Herb Alpert

Herbert Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American musician who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass (sometimes called Herb Alpert and the TJB or Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass) in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss.

Alpert has recorded 28 albums that have appeared on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, five of which reached No. 1; he has been awarded 14 platinum albums and 15 gold albums. Alpert is the only musician to have reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 as both a vocalist ("This Guy's in Love with You", 1968) and an instrumentalist ("Rise", 1979).

Alpert has sold an estimated 72 million records worldwide. His awards have included a Tony Award and eight Grammy Awards, as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Alpert was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama in 2012.

Herbert Alpert was born on March 31, 1935, and raised in Boyle Heights, an Eastside neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was the youngest of three children (a daughter and two sons) born to Tillie (née Goldberg) and Louis Leib (or Louis Bentsion-Leib) Alpert. His parents were Jewish immigrants to the U.S. from Radomyshl in present-day Ukraine and Romania.

Alpert was born into a family of musicians. His father, although a tailor by trade, was also a mandolin player. His mother taught violin at a young age, and his older brother, David, was a drummer. His sister Mimi, who was the oldest, played the piano. Alpert began to play trumpet at eight years old.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.