he wanted to just try one more time with the American singer lead singer and what you did?

And heard Lonnie at a at a jazz club in Chicago signed her.

So I produced the first couple albums with Sergio.

And Sergio was a brilliant musician.

I mean, and once I heard him him play and the man really got to know him, I just realized, Man, he was special.

He just he was a true, honest musician.

But I did help him on on Mashki No.

I must confess that I heard him play that thing and I like that song, but man, he was playing it so fast.

It was I said, who, who are you playing this thing for?

Hummingbirds?

Man, it's just too fast.

Let's slow this baby down just a little bit, get it to feel a little bit more comfortable and so you can shake your head with it.

And anyways, that was my contribution to that record.

That was the one that really got them off the ground.

So but then you make deals A and M with Denny Cordell and Chris Blackwell and they bring in these English acts that are very successful.

How does that happen?

Well, Jerry made contact.

He said, we have to have an office in London, and so one thing led to another, and then Chris Blackwell was he just had wonderful taste.

He just brought in some wonderful acts.

And I mean one of my favorite acts that we signed because of Chris was Cat Stevens.

Cat Stevens and a guitar in his heyday man was absolutely stunning.

He was sensational.

He wrote some beautiful songs in his heart and soul was on every stroke.

He was one of my favorite artists that we signed.

So start in a garage, you make enough money to buy the Chaplain Lot.

Then all of a sudden, you know catch These records are gigantic, and there's obviously A and M as independent distribution, and you always have to kind of collect the money.

But what do you think when you had all this incredible success?

You know, it's an interesting question because I had a lot more fun with the company.

Was just the two of us, and there were three and five and ten and twelve and fourteen.

All of a sudden we had a company that was it seems like there was no end in sight.

We were rolling.

We were I don't know, I'm not an attention freak.

I don't need the attention.

So I being an artist and then being the A of A and M was a little daunting for me.

And in the early I knew everybody that was involved.

And then all of a sudden I got into this area where all sorts of people were part of the company doing wonderful things with the company and for the company.

But it was a little more than I could feel comfortable with at times.

So once you're on the Choplin lot in late sixties, early seventies, this area of a lot of success.

Jerry is the business guy.

Are you going to the office every day or are you leaving business to him?

How's the split of obligations go?

Yeah?

I was going to the office every day.

In fact, I was involved in creating the A and M recording studios.

I would attend the meeting.

All of a sudden, we would have weekly, you know, Thursday meetings with lawyers and accountants and all sorts of people.

It was a little hard for me to do that because I was not only not always interested in the nitty gritty of something, I want to know the big picture.

I was good with the big picture.

Jerry and I always shared everything they had to do with the big picture, but the little strokes was not to my liking, and Jerry understood that he was for those who never met him, he was a gentleman.

He was an outstanding person.

He understood people.

He was gracious and humble and honest to the core.

So in this period from seventy to ninety, how often do you talk to Jerry?

Every day, once a week, just when there's business.

How much contact do you have with Jerry?

Oh?

All the time.

Our offices were back to back.

It was separated by our bathroom, and so I would always go into the bathroom and start blowing the horns, stay in shape on the trumpet, and I'd peep my head in his office and see what's happening.

And no, I was right there.

It was the two of us, for sure.

We didn't, you know, when I signed the Carpenters in nineteen seventy, I peeped into Jerry's office.

I'm about to sign this new group called the Carpenters.

He says, oh, great, what are they like?

You know, he didn't, He just said, you know, let's sign.

It wasn't we didn't have a you know, to have ten people start voting whether they liked the Carpenters or not.

And the Carpenters were.

The music they were making was not the type of music I normally listened to.

But there was something about her voice, obviously, and that it was honest.

It was it was the music that they made.

There was the music that came through them.

Okay, you signed the When Jerry or somebody else would want to sign a band, would they ask your opinion or would they just do it?

Oh?

Occasionally they would ask I me.

It depends on the circumstance.

Now we were, we had free reign.

It was it was.

It was not highly it was not as organized it as it might seem.

Now it's just Jerry and I making decisions.

So how did you discover the Carpenters.

Somebody slipped a tape to me and I used to, uh listen to most of the things that that came in, and I used the Sam Cook taught me to listen with your heart.

