Herb Alpert a vocalist at Dot Records under the name of Dore Alpert. "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, they renamed the label A&M Records. 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.
Herb Alpert You" (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David), featuring a rare vocal. Alpert sang it 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. Although Alpert's vocal skills and range were limited, the song's unchallenging technical demands suited him. Alpert disbanded the Tijuana Brass