A&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates under the mantle of its Interscope-Geffen-A&M division.

History[link]

Beginnings[link]

A&M Records was formed in 1962 by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. Their first choice for a name was Carnival Records, under which they released two singles before discovering another label had taken the Carnival name first. The company was subsequently renamed A&M, after Alpert's and Moss's initials. From 1966 to 1999, the company's headquarters were on the grounds of the historic Charlie Chaplin Studios at 1416 North La Brea Avenue, near Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, A&M had such acts as Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Baja Marimba Band, Burt Bacharach, Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66, We Five, The Carpenters, Chris Montez, Elkie Brooks, Lee Michaels, The Captain and Tennille, Quincy Jones, Stealers Wheel, Marc Benno, Liza Minnelli, Rita Coolidge, Wes Montgomery, Paul Desmond, Cat Stevens, Bobby Tench, Hummingbird, Toni Basil, and Paul Williams. Folk artists Joan Baez, Phil Ochs and Gene Clark also recorded for the label during the 1970s. Billy Preston joined the label in 1971, followed by Andre Popp and Herb Ohta in 1973.

In the late 1960s, through direct signing and licensing agreements, A&M added several British artists to its roster, including Cat Stevens, Joe Cocker, Procol Harum, Humble Pie, Fairport Convention, Free, The Move, and Spooky Tooth. In the 1970s, under its manufacturing and distribution agreement with Ode Records, A&M released albums by Carole King and the comedy duo Cheech & Chong. Other notable acts of the time included Nazareth, Y&T, the Tubes, Styx, Supertramp, Rick Wakeman, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Chuck Mangione, Squeeze, and Peter Frampton. On March 10, 1977, A&M signed the Sex Pistols after the band had been dropped by EMI. However, A&M dropped the band within a week.^[1] A&M sustained its success during the 1980s with a roster of noted acts that included Henry Badowski, Janet Jackson, the Police, Sting, The Brothers Johnson, Falco, Atlantic Starr, the Go-Go's, Chris De Burgh, Bryan Adams, Suzanne Vega, Brenda Russell, Jeffrey Osborne, Oingo Boingo, Human League, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Sharon, Lois & Bram, Annabel Lamb, Jim Diamond, Vital Signs, Joe Jackson, and Scottish rock band Gun.

Within a decade of its inception, A&M became the world's largest independent record company^{[citation needed]}. A&M releases were initially issued in the United Kingdom by EMI's Stateside Records label, and then under its own name by Pye Records until 1967. A&M releases were also issued in Australia through Festival Records until 1989. A&M Records Ltd.^[2] was established in 1970, with distribution handled by other labels with a presence in Europe. A&M Records of Canada Ltd.^[3] was also formed in 1970, and A&M Records of Europe in 1977. In 1979, A&M entered a distribution agreement with RCA Records (which later became BMG) in the USA, and with CBS Records (whose successor Sony Music Entertainment later absorbed BMG) in many other countries.

Over the years, A&M added specialty imprints: Almo International^[4] for middle of the road; Omen Records (1964–1966)^[5] for soul; Horizon Records^[6] for jazz (1974–1978); AyM Discos^[7] for Latin-American; Vendetta Records^[8] for dance music (1988–1990); and Tuff Break Records for hip-hop music (1993–1995).^[9]

The PolyGram years[link]

A&M was bought by PolyGram in 1989. Alpert and Moss continued to manage the label until 1993. The sale to PolyGram stipulated that Alpert and Moss had an integrity clause allowing them to control the label's image through 2009. In 1998, Alpert and Moss sued PolyGram for breach of the integrity clause, eventually settling for an additional $200 million payment.^[10]

In 1991, A&M launched Perspective Records^[11] as a joint venture with producing team Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Jam and Lewis stepped down as CEOs of the imprint in 1997, but they remained on as consultants. In 1999, the label was absorbed into A&M. In the mid-1990s, A&M began distributing its PolyGram sister label Polydor Records in the USA.

During the 1990s, the company continued to release albums by Soundgarden, Extreme, Amy Grant, John Hiatt, Sting, Blues Traveler, Barry White, and Aaron Neville, as well as material from new artists Sheryl Crow, Therapy?, CeCe Peniston, and the Gin Blossoms. The company released the soundtracks Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Three Musketeers, Sabrina, The Living Sea, Demolition Man, and Lethal Weapon 3.

Universal Music Group[link]

In 1998, PolyGram was bought by Seagram and merged with its MCA Records family to create Universal Music. A&M was subsequently merged into Universal Music Group's then newly formed Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group. Its Canadian division was absorbed into Universal Music Canada that time, which included Jann Arden alongside other artists from Canada. Bryan Adams continued to record on that label.

The A&M lot on La Brea Avenue was shut down in January 1999. During the farewell celebration, the company's staff placed a black band over the A&M sign above the main entrance, indicating the death of the company. Most of the company's workforce, some of whom had been with the company for a decade or more, were let go, while many of its artists were dropped. Al Cafaro stated,

"This isn't about Universal or Seagram. The record business is changing fundamentally. Don't think that there are calm seas on the other side of this threshold. If the quake that devoured A&M and Geffen is a 6.0 on the Richter scale, there is a 7.0 coming in this industry. It's a Wall Street world now. Get ready."^[12]

Alpert and Moss sued Universal Music Group in 2000, claiming that they had violated a contractual agreement stating that A&M Records would be allowed to retain its corporate culture^{[citation needed]}. The suit was later settled.

The first multi-platinum A&M Records release under Universal Music Group and Interscope was Sting's 1999 album Brand New Day.

The old A&M studios and executive offices are now the home of Jim Henson Productions, which operates Henson Recording Studios.

A&M catalog albums that did not fit the current pop music format (which also includes rock, rap, and R&B) of their new parent division were transferred to other Universal divisions for management - for example, Verve Records now manages A&M's jazz catalog, not including Herb Alpert's recorded output which Alpert acquired in the settlement with Universal Music and are licensed to Shout! Factory (however, Verve does manage the Horizon Records catalog).^[13]

In February 2007, Interscope-Geffen-A&M partnered with Octone Records to relaunch the A&M label, now headed by James Diener and called A&M/Octone Records with worldwide distribution handled by parent Universal Music Group. The existing Octone roster was transferred to the A&M/Octone label and all new artist signings are made under the A&M/Octone joint venture.^[14]

Subsidiary labels[link]

Former[link]

• 1500 Records (1998–2001)
• ANTRA Records (1998)
• AM:PM (1990–2002, UK imprint for R&B, hip-hop and dance music)
• Breakout Records (1987–1990, UK imprint for R&B and Hip-Hop music)
• CTI Records (1967–1970)
• Cypress Records (1988–1990)
• Dark Horse Records (1974–1976)
• Delos International (1988–1990)
• Denon (1988–1992)
• DV8 Records (1995–1998)
• Flip (1996–1998)
• Gold Mountain Ltd. (1983–1985)
• Heavyweight Records (1998)
• I.R.S. Records (1979–1985)
• Nimbus Records (1987–1990)
• Ode Records (1970–1975)
• Polydor Records (1995–2000)
• Shelter Records (In Great Britain, early 1970s)
• Shoreline Records
• Tabu Records (1991–1993)
• Tuff Break Records (1993–1995)
• TwinTone (1987–1989)
• T.W.Is.M (1996–1998)
• Vendetta Records (1988–1991)
• Windham Hill Records (and its subsidiary labels) (1982–1985)
• Word Records (and its subsidiary labels: Exit, Myrrh, Live Oak) (1985–1990)

