This Guy's in Love With You

Alpert was a trumpet player and bandleader who started a record label with Jerry Moss in 1962. They named it A&M Records, after their last names. This was the first #1 hit for both Alpert and the record label.

This was written by the team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It was their first #1 Pop hit in the US. Marty Robbins' "The Story of My Life" was #1 in the Country Charts, and a cover by UK artist Michael Holliday went to #1 on the UK Pop charts on February 14, 1958, just 2 weeks before Perry Como took their "Magic Moments" to UK Pop #1 (for 8 weeks) on February 28 - a decade before "This Guy's in Love With You." (thanks, Darryl - Queensland, Australia)

Alpert's previous material consisted of instrumental songs recorded with The Tijuana Brass Band. This was his first released on A&M Records that contained vocals. He had released vocal recordings for another label, Dot Records, under the assumed name of Dore Alpert.

Alpert sang this to his first wife in a 1968 TV special called The Beat of the Brass. The sequence was taped on the beach in Malibu. The song was not intended to be released, but after it was used in the TV special, thousands of telephone calls to CBS asking about it convinced label owner Alpert to release it as a single two days after the show aired.

According to the book Bacharach by Michael Brocken, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss owned A&M records (A = Alpert, M = Moss). The Tijuana Brass were offered a TV special and the director suggested Alpert sing a song. Alpert contacted friend and label mate Burt Bacharach to ask him for a song. Hal David actually re-wrote some of the lyrics at Alpert's request: "He wanted to do our song on a TV special he was doing. It was a song he was going to sing to his wife, and the lyric was not quite appropriate for what he wanted to say. He asked us whether we could change it so it would fit what he needed. And I did; and he did it on the show and got a terrific reaction and recorded it. And it turned out to be a stunning hit!" (thanks, Darryl - Queensland, Australia)

In 1969, Dionne Warwick's version ("This Girl's in Love With You") peaked at #7 in the US. She recorded a lot of songs Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote, including "Don't Make Me Over" and "I Say a Little Prayer."

Herb Alpert is the only solo act to be credited with a #1 vocal single ("This Guy's in Love With You") and a #1 instrumental single ("Rise"). (thanks, Brad Wind - Miami, FL, for above 2)

In 2005, much of Alpert's material was re-released, including his albums Whipped Cream & Other Delights and The Lonely Bull.

Burt Bacharach (from Record Collector magazine): "'This Guy's In Love With You' was gonna be a big record. It was a television show. Herb was very hot and his band, The Tijuana Brass was very hot. I was signed to A&M as an artist. There were great guys running the record company, Herb and Jerry (Moss). They asked me to do it, to write a song with Hal David, come in and write the arrangement and conduct the orchestra. I did it as a favor. If you asked me when I got in my car leaving Gold Star Studios that night and thought this was ever gonna be a hit I would have said no way. Then three or four weeks later it was #1. Wow!"