There are certain "guilty pleasure" albums I don't mind admitting to, because although they may be poppy or embarrassing, they're still good (the Turtles, T.Rex, the Rezillos). But there are some things that you just shouldn't admit to, and liking, no, LOVING the Tijuana Brass is one of them. Allow me to defend myself. First, there's the iconic cover from "Whipped Cream". A pre-teen growing up in a strict Catholic/military household had few opportunities to behold the female form in anything revealing, so when I stumbled upon this LP in my father's collection, I was struck as if by lightning. (My father didn't buy records; I think he won most of his collection in a card game when he was deployed overseas, a collection that included -- without irony -- several Peter, Paul and Mary LPs, with their early Dylan cover versions...) Yeah, so the cover is one thing, but the music was actually an ear-opener for me. It was my first exposure to something that wasn't White Bread American. Okay, so maybe it really was pretty white bread-ish, but it sounded exotic to me. I loved the (fake) bullfighting arena sounds of the first album ("The Lonely Bull"), the (fake) clop-clop-clopping of the horse down the old brick streets in "Volume 2", and the wistful allure of the sad trumpet, as the sun sets over a sleepy village in Spain.
But I never bought the TJB Christmas album; I do have standards.
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