Man, just don't close your eyes and if somebody is a great dancer, or they're extremely good looking and all that, forget that.

Close your eyes and see if you're touched by what you hear.

And I started adapting that type of feeling when I auditioned artists.

So when I heard the carpenters.

I mean that voice of hers got me.

It got me that the arrangements were really interesting.

And then I had a meeting with both of them and I saw that was really real.

They were honest.

I mean, she was a doll not knowing she was really a good singer.

She was a drummer, and then one heck of a drummer too, So I just felt they there could be an audience for them.

Okay, when you found them, had the tape gotten to anybody else?

And were they playing out?

What was the status of the group at that point?

They were auditioned by as far as I remember, all the major companies in Los Angeles turned them down.

So once you what was the next step.

The next step was to find the right song for them.

And I had a song in my drawer that I've recorded that I thought was going to be the follow up to this Guy's In Love with You.

I recorded it and I thought it was pretty good.

It was a little different take on the song, and I played it for well.

The engineer was a dear friend, Larry Levine.

Listening to the playback, I said, Larry, tell me, honestly, what do you think about this song, and he said, I don't think it suits you.

I don't think it's right.

Anyways, I lost my confidence.

I put the song in the drawer, and in nineteen seventy I gave it to Richard Carpenter.

It was close to You.

That was the breaking song, the song that opened the door for them.

And before that, you know, my own records company was wondering, well, why just signed these guys.

I mean, that was the kind of the rumor I was hearing.

They thought a little too cute, little sweet, it's not the type of music that's happening on the radio now.

So all of a sudden I became, hey, good going for signing the Carpenters.

How did you write close to You?

All right?

Didn't that's a Burt backrack song?

Oh right, right, right right?

You recorded?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that Bert h and Hal David Right right.

I forgot that.

So how involved were you with the Carpenters.

Is their career ensued?

Well, i'd be, uh, you know, listening to what they're doing.

And uh, you know, when Karen was having this awful problem, and then she got back into shape somewhat for a time, she did this other recording and uh, well, that's another story.

I mean, Phil Ramone did an album with her that I wasn't crazy about.

I didn't want to release it on a M.

I didn't think it represented Karen as it should have my thoughts.

That's another program though, bomb.

Okay, So are there any other acts in the A n M tenure that you personally selected inside?

Oh?

Yeah, I did a couple of records with no Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do?

Chris Montez right, call me, I did that record Call me.

I just had a knife the idea for that record with his weird voice.

It was a nice voice, but it was like different, you know.

I put a jazz piano player with him, Pete Jolly, and that record did really well.

Huge.

Yeah, he's almost lost to the seands of time, but that was a great record.

Where did you find Chris Montets.

He came to us and I, you know, I heard him and I remember the record that he had on another label, and although his voice was I don't know, a little odd, but I liked it.

There's something about there's something in the way he moved.

Yeah, I don't know.

So then Loom has his label owed, and he makes two records with Carol King for you.

The first one Writer doesn't do much of anything, and then the second one, Tapestry, becomes the biggest record of all time.

Yeah.

Well, Lou's a really, really good producer.

He understands a good song and he lets the artists do their thing until he feels he can jump in and add something special.

And he did that album with a concept and the concept but let's make an album that Carol's sounding is sounding like.

It's demo demo versions of these songs, very understated, very you know, nice grooves.

It was done at A and M and Studio B, and it was great.

Okay.

Now, in this two decade run of the seventies to the eighties to the sale of the company, do you ever feel disconnected from the company?

Oh?

Absolutely yeah.

I mean, you know, at some point we had five hundred people around the world.

So yeah, it was a lot different than Jerry and I in my my garage in West Hollywood.

So in that era, were you happy?

How do you define happiness?

Well, let's go back a step.

You said twice that you're introverted.

Yeah, so how did you decide you were introverted and what did that look like?

I was shy.

I wasn't very confident, you know, especially when you know, dealing with lawyers.

Always felt, man, they much smarter than me.

They must know better, they must know you know a lot more stuff than I do.

I was just a shy kid, you know.

I had this extreme experience of all of a sudden producing a record and I was a hit, and I was walking on Hollywood Boulevard and all of a sudden somebody wanted my autographs.

You know.

I mean that I was playing bar Mitzvah the weekend before.