Current[link]

• A&M/Octone Records
• A&M Records UK (reactivated as a front-line label by Polydor Records.)
• Tropical Records
• will.i.am music group

See also[link]

• A&M/Octone Records
• A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.
• List of record labels
• Charlie Chaplin Studios
• List of current A&M Records artists
• List of former A&M Records artists

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Interscope Records official website - A&M Records is included within the Interscope site and is part of Interscope-Geffen-A&M
• A&M Records US/UK A&R contact list
• On A&M Records - Search every artist and recording by A&M Records and its affiliated labels
• A&M Corner - Since 1995 the internet's original A&M Records free collector/listener resource

Herb Alpert
Alpert in 1966.
Background information
Birth name	Herbert Alpert
Also known as	Herb Alpert, Dore Alpert
Born	(1935-03-31) March 31, 1935 (age 77)
Origin	Los Angeles, California, US
Genres	Jazz, Latin, funk, pop, R&B
Occupations	Trumpeter, composer, arranger, songwriter, singer, record producer, record executive, painter, sculptor
Instruments	Trumpet, piano, vocals
Years active	1957— (concert touring presently with wife Lani Hall)
Labels	A&M
Associated acts	The Tijuana Brass, Baja Marimba Band
Website	www.herbalpert.com

Herbert "Herb" Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American musician most associated with the group variously known as Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass, or TJB. He is also a recording industry executive — he is the "A" of A&M Records (a recording label he and business partner Jerry Moss founded and eventually sold to Polygram). The multi-talented Alpert has also created abstract expressionist paintings and sculpture over two decades, which are on occasion publicly exhibited; and he and his wife are substantial US philanthropists through the operation of the Herb Alpert Foundation.

Alpert's musical accomplishments include five number one hits, 28 albums on the Billboard charts, eight Grammy Awards, fourteen Platinum albums and fifteen Gold albums.^[1] As of 1996, Alpert had sold 72 million albums worldwide.^[2][3][4] Alpert is the only recording artist to hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 pop chart as both an instrumentalist ("Rise", 1979) and vocalist (" This Guy's in Love With You", 1968).

Early life and career[link]

Alpert was born in Los Angeles, California,^[5] into a Jewish family of Russian and Romanian origins.^[4][6] His father Louis was from Radomyshl (present-day Ukraine) and although a tailor by trade, was also a talented mandolin player. His mother, Tillie, had her roots in Romania on her father's side; she herself taught violin at a young age. His older brother David was a talented young drummer.^[7] Alpert himself began trumpet lessons at the age of eight and played at dances as a teenager. Acquiring an early wire recorder in high school, he experimented on this crude equipment. After graduating from Fairfax High School in 1952, he joined the U.S. Army and frequently performed at military ceremonies. After his service in the Army, Alpert tried his hand at acting, but eventually settled on pursuing a career in music. While attending the University of Southern California in the 1950s, he was a member of the USC Trojan Marching Band for two years. In 1956, he appeared in the uncredited role "Drummer on Mt. Sinai" in the film "Ten Commandments".^[8] In 1962, he had an uncredited part in a scene in "Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation" where he played (and performed a solo) in a dance band.

In 1957, Alpert teamed up with Rob Weerts, another burgeoning lyricist, as a songwriter for Keen Records. A number of songs written or co-written by Alpert during the following two years became top twenty hits, including "Baby Talk" by Jan and Dean, "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke, and "Alley-Oop" by The Hollywood Argyles and by Dante and The Evergreens.^[2] In 1960, Alpert began his recording career as a vocalist at RCA Records under the name of Dore Alpert.^[4]

"Tell It to the Birds" was recorded as the first release on the Alpert & Moss label Carnival Records. When Alpert and Moss found that there was prior usage of the Carnival name, their label became A&M Records.

The Tijuana Brass years[link]

Alpert set up a small recording studio in his garage and had been overdubbing a tune called "Twinkle Star", written by Sol Lake, who would eventually write many of the Brass's original tunes. During a visit to Tijuana, Mexico, Alpert happened to hear a mariachi band while attending a bullfight. Following the experience, Alpert recalled that he was inspired to find a way to express musically what he felt while watching the wild responses of the crowd, and hearing the brass musicians introducing each new event with rousing fanfare.^[9] Alpert adapted the trumpet style to the tune, mixed in crowd cheers and other noises for ambience, and renamed the song "The Lonely Bull".^[10] He personally funded the production of the record as a single, and it spread through radio DJs until it caught on and became a Top Ten hit in 1962. He followed up quickly with his debut album, The Lonely Bull by "Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass". Originally the Tijuana Brass was just Alpert overdubbing his own trumpet, slightly out of sync. The title cut reached #6 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart. This was A&M's first album (the original number was 101), although it was recorded at Conway Records.

By the end of 1964, because of a growing demand for live appearances by the Tijuana Brass, Alpert auditioned and hired a team of crack session men. No one in Alpert's band was actually Hispanic. Alpert used to tell his audiences that his group consisted of "Four lasagnas, two bagels, and an American cheese": John Pisano (electric guitar); Lou Pagani (piano); Nick Ceroli (drums); Pat Senatore (bass guitar); Tonni Kalash (trumpet); Herb Alpert (trumpet and vocal); and Bob Edmondson (trombone). The band debuted in 1965 and became one of the highest-paid acts then performing, having put together a complete revue that included choreographed moves and comic routines written by Bill ("Jose Jimenez") Dana.

The Tijuana Brass's success helped spawn other Latin acts, notably Julius Wechter (long-time friend of Alpert's and the marimba player for the Brass) and the Baja Marimba Band, and the profits allowed A&M to begin building a repertoire of artists like Chris Montez and The Sandpipers. Wechter would contribute a number of the Brass' original songs, usually at least one per album, along with those of other Alpert friends, Sol Lake and Ervan "Bud" Coleman.

An album or two would be released each year throughout the 1960s. Alpert's band was featured in several TV specials, each one usually centered on visual interpretations of the songs from their latest album - essentially an early type of music videos later made famous by MTV. The first Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass special, sponsored by the Singer Sewing Machine Company, aired on April 24, 1967 on CBS.

Alpert's style achieved enormous popularity with the national exposure The Clark Gum Company gave to one of his recordings in 1964, a Sol Lake number titled "The Mexican Shuffle" (which was retitled "The Teaberry Shuffle" for the television advertisements). In 1965, Alpert released two albums, Whipped Cream (and Other Delights) and Going Places. Whipped Cream sold over 6 million copies in the United States. The album cover featured model Dolores Erickson wearing only what appeared to be whipped cream. In reality, Erickson was wearing a white blanket over which were scattered artfully-placed daubs of shaving cream—real whipped cream would have melted under the heat of the studio lights (although the cream on her head was real). In concerts, when about to play the song, Alpert would tell the audience, "Sorry, we can't play the cover for you." The art was parodied by several groups including one-time A&M band Soul Asylum and by comedian Pat Cooper for his album Spaghetti Sauce and Other Delights. The singles included the title cut, "Lollipops and Roses", and "A Taste of Honey." The latter won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Going Places produced four more singles: "Tijuana Taxi", "Spanish Flea", "Third Man Theme", and "Zorba the Greek". "Tijuana Taxi" and "Spanish Flea" would be used in the 1966 Academy Award-winning animated short A Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature.

