“A Taste of Honey” (Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass)

We continue our salute to drummer extraordinaire Hal Blaine with today’s classic song of the day, the instrumental hit “A Taste of Honey” by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Mr. Albert’s single, released in August of 1965, peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent five weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart. It also won three Grammy Awards that year: Record of the Year, Best Instrumental Arrangement, and Best Instrumental Performance, Non-Jazz.

“A Taste of Honey” had previously won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Theme in 1963 for composers Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow. They wrote “A Taste of Honey” for the 1960 Broadway version of the 1958 British play of the same name. Lenny Welch did a vocal version of the song in 1962, which was later covered by the Beatles. Mr. Acker Bilk recorded an instrumental version of “A Taste of Honey” in 1963 that reached #16 on the UK charts. But the most successful, most well-known version of the song was recorded by Herb Alpert in 1965.

Mr. Alpert’s version of “A Taste of Honey” appeared on the album Whipped Cream & Other Delights. You remember that one; the cover featured a seemingly nude model covered with whipped cream. (The model on the cover, Delores Erickson, was actually three months pregnant at the time, and she was covered with shaving cream, not whipped cream, which would have melted under the hot studio lights.)

At this point in time, the Tijuana Brass was a touring band only; Mr. Alpert recruited the studio cats in the Wrecking Crew to record the records. On “A Taste of Honey,” those cats included Leon Russell (then known as Russell Bridges) on piano, Chuck Berghofer on acoustic bass, Carole Kaye on electric bass, and our featured artist of the week, Hal Blaine, on drums. The brass players were mostly studio cats, as well.

Mr. Blaine factors into things for that famous 12-beat bass drum lead-in after the rubato introduction and middle section. That signature beat was the result of troubles in the studio when the brass were having trouble coming in together after that rubato break. Here’s how Hal remembered it:

 “After the little intro, the band was not coming in together. So I just did ‘boom-boom-boom-boom diddly-diddly-diddly’ and everyone came in perfectly. Larry Levine, the engineer and co-producer, just loved it, as did Herb and everybody in the band, so it sort of became the hook of the song.”

“A Taste of Honey” became Hal’s first Record of the Year. He ended up playing on seven Grammy Records of the Year: “A Taste of Honey” (Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, 1966), “Strangers in the Night” (Frank Sinatra, 1967), Up, Up and Away” (The 5th Dimension, 1968), “Mrs. Robinson” (Simon & Garfunkel, 1969), “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” (The 5th Dimension, 1970), “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (Simon and Garfunkel, 1971), and “Love Will Keep Us Together” (The Captain & Tennille, 1976). That’s a record.