So yeah, that was a little bit of a transition that I had to get used to.

Well, how about let's just assume.

I mean, you're an elder statesman now, but in your younger days, if I called you and said, hey, Herb, we're having a party.

We're having to get together, You're going to say it's great, I'll be there at eight o'clock.

You're going to say, not for me.

Yeah, not for me is definitely it.

Yeah.

Now, I'm not crazy about Yeah.

I'm really okay with one on one or one on two, but man, when it gets the more people, it's I don't know, I don't feel that comfortable, and I'm pretty good on stage, you know, I feel comfortable on stage.

I can.

I can, in fact, play for as many people as you want and I'll be okay.

Why do you think that is that you're good on stage to thousands of people, but you're most comfortable one on one.

Yeah, an interesting phenomenon.

I don't know.

I don't have to deal with anyone that's in the audience.

I can control my destiny.

Okay.

What kind of artists are you?

Some artists are control freaks.

Everything has to be exactly right.

Other artists come in and just do their part and move on others and let people split things slide.

What kind of artists are you when you're recording or playing live?

Oh, I'm very spontaneous, very very very spontaneous when I play.

I'm not a mainline jazz musician, but man' that's where I'm coming from.

I'm coming from the jazz world.

And whatever I play with the steer Waner brass that people tried to copy, they couldn't do it, you know, because I was doing it out of the out of my soul.

You know that this is the music that just comes out of me, and I just let it fly.

I just let it be whatever it is when I'm recording, even though I'm totally aware of the songs I'm playing.

If I played it ten times, it sound different each time, but the melody would still be there.

Okay, let's go back.

Were you a good student?

How good a student were you?

Well?

Just I was a fair student, not great.

I didn't.

I can't remember one teacher that really inspired me, to tell you the truth, And that's why I'm involved in the foundation and kind of gravitating towards helping helping students get to their place where they can be well.

I always feel that people should teachers should learn at an early age.

I think kids should learn be taught how to think, not what to think, how to think, and I think we're missing that.

We're missing that.

And how do you achieve that?

Wow?

Great question.

Parenting, I guess is a good part of it.

But just the idea that everybody man I believe.

Yeah, that's not a big deal.

I'm what I'm going to say.

But everyone has the same ticket to this game called life, and we all should have the same type of opportunities.

And we know a lot of people don't have those opportunities, and it's not it's for us to try and find a way to help them to get to that place.

Let's go back once again.

What kind of kid were you growing up?

Did you play sports?

Did you have a lot of friends.

Were you the type of person who was in your bedroom listening to records?

What were you like?

Yeah, I was kind of a vote getter.

I play all the sports, basketball, football, baseball, and I still like sports, and I had a lot of friends.

I was in in high school.

Well, I was a president.

I was a president of all my class.

Most Well, that's kind of funny for an introvert.

Well, I know, so you're trying to trap me here.

No I'm not, because I think you know a lot of artists are introverts, and the fans don't understand.

You know what you exactly said.

You could do it on stage to ten thousand people, but if there were three people, there are four people, you'd have anxiety.

Yeah, exactly.

And if you're a president of the class, there must be a listen.

You've told your story.

Despite being an introvert, there was a constant drive in the ambition.

You may have felt insecure, but you were constantly knocking on doors seeking opportunities.

So you finish high school, how do you end up.

In the army.

I was drafted.

There wasn't a choice.

I didn't have a choice on that one.

And this was during Korea.

No, it was after Korea, but the draft was still on and I was sent to ford Ord.

Actually I brought my trumpet with me.

Ford Or is the thing, and I told them, I said, the only thing I know how to do is play this trumpet.

I'm not an infantry man want to I don't want to do anything else.

Anyways, I kind of led my way into I played with Basie, I played with Harry James.

Anyways, they sent me, they classified me as a trumpet player.

That was my m or whatever they call it.

And they sent me to band school in Fort Knox, Kentucky for twelve weeks and I met a bunch of trumpet players there.

They were all better than me.

So it kind of like gave me a what am I doing?

So I had to rethink, you know, the way, because I was I think in Los Angeles at the time, I was thought I was, you know, like a good player, and people were aware of my talent and when I realized my talent wasn't all that great in Knoxville, Kentucky.

It was a little daunting, and I left there with the idea that if I wanted to really be a professional musician, I really had to get down to finding out how to do it right.