The Brass covered the Bert Kaempfert tune "Happy Trumpeter" retitling it "Magic Trumpet". Alpert's rendition contained a bar that coincided with a Schlitz beer tune, "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer". ("The Maltese Melody" was another Alpert cover of a Kaempfert original). Another commercial use was a tune called "El Garbanzo", which was featured in Sunoco ads ("They're movin', they're movin', people in the know, they're movin' to Sunoco").

In 1967, the Tijuana Brass performed the title cut to the first movie version of Casino Royale.

Many of the tracks from Whipped Cream and Going Places received a great deal of airplay; they are frequently used as incidental music in The Dating Game on the Game Show Network, notably the tracks Whipped Cream, Spanish Flea and Lollipops and Roses. Despite the popularity of his singles, Alpert's albums outsold and outperformed them on the charts.

Alpert and the Tijuana Brass won six Grammy Awards. Fifteen of their albums won gold discs, and fourteen won platinum discs. In 1966 over 13 million Alpert recordings were sold, outselling the Beatles. That same year, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized that Alpert set a new record by placing five albums simultaneously in the top 20 on the Billboard Pop Album Chart, an accomplishment that has never been repeated. In April of that year, four of those albums were in the Top 10 simultaneously.

Alpert's only number one single during this period (and the first #1 hit for his A&M label) was a solo effort:^[11] "This Guy's in Love with You" (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David),^[10] featuring a rare vocal. Alpert sang this to his first wife in a 1968 CBS Television special titled Beat of the Brass. The sequence was filmed on the beach in Malibu. The song was not intended to be released, but after it was used in the television special, allegedly thousands of telephone calls to CBS asking about it convinced Alpert to release it as a single, two days after the show aired.^[12] Although Alpert's vocal skills and range were limited, the song's unchallenging technical demands suited him.^[13] The single debuted in May 1968, topped the national chart for four weeks and ranked among the year's biggest hits. Initially regarded by the critical cognoscenti and 'hip' music-lovers of the day as strictly an easy-listening chart hit, Alpert's unusually expressive recording of "This Guy's in Love with You" now enjoys appeal well beyond the so-called mainstream. In 1996 at London's Royal Festival Hall, Noel Gallagher (of British rock band Oasis) performed the song with Burt Bacharach. Former Beatle George Harrison has stated that this was one of his favorite recordings.^{[citation needed]}

Life after the Brass[link]

Alpert disbanded the Tijuana Brass in 1969, then released another album by the group in 1971. In 1973, with some of the original Tijuana Brass members and some new members, he formed a group called Herb Alpert and the T.J.B. This new version of the Brass released two albums in 1974 and 1975 and toured. Alpert reconvened a third version of the Brass in 1984 after being invited to perform for the Olympic Games athletes at the Los Angeles Summer Games. The invitation led to the Bullish album and tour.

In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Alpert enjoyed a successful solo career. He had his biggest instrumental hit, "Rise" (from the album of the same name), which went number one in October 1979 and won a Grammy Award, and was later sampled in the number one 1997 rap song "Hypnotize" by the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. Both "Rise" and "Hypnotize" were written by Alpert's nephew, Randy Badazz Alpert and his friend Andy Armer. "Rise" made Alpert the only artist ever to hit #1 on the Billboard pop singles charts with both a vocal piece and an instrumental piece. Another Randy Badazz / Andy Armer song, "Rotation", hit #30 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart. The song "Route 101" off the Fandango album peaked at number 37 in Billboard in August 1982. In 1987, Alpert branched out successfully to the R&B world with the hit album Keep Your Eye On Me, teaming up with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on "Diamonds" and "Making Love In the Rain" featuring vocals by Janet Jackson and Lisa Keith.

Alpert performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" prior to Super Bowl XXII in San Diego, California in January 1988. It was the last non-vocal rendition of the national anthem at the Super Bowl to date.

From 1962 through 1992 Alpert signed artists to A&M Records and produced records. He discovered the West Coast band We Five. Among the notable artists he worked with personally are Chris Montez, The Carpenters, Sérgio Mendes and Brasil '66, Bill Medley, Lani Hall (Alpert's second and current wife), Liza Minnelli and Janet Jackson (featured vocalist on his 1987 hit single "Diamonds"). These working relationships allowed Alpert to place singles in the Top 10 in three different decades (1960s, 1970s, and 1980s).

Alpert and A&M Records partner Jerry Moss both agreed in 1987 to sell A&M to PolyGram Records for a reported $500 million. Both would continue to manage the label until 1993, when they left due to frustrations with PolyGram's constant pressure to force the label to fit into its corporate culture. Alpert and Moss then expanded their Almo Sounds music publishing company to produce records as well, primarily as a vehicle for Alpert's music. Almo Sounds imitates the former company culture embraced by Alpert and Moss when they first started A&M.

Awards and honors[link]

Alpert and Moss received a Grammy Trustees Award in 1997 for their lifetime achievements in the recording industry as executives and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

For his contribution to the recording industry, Alpert has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6929 Hollywood Blvd. Moss also has a star on the Walk of Fame. Alpert and Moss were also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006 as non-performer lifetime achievers for their work at A&M.

Alpert was referenced in the second show of the third season of Get Smart where one of the code signals between Maxwell Smart and his contact was "Herb Alpert takes trumpet lessons from Guy Lombardo." Also, a fifth-season episode parodied the entire group as Max and 99 sought to unmask "Herb Talbot and His Tijuana Tin" as KAOS spies.

On 17 September 2010 the TV documentary “Legends: Herb Alpert – Tijuana Brass and Other Delights” premiered on BBC 4.^[14]

Alpert has worked as a Broadway theatre producer, with his production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America winning a Tony Award.

In the 1980s Alpert created The Herb Alpert Foundation and the Alpert Awards in the Arts with The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).^[15] The Foundation supports youth and arts education as well as environmental issues and helps fund the PBS series Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason and later Moyers & Company. Alpert and his wife donated $30 million to University of California, Los Angeles in 2007 to form and endow the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music as part of the restructured UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. He gave $24 million, which included $15 million from April 2008, to CalArts for its music curricula, and provided funding for the culture jamming activists The Yes Men.^[16]

He is actively overseeing the reissue of his music library. In 2000, Alpert acquired the rights to his music from Universal Music (current owners of A&M Records) in a legal settlement and began remastering his albums for compact disc reissue. In 2005, Shout! Factory began distributing digitally remastered versions of Alpert's A&M output, including a new album, Lost Treasures, consisting of unreleased material from Alpert's Tijuana Brass years. In the spring of 2006, a remixed version of the Whipped Cream album, entitled Whipped Cream and Other Delights: Re-Whipped was released and climbed to #5 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz chart. Alpert's 80's catalog, which includes his two most successful solo albums, 1982's Fandango and 1987's Keep Your Eye on Me, are still unavailable on CD. He continues to be a guest artist for artists including Gato Barbieri, Rita Coolidge, Jim Brickman, Brian Culbertson, and David Lanz. Apart from the reissues, the Christmas Album continues to be available every year during the holiday season. On Sérgio Mendes' 2008 album Encanto, Alpert performed trumpet solos backing lead vocals by his wife on the song "Dreamer". It marked the first time Alpert, Mendes and Hall had all performed together on the same song. Most recently, Alpert and his wife (Lani Hall) signed with Concord Records and released a new (live) album in the summer of 2009, Anything Goes, which was Alpert's first release of new material since 1999's Herb Alpert and Colors.^[17] A new studio album by Alpert and Hall, I Feel You, was released in February 2011. Both albums feature tight jazz renditions of pop classics along with a handful of original compositions.

