Herb Alpert is the only musician to hit No 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 as both a vocalist and an instrumentalist.
28 Facts About Herb Alpert
2.
Herb Alpert has received many accolades, including a Tony Award and eight Grammy Awards, as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
3.
Herb Alpert was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama in 2013.
4.
Herb Alpert was born and raised in the Boyle Heights section of Eastside Los Angeles, California, the youngest of three children of Tillie and Louis Leib Alpert.
5.
Herb Alpert's parents were Jewish immigrants to the US from Radomyshl and Romania.
6.
Herb Alpert's father, although a tailor by trade, was a talented mandolin player.
7.
Herb Alpert's mother taught violin at a young age, and his older brother, David, was a talented young drummer.
8.
Herb Alpert started attending Fairfax High School in Los Angeles beginning there in the 10th grade for the Class of 1951.
9.
Herb Alpert served in the US Army during the Korean War, where he played in the 6th Army Band.
10.
In 1957, Herb Alpert teamed up with Rob Weerts, another burgeoning lyricist, as a songwriter for Keen Records.
11.
The song that jump-started Herb Alpert's performing career was originally titled "Twinkle Star," written by Sol Lake.
12.
Herb Alpert was dissatisfied with his first efforts to record the song, then took a break to visit a bullfight in Tijuana, Mexico.
13.
Herb Alpert personally funded the production of the record as a single, and it spread through radio DJs until it caught on and became a Top 10 hit in the Fall of 1962.
14.
Herb Alpert sang it to his first wife in a 1968 CBS Television special titled Beat of the Brass.
15.
In 1979, five years after his last chart hit with the Tijuana Brass, Herb Alpert tried to record a disco album of rearranged Brass hits.
16.
In 2013, Herb Alpert released Steppin' Out, which won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album.
17.
Herb Alpert has a second career as an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor with group and solo exhibitions around the United States and Europe.
18.
In May 2000, Herb Alpert was awarded an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music.
19.
Herb Alpert received the "El Premio Billboard" for his contributions to Latin music at the 1997 Billboard Latin Music Awards.
20.
Herb Alpert was awarded Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award by Society of Singers in 2009.
21.
Herb Alpert was awarded one of the 2012 National Medal of Arts awards by Barack and Michelle Obama on Wednesday, July 10,2013, in the White House's East Room.
22.
In 2020, Herb Alpert bestowed an additional $9.7 million on the Harlem School of the Arts to upgrade its facility.
23.
Herb Alpert founded the Louis and Tillie Alpert Music Center in Jerusalem, which brings together both Arab and Jewish students.
24.
Herb Alpert launched with two scents, Listen and Listen for Men.
25.
Herb Alpert compared perfume to music, with high and low notes.
26.
Herb Alpert married Sharon Mae Lubin at Presidio of San Francisco in 1956.
27.
Herb Alpert and Hall have a daughter, Aria, born in 1976.
28.
Hall and Herb Alpert recorded a live album, Anything Goes, in 2009; a studio album, I Feel You, in 2011; and another studio album, Steppin' Out, in 2013.