While topping the charts with the ultimate in feel-good music, Herb Alpert was feeling lousy

From the outside looking in, Herb Alpert had it all in latter half of 1960s. He was handsome, he was rich and the breezy radio hits with his Tijuana Brass were the feel-good Southern California sounds of an era. A&M Records, the independent record label the suave trumpeter co-founded with Jerry Moss in 1962, was thriving. His 1965 album Whipped Cream & Other Delights was sophisticated pop confection for the masses, with erotic cover art particularly appreciated by adolescent boys.

Looks were deceiving. For one thing, that album cover was jive: The lady on the cover was covered in shaving cream, not whipped cream. More important, the man making the happy music was frowning on the inside.

“I was willing to give the whole thing up,” Alpert says, on the phone from his beachfront home in West Malibu, Calif. “I was going to throw my horn in the ocean and sell my half of A&M Records.”

Read the FULL article HERE