So when you get back to LA, how did you learn how to do it well?

I took lessons at first.

I started.

I took lessons from this teacher that taught Ralphiel Mandez.

I don't know if you ever heard of that gentleman.

He was an extremely talented Mexican trumpet player, could play high, fast, and you know, mind boggling.

He was not a jazz musician.

He was a legitimate musician.

I started taking lessons from his teacher.

I can't think of his name right now, but he taught me how to play high.

I was playing really high.

I could play real high notes, you know.

And when I got out of the army, I was going to this school called something I can't think of the name, and I played in the band.

I played the lead trumpet in the band, and playing high and loud and fast and all that.

I started my first uppers four uppers, and the four lower teeth got loose and it was like shaking.

I was putting too much pressure on the horn, and so I said, man, this is not the way I want to play.

I don't want to play like that.

It's the trumpet.

It was designed to play up to high sea and beyond that is just it wasn't all that necessary.

And I wanted to play the trumpet in a really sweet area.

So that's what I decided to do.

I forgot about the high stuff and trying to be in competition with everybody else who can play the highest and loudest.

I didn't want to do that.

So I developed this little way of playing that was kind of unique, I thought, and it still is.

It still is kind of unique.

The way I approached the horn.

What was it like being a nice Jewish boy in the army.

Well, I had no problem with that because I served my time.

I didn't make any I didn't get anybody's nose out of whack.

And uh, I was very fortunate because I did something that was maybe not the smartest thing to do, but I was.

I should tell this story.

I was in Fort Knox, Kentucky, you know, and the and the person who was cutting the orders for the My section that I was in was cutting the orders for the band, and I met him at a party and I said, man, how do you get your orders to go?

Where you'd like to go?

He said, where would you like to go?

Said, I'd like to go to, uh, San Francisco.

I'd like to go to the sixth Army band and San Francisco.

He says, you can't go there because you have to enlist to get to San Francisco's band there.

I said, oh, but that's the only place I really wanted to go.

Anyways, I became friends with this guy, and I said, that's the only place that if you want to help me as a friend, that's right, That's where I want to go.

So he made he cut the orders for San Francisco.

I landed there.

There were like twelve trumpet players there already, and the war an officer there said, I didn't order another trumpet player.

I don't know how you got I said, I don't know, I'm just following.

Obviously.

He says, well, let me hear you play.

And so I had a good version of the version de la Macrena, but eh, well, I can't think of how it goes right now.

But I played it for him and he looked at me and he says, I like you, you're in Anyways, I got myself in by it, this song that I played for and I spent the next eighteen months in San Francisco, who was quite an experience for me because there was a big, big band.

It was like seventy piece orchestra.

Not it wasn't an orchestra, it was a band, and so we'd played various openings of parties and marching down streets and it was a good experience for me, and I saw some really interesting and met some interesting musicians that there.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of musicians that were hooked on the wrong stuff.

One in particular was a guy who when he was hooked he sounded like Milton Bernhardt Bernhardt playing drombone, and when he was not hooked, he sounded terrible.

But it was an experience.

So did you experience any anti Semitism in the army or in the years after?

Uh No, I didn't accept One guy when I met him and he knew I was Jewish, He just, you know, he had never met a Jew before, so he kind of had the image of I had a horn coming out of my forehead, but that was the only person.

Okay, guitars, you know, people have their favorites.

They all sound different.

How is it with trumpets?

Oh, I look at it.

I was going to do an a and I'm sorry I didn't do it.

In the sixties, when things were starting to really do well, I wanted to do a television show using one trumpet and having me Louis Armstrong, Miles Harry, James al Hurt, and a couple other players, known players take this one trumpet, take the same song, and each one pick up that song that trumpet and play that song and it would all sound different.

And this is an experience I had when I had a problem playing the horn.

In nineteen seventy.

I was going through a divorce and I was stuttering through the trumpet.

I couldn't get for first, no doubt, you know, it wouldn't come out right.

So I heard about this trumpet teacher in New York.

His name was Carmine Caruso, and he was called the Troubleshooter and he would teach students from a brass player from all over the world who had problems playing.

So I made contact with him.

The first time I met him, I said, Carl, but I'm having, you know, this problem playing the horn.