While Alpert continues to play trumpet, he also devotes time to his second career as an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor with group and solo exhibitions around the United States and Europe. The sculpture exhibition “Herb Alpert: Black Totems”, on display at ACE Gallery, Beverly Hills, February through September 2010, brought major media attention to his visual work.^[18]

Personal life[link]

Since 1974, Alpert has been married to recording artist Lani Hall. They have one daughter, actress Aria Alpert.

He was previously married to Sharon Mae Lubin frtom 1956 to 1971, but they divorced. They had two children together: daughter Eden and son Dore.^[4]

Hit singles[link]

Discography[link]

(All albums are on A&M Records and are listed with the original catalog numbers, unless otherwise indicated)

Compositions[link]

Herb Alpert's compositions include:

See also[link]

• 20th century brass instrumentalists
• Herb Alpert: Music for Your Eyes documentary (2003)
• List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance chart
• List of Number 1 Dance Hits (United States)
• List of number-one hits (United States)
• List of trumpeters

References[link]

Books[link]

• Darryl Lyman: Great Jews in Music. J. D. Publishers, Middle Village, N.Y. 1986.
• Stanley Sadie, H. Wiley Hitchcock (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. Grove's Dictionaries of Music, New York, N.Y. 1986.
• Colin Larkin: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Third edition. Macmillan, New York, N.Y. 1998.
• Michael Cuscuna, Michel Ruppi: The Blue Note label. A discography. Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 2001.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Herb Alpert at the Internet Movie Database
• Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass at the Internet Movie Database
• Herb Alpert: Artist & Musician
• The Herb Alpert/Tijuana Brass discography

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)

Rick Moranis
Moranis in March 1990 at the 62nd Academy Awards
Born	Frederick Allan Moranis (1953-04-18) April 18, 1953 (age 59) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Actor, comedian, musician
Years active	1976–2006,2008
Spouse	Anne Moranis (deceased)

Frederick Allan "Rick" Moranis (born April 18, 1953) is an American actor. Moranis came to prominence around 1980 in the sketch comedy show Second City Television, and later appeared in several Hollywood films including Strange Brew; Ghostbusters; Spaceballs; Little Shop of Horrors; Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; Little Giants; Parenthood; The Flintstones; and My Blue Heaven.He is the widower of his only wife Anne Moranis.

Early life and SCTV[link]

Moranis was born in Toronto, Ontario, and went to high school at the Sir Sandford Fleming Secondary School. He went to elementary school with Geddy Lee, frontman of the rock band Rush.^[1] His career as an entertainer began as a radio disc jockey in the mid-1970s, using the on-air name of "Rick Alan" at three Toronto radio stations.^[1]

In 1980, Moranis was persuaded to join the third-season cast of Second City Television (SCTV) by friend and SCTV writer/performer Dave Thomas.^[2] At the time, Moranis was the only cast member who had not come from a Second City stage troupe. He became famous for his impressions of Woody Allen and George Carlin, among many others.

With SCTV moving to CBC in 1980 (and syndicated to the United States), Moranis and Thomas were challenged to fill two additional minutes with "identifiable Canadian content", and created a sketch called The Great White North featuring the characters Bob and Doug McKenzie. By the time NBC ordered 90-minute programs for the U.S. in 1981 (the fourth season of SCTV overall), there had been such positive feedback from affiliates on the McKenzies that the network requested that the duo have a sketch in every show.^[3]

Bob and Doug became a pop culture phenomenon, which led to a top-selling Great White North album^[4] and the 1983 movie Strange Brew, Moranis' first major film role.

Feature films[link]

After his SCTV work and the Strange Brew movie, Moranis had a busy career in feature films that lasted over a decade, most notably Ghostbusters, Spaceballs, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and its sequels. He also did the voice-over for a short lived cartoon series on NBC called Gravedale High (1990).

In a 2004 interview, Moranis talked about the kinds of films he enjoyed the most:

On the last couple of movies I made — big-budget Hollywood movies — I really missed being able to create my own material. In the early movies I did, I was brought in to basically rewrite my stuff, whether it was Ghostbusters or Spaceballs. By the time I got to the point where I was "starring" in movies, and I had executives telling me what lines to say, that wasn't for me. I’m really not an actor. I'm a guy who comes out of comedy, and my impetus was always to rewrite the line to make it funnier, not to try to make somebody’s precious words work.^[5]

Retirement[link]

The handprints of Rick Moranis in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

He left the film industry in 1997, six years after the 1991 loss of his wife, Anne, to liver cancer. He later explained that he began to "pull out" of making movies in about '96 or '97. "I'm a single parent and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn't miss it".^[6]

As of 2004^[update], Moranis was on the Advisory Committee for the comedy program at Humber College.^{[citation needed]}

In 2005, Moranis released an album titled The Agoraphobic Cowboy, featuring country songs with lyrics which Moranis says follow in the comic tradition of songwriters/singers such as Roger Miller, Kinky Friedman, and Jim Stafford. The album was produced by Tony Scherr, and is distributed through ArtistShare, as well as Moranis' official web site. Commenting on the origins of the songs, he said that in 2003, "out of the blue, I just wrote a bunch of songs. For lack of a better explanation, they’re more country than anything. And I actually demoed four or five of them, and I'm not sure at this point what I’m going to do with them—whether I’m going to fold them into a full-length video or a movie. But, boy, I had a good time doing that".^[5]

On December 8, 2005, The Agoraphobic Cowboy was announced as a nominee for the 2006 Grammy for Best Comedy Album. (A previous album by Moranis was entitled You, Me, The Music, and Me (1989)). On February 3, 2006, Moranis performed Press Pound on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and discussed the development of his music career.

In November 2007, Moranis reunited with Dave Thomas for a 24th anniversary special of Bob and Doug McKenzie, titled Bob and Doug McKenzie's 2-4 Anniversary. The duo shot new footage for this special. Thomas subsequently created a new animated Bob and Doug McKenzie series, Bob & Doug, for his company Animax Entertainment. Moranis declined to voice the role of Bob, which was taken over by Dave Coulier, but remains involved in the series as an executive producer.^[7]

On June 24, 2008, Moranis declined to come out of retirement to join the other cast members of Ghostbusters in the production of a new video game based on the films.^[8] The following year, Ghostbusters' Harold Ramis told Entertainment Weekly of a proposed Ghostbusters 3 that, "Everybody said they'd do it".^[9] But Ramis later stated to Student Life, "Rick won’t do it. Rick has retired from show business. But everyone else says they’ll do it."^[10] In January 2010, a Moviefone columnist suggested, without attribution, that Moranis may come out of retirement to reprise his role as Louis Tully.^[11]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• The Great White North (1981)
• You, Me, the Music and Me (1989)
• The Agoraphobic Cowboy (2005)

Moranis was nominated for a 2006 Grammy Award in the Best Comedy Album category.^[12]

