The Lonely Bull (album)

The Lonely Bull, released in 1962, is the debut album by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. It was produced to follow up on the success of the band's first single The Lonely Bull (El Solo Torro).

Most of the tracks on the album were geared toward the TJB's Mariachi sound. There were also a few cover versions of popular songs, a trend which would grow in their next two albums, Volume 2 and South of the Border.

"Limbo Rock" covered a novelty dance song that had been a calypso-style hit by Chubby Checker. "Struttin' With Maria" was later used as the theme for a TV game show called Personality, hosted by Larry Blyden. The tune "Acapulco 1922" uses the old song "Oh, You Beautiful Doll" (by Seymour Brown and Nat D. Ayer, 1911) as a starting point, with a mariachi spin.

Popularity
Unlike the single of the same name, "The Lonely Bull" album did not sell well, at least not immediately. However, with the band's subsequent releases, the album enjoyed a long chart life. It premiered at number 132 on the Billboard Top LPs chart on November 27, 1965, and remained on the chart for 132 weeks, into June 1968. It reached No. 10 for two weeks in March and April 1966.

For the week ending May 21, 1966, "The Lonely Bull," at No. 20, was one of five Tijuana Brass albums listed in the top 20 of Billboard Magazine’s chart of Top LP’s, a feat that has never been duplicated. The others were "What Now My Love" (2), "Going Places" (4), "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" (8), and "South of the Border" (17).

Reception
The album was originally issued in both mono and stereo versions, though the stereo version essentially had the mono version on the right channel with a separate solo trumpet track on the left. Because of this, critics have noted that when listened on headphones, the stereo album sounds excessively "heavy" on one side. This led many later fans to prefer the mono version.

The original stereo version of the album has since been reissued on the Shout! Factory music label.

The mono version of the title track, "The Lonely Bull," can be found on the Herb Alpert compilation Definitive Hits.