Herb Alpert on "This Girl's in Love With You"

[BachtoBacharach]

HA: You know, certainly, I feel good about things that have happened in my life, and with respect to music, I think the thing I'm most proud of from an ego point of view is that I'm the only artist to have a number one record as a vocalist and as an instrumentalist.

MR: Oh, can we also go into that story? Can we go into "This Guy's in Love with You" and what prompted you to do the vocal?

HA: Well, I was doing a television show for NBC and the director, Jack Haley Jr. suggested I sing a song. I said, "Well if I can find the right song I might give it a shot. So I called a friend of mine by the name of Burt Bacharach, have you heard of him?

MR: Yeah, sort of. (laughs)

HA: So I asked him, "Burt is there a song that you think I might be able to handle? Maybe one that you find yourself whistling in the shower, or tucked away in the drawer some place, or you recorded but you didn't like the blah blah blah?" He sent me a demo of "This Girl's in Love with You," which was recorded by Dionne Warwick, and I liked the melody. I felt I could handle it, and I called Hal David to see if he would change the gender for the show, and he was amenable to that. I flew to New York and he changed it and as I was leaving Hal's place, I asked him the same question I asked Burt: "Is there a song you find yourself whistling in the shower," and three days later, he sends me "Close to You" and that was the door opener for The Carpenters.

[JR]

Great story. I always thought there was a tie between Burt Bacharach
and Herb Alpert.

Re: HA&TTB They became a hit when I was a sophomore in high school. I actually thought they were a Latino group from south of the border. LOL. What a revelation it was when I learned who Herb Alpert is. That was slick. One of the slickest acts in American music history.

By the way, who is MR?

[ron hertel]

Herb Alpert along with Jerry Moss co-founded "A&M Records" which was Burt's record label for years. ........ Interesting to note that Dionne did the demo and eventually went to the top of the charts with her own rendition shortly after Alpert's success with the song! ...... A "double winner" for Bacharach and David!

NOTE: After reaching #7 on both the Pop and R&B Billboard Charts .... "This Girl's In Love With You" by Warwick (arranged and conducted by Don Sebesky) was not included on the definitive Rhino Records compilation "Dionne Warwick Collection ... Her ALL TIME GREATEST HITS*. ........ This very commercially successful collection of "24" Scepter Records recordings contains a number of songs that charted far lower than this song! ............ There must be a significant reason for that! ...... Anyone have any insight?

[blueonblue]

IMHO the greatest song Bacharach and David ever wrote.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe-rJtfmilM

"blue"

[grooverider]

Herb Alpert with a song from "Lost Horizon", "I Might Frighten Her Away" (strings arranged by Burt Bacharach):

http://youtu.be/d3pkH9GHMJw

[joej565]

This girls in love with you....I haven't heard that in soo long. Love it!



________________________________
"If you can dream it....you can do it."