Film acting credits[link]

Audio/Video[link]

• Rock Radio Scrapbook 1973, with a RealAudio clip of Rick Allen from June 1973

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rick Moranis

• Rick Moranis at the Internet Movie Database
• Moranis ArtistShare projects
• Rick Moranis, Singing 'Cowboy', a December 2005 story from Weekend Edition
• OpEd Piece by Moranis from the NY Times website
• Rick Moranis Interview Proton Charging May 27, 2006

Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop performing at Parkenfestivalen 2011, Bodø, Norway
Background information
Birth name	James Newell Osterberg, Jr.
Born	(1947-04-21) April 21, 1947 (age 65) Muskegon, Michigan, U.S.
Genres	Punk rock, protopunk, garage rock, glam punk, shock rock, glam rock, hard rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, producer, actor
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums
Years active	1960–present
Labels	Virgin, RCA, Elektra
Associated acts	The Stooges, The Trolls, The Nymphs, The Iguanas, Slash, David Bowie, Deborah Harry, Blondie, Sum 41
Website	www.iggyandthestoogesmusic.com

Iggy Pop (born James Newell "Jim" Osterberg, Jr.; April 21, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor.^[1] Though considered an innovator of punk rock,^[1] Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues.^[2] Pop became known as 'Iggy' in high school, during which time he served as drummer for local blues band The Iguanas. He is vocalist of influential protopunk band The Stooges (Pop and the other surviving members of the group reunited in 2003),^[3] having become known, since the late 1960s, for his outrageous and unpredictable stage antics.^[4][5]

Though the singer's popularity has waned and waxed throughout his career, Pop has recorded a number of well-known songs, including "Lust for Life", "Real Wild Child", "I Wanna Be Your Dog," "Candy" (a duet with Kate Pierson of The B-52's),^[6] "China Girl", "Nightclubbing", "Search and Destroy", and "The Passenger". The Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010

Early life[link]

Iggy Pop (AKA Iggy Stooge)^[7] was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the son of Louella (née Christensen) and James Newell Osterberg, Sr., a former high school English teacher and baseball coach at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan.^[8] Osterberg was raised in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, Michigan.^[9] He is of Irish and English descent on his father's side, and of Norwegian and Danish ancestry on his mother's.^[10] His father was adopted by a Swedish American family and took on their surname (Österberg).^[10]

Music career[link]

Early days: 1960 to 1967[link]

The Prime Movers featuring Pop on drums

Osterberg began his music career as a drummer in different high school bands in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One band was the Iguanas, from the name of which he adopted his future moniker Iggy. After exploring local blues-style bands such as the Prime Movers (with brothers Dan and Michael Erlewine), he eventually dropped out of the University of Michigan^{[citation needed]} and moved to Chicago to learn more about blues. While in Chicago, he played drums in blues clubs, helped by Sam Lay (formerly of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band) who shared his connections with Iggy.^[11] Inspired by Chicago blues as well as bands like The Sonics and The MC5, he formed the Psychedelic Stooges and began calling himself Iggy. The band was composed of Iggy on vocals, Ron Asheton on guitar, Asheton's brother Scott on drums, and Dave Alexander on bass.

The Stooges era: 1968 to 1975[link]

The seeds of Iggy Pop's stage persona were sown when he saw The Doors perform in 1967 at the University of Michigan and was amazed by the stage antics and antagonism displayed by singer Jim Morrison.^[9] Morrison's extreme behavior, while performing in a popular band, inspired the young Pop to push the boundaries of stage performance. Pop was the first performer to do a stage-dive, which he started at a concert in Detroit.^[9] Other exploits of Pop include rolling around in broken glass, exposing himself to the crowd and vomiting on stage.^{[citation needed]}

In 1968, one year after their live debut and now dubbed The Stooges, the band signed with Elektra Records, again following in the footsteps of The Doors, who were Elektra's biggest act at the time (reportedly, Pop called Moe Howard to see if it was all right to call his band "The Stooges," to which Howard responded by merely saying "I don't care what they call themselves, as long as they're not the Three Stooges!" and hung up the phone). The Stooges' first two albums The Stooges, (on which Iggy was credited, much to his displeasure,^{[citation needed]} as "Iggy Stooge"), produced by John Cale; and Fun House, sold poorly. Shortly after the new members joined, the group disbanded because of Pop's growing heroin addiction.

In 1971, Iggy Pop and David Bowie met at Max's Kansas City, a nightclub and restaurant in New York City.^[12] Pop's career received a boost from his relationship with Bowie when Bowie decided in 1972 to produce an album with Pop in England. With James Williamson signed on as guitarist, the search began for a rhythm section. However, since neither Pop nor Bowie was satisfied with any players in England, they decided to re-unite The Stooges. It would not be a true reunion insofar as Dave Alexander, due to alcoholism, was unable to play on the record (he later died in 1975). Also, Ron Asheton grudgingly moved from guitar to bass to make way for Williamson to play guitar. The recording sessions produced the rock landmark Raw Power. After its release Scott Thurston was added to the band on keyboards/electric piano and Bowie continued his support, but Iggy's drug problem persisted. The Stooges' last show ended in a fight between the band and a group of bikers, documented on the album Metallic K.O. Drug abuse stalled his career again for several years.

Bowie and Berlin: 1976 to 1978[link]

Iggy Pop, October 25, 1977 at the State Theatre in Minneapolis

After the second breakup of The Stooges, Iggy Pop made some recordings with James Williamson, but these were not released until 1977 (as Kill City, credited jointly to Iggy Pop and Williamson). Pop was unable to control his drug use and checked himself into a mental institution, UCLA’s neuropsychiatric institute, to try to clean up. David Bowie was one of his few visitors there, and he continued to support his friend and collaborator. It was also rumored that Bowie would smuggle in cocaine to give to Pop.^[13] In 1976, Bowie took him along as his companion on the Station to Station tour. This was Iggy Pop's first exposure to large-scale professional touring and he was impressed, particularly with Bowie's work rate.

Bowie and Pop relocated to West Berlin to wean themselves off their addictions. In 1977, Pop signed with RCA and Bowie helped write and produce The Idiot and Lust for Life, Pop's two most acclaimed albums as a solo artist, the latter with another team of brothers, Hunt and Tony Sales, sons of comedian Soupy Sales. Among the songs Bowie and Pop wrote together were "China Girl", "Tonight", and "Sister Midnight", all of which Bowie performed on his own albums later on (the last being recorded with different lyrics as "Red Money" on the album Lodger). Bowie also played keyboards in Pop's live performances, some of which are featured on the album TV Eye in 1978. In return, Pop contributed backing vocals on Bowie's Low.

The Arista albums: 1979 to 1981[link]

Iggy Pop had grown dissatisfied with RCA, later admitting that he had made TV Eye as a quick way of fulfilling his three-album RCA contract. He moved to Arista Records, under whose banner he released New Values in 1979. This album was something of a Stooges reunion, with James Williamson producing and latter-day Stooge Scott Thurston playing guitar and keyboards. Not surprisingly, the album's style harked back to the guitar sound of the Stooges. Although highly regarded by many Iggy fans (some preferring it to the Bowie collaborations), New Values was not a popular success, despite some strong material including "Five Foot One" and "I'm Bored."

