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In 1965 Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass released their 4th album – Whipped Cream and Other Delights. The album was hugely popular. If you’re a baby boomer, odds are your parents owned a copy; if a millennial, your grandparents. In fact at the height of the British Invasion and Motown the album was able to shift over 6 million copies!!! As a lifelong “crate digger” I think I’ve touched half of them!
The album was as well known for its provocative cover as the music it contained. A 3 month pregnant model named Dolores Erickson (now in her 80s) posed under a pile of shaving cream for the shoot. Her “come hither” expression and the illusion of nudity under that cream was a turn on for adult and adolescent men and no doubt helped sales.
The iconic cover inevitably led to a number of parodies, a sampling included below.
“Whipped Cream” was written by Allen Toussaint under the pseudonym Naomi Neville, his mother’s name. (He also credited the oft recorded “Fortune Teller” to “her.”)
The music was performed by the famed LA session players known as the Wrecking Crew. Artists that played on this album included Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye and Leon Russell (using the name Russell Bridges).
Even if you never heard this album, “Whipped Cream” may sound familiar to you. That’s because it was the music used on The Dating Game TV show as the lead in music when introducing the bachelorettes.
Now that’s a trip down memory lane!
Enjoy… until next week.
Hilarious in that I was going to say my parents owned a copy (seriously, I think they had about 10 albums and this was one).
As a kid, I never played it, but spent a lot of time looking at the cover.
In a few interviews I’ve read with Ms. Robertson, she said that outside of her fingers and her head, the other cream was shaving cream. She was also three months pregnant at the time and the photographer I think his name was Peter Worff had some harness that covered her bathing suit so it hid the bump. Apparently, Ms. Robertson was good friends with Alpert and appeared on a bunch of other album covers prior.
A couple of Herb Alpert thoughts.
First, along with Sonny Bono and Jack Nietschze, Alpert was the third protege of Phil Spector.
Second, this is actually my favorite Alpert album cover cos it riffs on Ludwig in a couple of ways. First, the title, and second, Ludwig in the cover is wearing a Herb Alpert sweatshirt which was funny at the time cos Beethoven sweatshirts were tres vogue.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.recordsale.de%2F600%2F600%2Fcdpix%2Fh%2Fherb-alpert-the-tijuana-brass_herb-alperts-ninth_1.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdandlp.com%2Fen%2Fherb-alpert-and-the-tijuana-brass%2Fherb-alpert-s-ninth%2Flp%2Fr116296655%2F&docid=NvgjmceX1PcHAM&tbnid=62aYJ2HyQvdRRM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwj0mMW7v-nUAhVJiFQKHQIWBK0QMwgqKAgwCA..i&w=598&h=600&hl=en&bih=678&biw=1304&q=herb%20alpert%27s%20ninth&ved=0ahUKEwj0mMW7v-nUAhVJiFQKHQIWBK0QMwgqKAgwCA&iact=mrc&uact=8