What am I doing?

Should I I change the trumpet or the mouse beef or this and that and the other thing.

He says, let me tell you something, kid, He said, You're the trumpet.

This is just a piece of plumbing.

You're the trumpet.

The trumpet comes, the sound of the trumpet comes from inside you.

The trump is just a megaphone.

It's just an amplifier of your sound.

And that was like a big, big aha for me.

I try to pass that one on to young musicians.

And it doesn't matter what instrument you're on.

I think that is the key.

You try to find the depth of what you do naturally.

Don't pit yourself with Miles Davis or any of the great musicians that you happen to like.

You can and learn from them, but be yourself.

Try to find your own voice.

It's a rough go out there to be a professional musician.

There's so many great ones out there, you know.

I have a jazz club here in Los Angeles, and there's a whole bunch of wonderful musicians in LA that you never hear of that, it's hard to break through.

So I think one of the keys is, you know, find your own voice, find your own way of expressing yourself.

So you own vibrato up there on Beverly Glenn.

Is that in the black?

You know?

The club business, and I think about it all the time.

It's certainly been there a number of times myself.

That's a tough business.

Are you doing it as a labor of love or is that a profitable business.

I did it as a labor of love for the first about fifteen years were they were in the red event.

But I did it because I wanted to have a club that would be a nice spot for great musicians where I went.

I made it with an acquistition.

We were very curious on getting the sound right all across the the venue and upstairs and downstairs.

The sound is very beautiful.

Uh, And so it took that long to really get rolling.

Now we're really we're really rocking.

It's just one of the hot clubs in town right now.

How often do you go there?

Not as often as I probably should.

You know that we're doing a lot of big bands there now.

And when you were there and you're trying to have a conversation with somebody.

It's it's like almost impossible.

But the band is great.

A lot of wonderful musicians are playing.

So what did you think when Peter Frampton had all this gigantic success.

It was fun watching.

I remember going to one of the concerts and you know, he turned one way and the girls would scream.

He go another and same thing would happen.

You know.

He was an awfully good looking guy and the the problem that he had was he was a little too cute and he and he was a wonderful artist.

He was a great guitar player and you know, wrote good songs.

He was he had magic, and that probably is his looks probably might have gotten in his way.

And I think they made a mistake by getting him into that Sergeant Pepper a movie or whatever that was.

That's for sure.

So how did you decide to sell an.

M Well, it was getting to that point where artists were getting a lot of money in advance.

And I heard the tape with Jerry of the Prince and I said, man, sign this guy.

You know, this guy's good, you know, And he went to a meeting with his managers and all of a sudden Warner Brothers was, you know, throwing out all sorts of money, and it was got up to like a million dollars or something like that in that period.

I forgot the year, but we felt, man, if we tried to put out that type of money and we were wrong, we made a mistake, it put a big hole in our ship.

So we had to back off.

But we heard up.

Jerry heard him.

I knew he had had the goods, and.

So how hard was it to sell the company?

For me?

It wasn't not hard.

I made a demand that what I wanted to do.

I wanted to sell forty nine percent of it and for us to keep the fifty one ad control of the company.

That was my initial thought.

Then they kept upping the price, upping the price, upping it to the point where we just felt that it was time.

It was we had a great run.

We sold it and shook hands like we did and when we started and moved on.

So it was not as pleasant for Jerry it was for me.

Jerry wanted to continue on in his capacity and things changed hands with the PolyGram PolyGram yeah, and the top man had to retire, and Jerry was very friendly with him and then it was a little tougher for him to to be effective with the new regime.

But I remember leaving the place and twenty nineteen twenty my memories losing my perspective and thinking, you know, there's other things I wanted to do.

I wanted to paint, I wanted to scope, I wanted to make music.

I wanted to do be free, and it felt right for me.

I didn't look back.

I never didn't go back to an M for several years until for some reason I was back there in the studio recording something and.

Jerry started over with Almo.

Were you partners in that?

Oh, yeah, we were partners with that.

I wasn't into it.

I didn't get it.

It was like for me, it was like trying to relive a moment, and I wasn't into that.

So you get this huge check, it's, you know, incredible amount of money, nine figures.

What do you do with the money and how do you know what to do with the money?

A good question.

Surround yourself with great people who know what to do with it.