Iggy Pop, Cardiff, 1979

The album was moderately successful in Australia and New Zealand, however, and this led to Iggy Pop's first visit there to promote it. While in Melbourne, he made a memorable appearance on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's nationwide pop show Countdown. During his anarchic performance of I'm Bored, Pop made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was lip-synching, and he even tried to grab the teenage girls in the audience. He was also interviewed by host Ian "Molly" Meldrum, an exchange which was frequently punctuated by the singer jumping up and down on his chair and making loud exclamations of "G'day mate" in a mock Australian accent. His Countdown appearance is generally considered one of the highlights of the show's history and it cemented his popularity with Australian punk fans; since then he has often toured there. While visiting New Zealand, Iggy Pop recorded a music video for "I'm Bored", and attended a record company function where he appeared to slap a woman and throw wine over a photographer.^[14] While in Australia, Iggy Pop was also the guest on a live late-night commercial TV interview show on the Ten Network. It is not known whether a recording of this interview exists, but the famous Countdown appearance has often been re-screened in Australia.

During the recording of Soldier (1980), Iggy Pop and Williamson quarrelled over production (the latter apparently wanted a big, Phil Spector-type sound) and Williamson was fired. Bowie appeared on the song Play it Safe, performing backing vocals with the group Simple Minds. The album and its follow-up Party (1981) were both commercial failures, and Iggy Pop was dropped from Arista. His drug habit varied in intensity, but persisted.

The 1980s[link]

In 1980, Iggy Pop published his autobiography I NEED MORE, co-written with Anne Weher, an Ann Arbor arts patron. The book, which includes a selection of black and white photographs, features a foreword by Andy Warhol. Warhol says that he met Iggy when he was Jim Osterberg, at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1966. "I don't know why he hasn't made it really big," wrote the one Pop artist about the other. "He is so good."

Pop at Pinkpop, 1987.

The 1982 album Zombie Birdhouse on Chris Stein's Animal label, with Stein himself producing, was no more commercially successful than his Arista works, but again, in 1983, Iggy Pop's fortunes changed when David Bowie recorded a cover of the song "China Girl". The song had originally appeared on The Idiot, and was a major hit on Bowie's blockbuster Let's Dance album. As co-writer of the song, Pop received substantial royalties. On Tonight in 1984, Bowie recorded two more of their co-written songs, this time from the Lust for Life album, "Tonight" and "Neighborhood Threat", assuring Iggy Pop financial security, at least for the short term. The support from Bowie enabled Pop to resolve problems and permitted him to take a three-year break during which he overcame his heroin addiction and took acting classes.

Additionally, Iggy Pop contributed the title song to the 1984 film Repo Man (with Steve Jones, previously of the Sex Pistols, on guitar) as well as an instrumental called "Repo Man Theme" that was played during the opening credits.

In 1985, Pop recorded some demos with Jones. He played these demos to Bowie, who was sufficiently impressed to offer to produce an album for Pop: 1986's New Wave-influenced Blah Blah Blah, featuring the single "Real Wild Child", a cover of "The Wild One" originally written and recorded by Australian rock 'n' roll pioneer Johnny O'Keefe in 1958. The single was a Top 10 hit in the UK and was successful around the world, especially in Australia, where for the last twenty years it has been used as the theme music for the ABC's late-night music video show Rage. It remains Pop's solitary brush with major commercial success. Blah Blah Blah was Pop's highest-charting album in the U.S. since The Idiot in 1977, peaking at No. 75 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.

Also in 1985, the movie Rock & Rule was released featuring performances by Iggy Pop and Lou Reed for the character Mok. Pop's song in the film was "Pain & Suffering" from the final sequence of the film.^[15]

In 1987, Pop appeared (along with Bootsy Collins) on a mostly instrumental album, Neo Geo, by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. The music video for "Risky", written and directed by Meiert Avis, won the first ever MTV Breakthrough Video Award. The groundbreaking video explores transhumanist philosopher FM-2030's ideas of Nostalgia for the Future in the form of an imagined love affair between a robot and one of Man Ray's models in Paris in the late 1930s. Additional inspiration was drawn from Jean Baudrillard, Edvard Munch's 1894 painting Puberty, and Roland Barthes Death of the Author. The surrealist black-and-white video uses stop motion, light painting, and other retro in-camera effects techniques. Meiert Avis recorded Sakamoto while at work on the score for The Last Emperor in London. Sakamoto also appears in the video painting words and messages to an open shutter camera. Iggy Pop, who performs the vocals on "Risky", chose not to appear in the video, allowing his performance space to be occupied by the surrealist era robot.

Pop's follow-up to Blah Blah Blah, Instinct (1988), was a turnaround in musical direction. Its stripped-back, guitar-based sound leaned further towards the sound of the Stooges than any of his solo albums to date. His record label, which had most likely been expecting another Blah Blah Blah, dropped him. Nevertheless, the King Biscuit radio show recording of the Instinct tour (featuring guitarist Andy McCoy and Alvin Gibbs on bass) reaching Boston on July 19, 1988, remains one of punk-rock's most enduring live albums.^{[citation needed]} Working with rock attorney Stann Findelle, Pop scored more movie soundtrack inclusions in 1989, "Living on the Edge of the Night" in the Ridley Scott Michael Douglas thriller, Black Rain and "Love Transfusion" in Wes Craven's Shocker.

The 1990s[link]

In 1990, Pop recorded Brick by Brick, produced by Don Was, with members of Guns N' Roses and The B-52's as guests, as well as backup vocals by many local Hollywood groups, two of whom (Whitey Kirst and Craig Pike) would create his band to tour and perform on his Kiss My Blood video (1991), directed by world-famous director Tim Pope and filmed at the Olympia in Paris. The video attracted much controversy, as it featured much footage of Pop performing with his penis exposed to the audience. The album was his first Gold-certified album in the U.S. (denoting sales of over 500,000 copies) and featured his first Top 40 U.S. hit, "Candy", a duet with B-52's singer Kate Pierson.

Also in 1990, Pop starred in the controversial opera The Manson Family by composer John Moran, released on Point Music/Phillip Classics, where he sang the role of prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. That year he was also contributed to the Red Hot Organization's AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Blue project, singing a version of "Well Did You Evah!" in a duet with Deborah Harry.

In 1991, Pop and Kirst contributed the song "Why Was I Born (Freddy's Dead)" to the soundtrack of the film Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. The song also plays over the end credits of the film, with a compilation of clips from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series running alongside the end credits.

In 1992, he collaborated with Goran Bregović on the soundtrack for the movie Arizona Dream by Emir Kusturica. Pop sang four of the songs: In the Deathcar, TV Screen, Get the Money, and This is a Film. Also in 1992, he collaborated with the New York City band White Zombie. He recorded spoken word vocals on the intro and outro of the song "Black Sunshine" as well as playing the character of a writer in the video shot for the song. He is singled out for special thanks in the liner notes of the band's album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1.

In 1993, Pop released American Caesar, including two successful singles, "Wild America" and "Beside You." The following year Pop contributed to Buckethead's album Giant Robot, including the songs "Buckethead's Toy Store" and "Post Office Buddy". He appears also on the Les Rita Mitsouko album Système D where he sings the duet "My Love is Bad" with Catherine Ringer.

