I blush to confess this, but … when I was in 4th grade, I had a little glow-in-the-dark ghost finger puppet, and at night when I went to bed I used to put Herb Alpert on the phonograph, and make my finger puppet dance to the Tijuana Brass music.
Please don’t banish me from the SDMB for this.
Next you’re going to tell me that George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars aren’t aliens from outer space. I mean, I saw the spaceship and everything!
I’ve never been a fan of the Milli Vanilli argument. The music doesn’t change or get worse just because people misrepresent themselves.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there a knock/off-parody group at the same time as the Tijuana brass? It was called “Al Tijuana and His Jewish Brass”.
They sounded very similar!
Does that mean anything like what it sounds like?
Yes. Corridos are story-songs found in several parts of Mexico. But smuggling and/or revolution have made The Border an especially good source of stories–true or embroidered. They’ve been around for many years–usually with very simple instrumental accompaniment.
Narcocorridos are a recent development. They relate the adventures of dealers in *polvo blanco * & yerba mala. (That’s white powder & evil herb, for the Spanish-deficient.)
Some of them glorify dealers. But the message I’ve usually heard (on commercial radio, that is) is “Crime Does Not Pay.”
Originally Posted by ElvisL1ves
C’mon, you have to be a pretty damned good performer to make a living in LA even as a studio musician. Give them credit. Those guys were exactly as good when you thought they were Mexicans as they were after you found out otherwise.
What, only Mexicans can play mariachi? Can only Jews play klezmer? Can only old black men from Mississippi play the blues? Music is music. Talent is talent.
I agree with you. Until Motown began crediting its musicians on I believe Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”, most people didn’t know that a number of the studio musicians who were members of “The Funk Brothers” were Caucasian (Dennis Coffey, Bob Babitt come to mind). The Muscle Shoals Band that performed on some of Aretha Franklin’s classics on the Atlantic label (as did Eric Clapton) were also Caucasian. Someone in another post mentions George Clinton and Parliment/Funkadelic. Some of the great horn arrangements on his work, and Boosty’s Collin’s Rubber Band were performed by the Brecker Brothers (Randy and the late Michael) along with former JB’s sidemen Maceo Parker and Fred Wesly. Lets not forget the great Steve Cropper of Booker T & the MG’s. He laid down some of the greatest guitar licks in R&B while performing as a house musician with Stax records, backing groups like Sam & Dave and the Staple Singers. Bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, also a member of the MG’s laid down many of the bass lines on the R&B classics that defined the Stax sound. The great string arrangements by Larry Gold that were intergral to the “Sound of Philadelphia of the 80’s” were performed largely by Jewish musicians.
Most of us always knew they weren’t Mexican, although on some of the album covers Herb did look slightly darker in skintone, as if there was a tiny bit of an effort to make him look Mexican.
I loved the Brass when I was a kid, but soon moved on to hard rock and thought they were a bit lame. AFter all, they put that stuff in the E-Z Listening bins at Tower, so how could it possibly be cool. Young music fans can be pretty intolerant, and I was no better than any of them. Nowadays I only have fond memories of listening Alpert, and when I listen to my Rhino Ventures collection and it comes their rendition of “The Lonely Bull”…I don’t skip it.
It’s not that they weren’t Mexican – it’s that they weren’t a band. They were Herb Alpert and a group of studio musicians that weren’t always the same. I thought that I’d heard that, on the albums all the parts were Alpert, recorded separately, but that he needed other musicians for appearances (but that source could easily be wrong).
When I was a kid, my parents had an album called “The Band I Heard in TIJUANA”. There was no mention of Herb or Alpert. I’m surprised they didn’t styick BRASS on the title somewhere.
Holy crap! I think my father had that album.
In the late 70’s, a lot of hit disco songs were produced by one guy (I think it was Jack White) in Munich, Germany.
He would find songs, record them in the studio using professional background singers and musicians, and then, if any of the songs hit it big, only then would he go out and audition pretty looking people to “become” the group for live performances.
None of his hit performing acts were anywhere near the studio when “their” hit record was originally recorded. One such group was “Silver Connection” that was created after the hit, “Fly Robin Fly” had already become a disco hit.
That is precisely how Milli Vanilli came to be.
Next you’ll be telling me the Sugababes aren’t really babes. Oh, hang on.
And the Violent Femmes aren’t femmes, The Police weren’t policemen, yada yada. 
I still like “The Lonely Bull” after all these decades. (My father was a big TJB fan, so we had several of their albums, including the “Whipped Cream” one.) I’ve known forever that it wasn’t authentic Mexican music anymore than Taco Bell is authentic Mexican food - but I like Taco Bell too.
Don’t feel bad – I was a part-time high school disc jockey at the local radio station back then, so I knew they were session musicians. But I was completely fooled by Credence Clearwater Revival. It wasn’t until I bought one of their albums that I realized they were white, and even then I thought they were all from Mississippi or Louisiana. (Come on, Born on the bayou? Chooglin’ on down to New Orleans? They *had * to be southern!)
What!? :eek:
What, only Mexicans can play mariachi? Can only Jews play klezmer? Can only old black men from Mississippi play the blues? Music is music. Talent is talent.
Well said, Elvis.
I happen to know that Mozart was Austrian, not Italian. This did not keep him from writing Don Giovanni, an opera sung in Italian. Goodness knows Georges Bizet was Frrench, not Spanish. He wrote Carmen just the same.
And I’ll bet not one of Guy Lombardo’s Royal Canadians–Lombardo himself included–was royal or Canadian!
More to the point, having listened to several of Alpert’s albums I don’t see the ppoint of those who belittle Alpert’s band as “studio musicians.” What, arre they supposed to keep quiet and not record anything until they pass a blood test or something?
If I had a combo that could play the instruments well, I wouldn’t give a damn if they were Yougarian or Martian or whatever. My ancestry is mostly Irish but I don’t think that means I am only allowed to play Irish music.