That's what we did.

That's what I did, And then I started the you know, the Herbalbert Foundation in nineteen a maybe two, and I felt like I didn't want to hang a Picasso or Monet on my wall.

I wanted to be able to share my good fortune with some other people as well.

So tell me all the things the foundation does.

We try to keep arts alive, try to keep jazz alive, try to work with organizations that are friendly and open to all different races and religions, and trying to be there to keep art art alive.

I mean, this art is the thing that is.

I mean it's not gonna We're not going to change the world with music, but we're certainly going to bring some warmth to uh to our hormones for people that get it.

And tell me about the Herb Albert School of Music at U c l A.

Well, what can I tell you.

It's a great school.

We have great personnel.

It's we redid the whole most of it.

We had not recording but practice rooms down below in this in the basement that it was like there from the thirties, you know, it was like old times.

So we want to updated make sure that the students there are happy and learning what they want to learn.

I don't know, I'm not in an every day situation with them.

But I'm proud of the school and what we've accomplished to this point.

Okay, you are ninety, you're very active.

What's it like when your friends passed?

How do you cope with that?

Man?

It's tough.

Yesterday was a tough day for me.

I like Rob Ryner so much.

He's a good guy, honest, great, creative, funny and for that to happen and the way it did, it was really tough on his friends and the people that knew him because he was a special human being.

So what other than working on the road, what does your everyday life look like now?

Well, I paint, I scope, I have shows in different parts of the world, my art and I love making music.

I record most every day or I'm playing with the horn, Yeah I am.

I record all the time.

I like finding songs and see if I can play them innutes in a way that haven't been played quite that way before.

That's one of the things I love to do and learn the system of logic that allows me to be able to move tracks and do the things that engineers do and keeps my brain alive in the way.

And you've been on this string of live dates now with the Tijuana, brask Are you going to die on stage?

You're gonna keep doing it forever?

Or what do you see?

I'm going to do it as long as I'm able to do it.

I get pleasure out of it, and I never thought I was going to do it.

I think I told you in the earlier part of the conversation where I listened to these eighteen songs that my manager, one of my managers told me that people were excited and listening to around the world, And when I heard it myself, I felt good and it made me feel good, and that wasn't when I decided to get a group back together.

And my experience on stage with them is just I never realized how much fun I was having doing it, especially when I'm hearing great music and musicians behind me.

It's just it's easy for me to do.

And we've had sold out this whole year, was sold out concerts, and lucky that I get a chance at my age to share my gift with others and they have an experience that I never really even thought of it.

I think we're going through a strange time in our history, not only this country, but in the world.

People are looking for something positive to happen, and my music I think is helping in that area.

For those who haven't seen the show, what Herb is saying is totally accurate.

The music is very uplifting, and there's a lot of video that I couldn't even begin to describe, from all sorts of things, from Herb being in an A and M video for another act, the stuff from the sixties, and Herb tells these stories and many more.

So I certainly loved it.

That's why I reached out to do this podcast.

I love what you said about emotion and feel People don't know that.

They sound like simple concepts, but too much of today's modern music is missing that.

So I'm glad to hear you say that, Herb.

I want to thank you so much for spending this time with my audience.

It's a thrill for me to meet you face to face.

Thanks for doing this.

And my pleasure.

Thank you so much, Bob.

I really appreciate what you do and how you keep music and art alive.

I mean, that's what we need in this country.

It's all about all At the perfect time when I'm trying to and in this conversation, I'm up.

I can't find the words what you helped me out.

You're the words smith What was what was that?

You're an artist.

You speak through your horn.

That's how you connect with people.

And we got a little bit of a peak inside the man behind the horn today.

One final question, Yeah, how many trumpets do you own?

I have a lot of them, and I plan on giving them away.

I have this one horn that I played all the Tijuana Brass records on that the Smithsonian wants to have, so I'm kind of putting that in the closet.

I'm not using that horn anymore, but I have a lot.

It's not the you know, like I said during the conversation, it's not the horn, it's the It's the thing that comes out from inside a person's gut.

So that's that's my sound.

I don't think anyone can duplicate my exact feeling.

I think that's absolutely true.

And as I say, you're a warm person, great personality, great career.

Thanks so much for taking this time with my audience.

Till next time.

This is Bob left set