In 1996, Pop again found mainstream fame when his 1977 song "Lust for Life" was featured in the film Trainspotting. A new video was recorded for the song, with clips from the film and studio footage of Iggy dancing with one of its stars, Ewen Bremner. An Iggy Pop concert also served as a plot point in the film. The song has also been used in TV commercials for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (with many music critics denouncing the usage of the song to promote peppy cruises) and as the theme music to The Jim Rome Show, a nationally-syndicated American sports talk show.

In 1996, Pop released Naughty Little Doggie, with Whitey Kirst returning on guitar, and the single "I Wanna Live". In 1997, he remixed Raw Power to give it a rougher, more hard-edged sound; fans had complained for years that Bowie's official "rescue effort" mix was muddy and lacking in bass. Pop testified in the reissue's liner notes that on the new mix, "everything's still in the red". He co-produced his 1999 album Avenue B with Don Was, releasing the single "Corruption." Pop produced 2001's Beat 'Em Up, which gave birth to The Trolls, releasing the single "Football" featuring Trolls alumni Whitey Kirst and brother Alex.

In 1997, Pop was credited with the soundtrack to the film The Brave.

In the early to middle 1990s, Pop would make several guest appearances on the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete and Pete. He played James Mecklenberg, Nona Mecklenberg's father.

The Stooges reunion: 2003 to present[link]

Pop's 2003 album Skull Ring featured collaborators Sum 41, Green Day, Peaches, and The Trolls, as well as Ron and Scott Asheton, reuniting the three surviving founding members of The Stooges for the first time since 1974. Pop made a guest appearance on Peaches's song Kick It as well as the video. Also in 2003, his first full-length biography was published. Gimme Danger – The Story of Iggy Pop was written by Joe Ambrose; Pop did not collaborate on the biography or publicly endorse it. Having enjoyed working with the Ashetons on Skull Ring, Pop reformed The Stooges with bassist Mike Watt (formerly of the Minutemen) filling in for Dave Alexander, and Fun House saxophonist Steve Mackay rejoining the lineup. They have toured regularly since 2004. That year, Pop opened Madonna's Reinvention World Tour in Dublin.

Iggy and The Stooges played the Glastonbury Festival in June 2007. Their set included material from the 2007 album The Weirdness and classics such as "No Fun and "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Pop also caused controversy in June 2007 when he was interviewed on the BBC's coverage of the Glastonbury Festival. He used the phrase "paki shop", apparently unaware of its racist connotations, prompting three complaints and an apology from the BBC.^[16]

On March 10, 2008 Pop appeared at Madonna's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Together with The Stooges he sang raucous versions of two Madonna hits "Burning Up" and "Ray of Light." Before leaving the stage he looked directly at Madonna, quoting "You make me feel shiny and new, like a virgin, touched for the very first time.", from Madonna's hit song "Like A Virgin". According to guitarist Ron Asheton, Madonna asked The Stooges to perform in her place, as a protest to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for not inducting The Stooges despite six appearances on the nomination ballot.^[17] Pop also sang on the "No Fun" cover by Asian Dub Foundation on their 2008 album Punkara.

On June 1, 2008, The Stooges were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends online Hall of Fame.^[18]

On January 6, 2009, original Stooges guitarist, and Iggy's self-described best friend Ron Asheton, was found dead from an apparent heart attack. He was 60 years old.

In 2009 James Williamson rejoined the band after 29 years.^[19]

On December 15, 2009 it was announced that The Stooges would be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 2010. Pop had "about two hours of a strong emotional reaction" to the news.^[20]

In March 2010 the Stooges and Iggy Pop were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[21]

In 2011, "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by The Stooges was voted a Legendary Michigan Song.^[22]

Recent career[link]

Pop supplied vocals for the 1999 Death in Vegas UK Top-10 single Aisha. The same year he appeared on Hashisheen, The End Of Law, a collaborative effort by Bill Laswell, reading on the tracks The Western Lands and A Quick Trip to Alamut. He also sang on the tracks Rolodex Propaganda and Enfilade by At the Drive-In in 2000.

For New Year's Eve 1997, Iggy was the headliner for the annual Australian three-day concert the Falls Festival. He gave one of the most memorable performances in the history of the festival. A member of the audience got to do the countdown for the new year with Pop as part of a competition to guess Pop's new year's resolution. (It was "To do nothing and make a lot of money!")

Pop at Beale Street Music Festival, Memphis in May 2007.

In 2005 Pop appeared, along with Madonna, Little Richard, Bootsy Collins, and The Roots' Questlove, in an American TV commercial for the Motorola ROKR phone. In early 2006, Iggy and the Stooges played in Australia and New Zealand for the Big Day Out. They also began work on a new album, The Weirdness, which was recorded by Steve Albini and released in March 2007. In August 2006 Iggy and the Stooges performed at the Lowlands pop festival in the Netherlands, Hodokvas in Slovakia and in the Sziget Festival in Budapest.

Author Paul Trynka completed a biography of Iggy Pop (with his blessing) called Open Up and Bleed, published in early 2007. More recently^[when?], Iggy and the Stooges played at Bam Margera's wedding and Pop appeared on the single "Punkrocker" with the Teddybears in a Cadillac television commercial. Pop was also the voice of Lil' Rummy on the Comedy Central cartoon Lil' Bush and confirmed that he has done voices for American Dad and Grand Theft Auto IV,^[23] which also included The Stooges song "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (though the game's manual credited Iggy Pop as the artist).

Pop guested on Profanation (Preparation for a Coming Darkness), the new album by the Bill Laswell-helmed group Praxis, which was released on January 1, 2008.^[24]

He fronts (from January 2009) a £25 million TV ad campaign for Swiftcover, using the strapline "Get a Life".^[25]

Pop collaborated with Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse on the album "Dark Night of the Soul", singing the track "Pain."

Pop's new solo album, Préliminaires, was released on June 2, 2009. Inspired by a novel by French author Michel Houellebecq (born Michel Thomas) called La Possibilité d'une île (2005; Trans. as The Possibility of an Island by Gavin Bowd, 2006), Iggy was approached to provide the soundtrack for a documentary film on Michel and his attempts to make a film from his novel. Iggy's favourite character from Michel's novel is a little white dog named Fox. Iggy describes this new release as a "quieter album with some jazz overtones", the first single off the album, "King of the Dogs", bearing a sound strongly influenced by New Orleans jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. Iggy also admits that it's his response to being "sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music". The album is available on legal download sites, CD, and a Deluxe Boxset is available at only 6000 units worldwide. This boxset contains the Préliminaires album, a collector "Les Feuilles Mortes" b/w "King Of The Dogs" 7 inch, the cover of which is Iggy's portrait by Marjane Satrapi, and a 38 page booklet of drawings also by Marjane Satrapi.

Iggy sings on "We're All Gonna Die" on Slash's first solo album Slash which was released in April 2010.^[26]

Iggy appeared as a character in the video game Lego Rock Band to sing his song The Passenger and also lent his voice for the in game tutorial.^[27]

With reference to the song The Passenger, Iggy Pop has appeared on NZ television advertising phone networks to show how he can get a band to play together by conference call.

After a March 2010 stage diving accident, Pop claimed he would no longer stage dive. However, he did so on three occasions at a concert in Madrid, Spain on April 30, 2010.^[28] And it was much the same in London at the Hammersmith Apollo on May 2, 2010.^[29] On July 9, 2010 he again stage dived in Zottegem, Belgium, causing Iggy to bleed from the face.^[30]

In June 2010, Iggy Pop appeared at Yonge and Dundas Square in Toronto with the reformed Stooges on the NXNE main stage. The sheer size of the audience closed a central artery of Yonge Street.

In 2011 he teamed up with The Lilies, a collaboration between Sergio Dias of Os Mutantes and French group Tahiti Boy & The Palmtree Family to record the single 'Why?'.

Pop at the UK Hop Farm Festival, July 2011

On April 7, 2011, at age 63, Pop performed "Real Wild Child" on the tenth season of American Idol; the Los Angeles Times music blog "Pop & Hiss" described Pop as being "still magnetic, still disturbing."^[31]

Film career[link]

Iggy Pop, Harvard Square March 1977

Pop has had a limited career as an actor. He has appeared in sixteen movies, including Sid and Nancy (a non-speaking cameo role), The Color of Money, Hardware (voice only), The Crow: City of Angels, The Rugrats Movie, Snow Day, Coffee and Cigarettes (opposite Tom Waits, in the third segment of the film, "Somewhere in California"), Cry-Baby, Dead Man, Tank Girl and Atolladero, a Spanish science fiction Western. Pop also sings the main theme for Atolladero, he is the voice of The Beast From Another Dimension in the cult animated film Rock & Rule and also sings its song, "Pain and Suffering".

He has been featured in five television series, including Tales from the Crypt, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, where he played Nona's dad in the second and third season, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in which he played Yelgrun in "The Magnificent Ferengi" episode. With The Stooges, he was also featured in an episode of MTV's Bam's Unholy Union as the main band performing at Bam's wedding. Additionally, a portion of the music video for Iggy's Butt Town was featured on an episode of Beavis and Butthead.

Pop has been profiled in four rockumentaries and has had songs on eighteen soundtracks, including Crocodile Dundee 2, Trainspotting, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Haggard, Arizona Dream, Repo Man, Black Rain, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Shocker, and Kurt Cobain: About a Son.

In the movie Velvet Goldmine, Ewan McGregor portrays Curt Wilde, a character loosely based on Iggy Pop. McGregor performs Pop's songs "TV Eye" and "Gimme Danger" in the film.

Pop voiced Lil' Rummy on the Comedy Central show Lil' Bush.

Iggy Pop played himself as the DJ of the fictional rock station Liberty Rock Radio 97.8 in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.

Pop provided the voice for a character in the English language version of the 2007 animated film Persepolis.

Iggy Pop also voiced a cameo in the American Dad! episode American Dream Factory as Jerry, the drummer, in Steve's band.

Iggy makes an appearance in the 2008 feature documentary by Nik Sheehan about Brion Gysin and the Dreamachine entitled 'FLicKeR'.

In 2008, Iggy's music was featured in a movie adaption of Irvine Welsh's best-selling novel Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance.

In January 2009, Iggy was signed up as the face of Swiftcover, the UK-based online insurance company.^[32] The advert was then banned by the Advertising Standards Authority on April 28, 2009 for being misleading – it implied that Iggy Pop himself had an insurance policy with Swiftcover when at the time the company did not insure musicians.^[33]

Iggy Pop featured alongside indie starlet Greta Gerwig (Noah Baumbach's Greenberg, Baghead, Nights and Weekends) in the film "Art House" which will world premiere at the Nashville Film Festival in April 2010.

Iggy Pop also featured as a voice talent in the 2004 ATARI video game DRIV3R, which was produced by Reflections Interactive.

In 2010, the Stooges song "Search and Destroy" was featured in the Lost: Final Chapter episode 04, The Substitute.^[34]

Iggy's cover of the Richard Berry song Louie Louie is used during the opening credits of Michael Moore's 2009 film Capitalism: A Love Story

In February 2009, Iggy Pop played the character Victor in the movie Suck.

Iggy was also referenced in The Venture Brothers Episode Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part I) and Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part II) alongside Klaus Nomi as the bodyguards to The Sovereign who is in fact David Bowie, Iggy along with Klaus who defect to Phantom Limb who then tries to kill David Bowie with a large glowing ball that he can summon at will to kill people on the command "POP!" He was quoted as saying to him before he kills him, "Too long have I been made to play the idiot, now you're going to be MY DOG!"

Iggy worked with Johnny Depp on several films: they appeared together in Cry-Baby and Dead Man, and Iggy provided the soundtrack for The Brave, which was directed by and starred Depp.

In the Super Mario Bros. video game series, the character Iggy Koopa was named after him.^[35]

Future biopic[link]

The Passenger was the putative name for a biographical film about Pop's early career with the Stooges. The film was to be directed by Nick Gomez, and Elijah Wood was to play Iggy Pop.^[36][37][38] As of 2010^[update], the project appears to be shelved.^[39]

Pop liked the script but refused to take part in the film. He said:

The script ain't chopped liver... It was a work of art. But subjectively, I don't want to be involved in any way. A producer and the writer sent me a very decent letter, and asked me to write back if I didn't want them to do it... I don't feel negative about it at all.

He also called Wood "a very poised and talented actor".^[40]

Classical scholarship[link]

In 1995, an established journal of classical scholarship, Classics Ireland, published Pop's reflections on the applicability of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to the modern world in a short article, Caesar Lives, (Vol. 2, 1995).^[41] Pop also relates how reading Gibbon while on tour in the Southern United States inspired him to a spontaneous soliloquy he called "Caesar".

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

With The Stooges[link]

• 1969 – The Stooges
• 1970 – Fun House
• 1973 – Raw Power
• 2007 – The Weirdness

With James Williamson[link]

• 1977 – Kill City

Solo[link]

• 1977 – The Idiot
• 1977 – Lust for Life
• 1979 – New Values
• 1980 – Soldier
• 1981 – Party
• 1982 – Zombie Birdhouse
• 1986 – Blah Blah Blah
• 1988 – Instinct
• 1990 – Brick by Brick
• 1993 – American Caesar
• 1996 – Naughty Little Doggie
• 1999 – Avenue B
• 2001 – Beat 'Em Up
• 2003 – Skull Ring
• 2009 – Préliminaires
• 2012 - Après

Personal life[link]

Pop lives in the Miami area.^[42] He has been married three times: to Wendy Weissberg (for several weeks in 1968, the marriage was annulled shortly thereafter)^[43] to Suchi Asano (1984–1999),^[44] and most recently, he wed longtime sweetheart Nina Alu. He has a son, Eric Benson, born in 1970.^[45]

In the 1990s, Iggy Pop developed a friendship with Johnny Depp, Jim Jarmusch and tattoo artist Jonathan Shaw. According to Shaw, the four wore matching rings depicting a skull, and all but Iggy also had a similar skull-and-crossbones tattoo.^[46]

References[link]

Further reading/info[link]

• Trynka, Paul (2007). Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed. London: Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 1-84744-019-3. 
• Logan, Nick; Woffinden, Bob (1977). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock (First Edition). New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-52852-5. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Iggy Pop

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Iggy Pop

• Iggy & The Stooges Official Website
• Iggy Pop at the Internet Movie Database
• Iggy Pop at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/music/clips/2806/ (Iggy Pop's infamous 1977 interview with Peter Gzowski, from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's archive)
• Video of Iggy Pop collaboration with Sergio Dias (Os Mutantes) + Tahiti Boy & the Palmtree Family