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In 1965 Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass released their 4th album – Whipped Cream and Other Delights. The album was hugely popular. If you’re a baby boomer, odds are your parents owned a copy; if a millennial, your grandparents. In fact at the height of the British Invasion and Motown the album was able to shift over 6 million copies!!! As a lifelong “crate digger” I think I’ve touched half of them!

The album was as well known for its provocative cover as the music it contained. A 3 month pregnant model named Dolores Erickson (now in her 80s) posed under a pile of shaving cream for the shoot. Her “come hither” expression and the illusion of nudity under that cream was a turn on for adult and adolescent men and no doubt helped sales.

The iconic cover inevitably led to a number of parodies, a sampling included below.

“Whipped Cream” was written by Allen Toussaint under the pseudonym Naomi Neville, his mother’s name. (He also credited the oft recorded “Fortune Teller” to “her.”)

The music was performed by the famed LA session players known as the Wrecking Crew. Artists that played on this album included Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye and Leon Russell (using the name Russell Bridges).

Even if you never heard this album, “Whipped Cream” may sound familiar to you. That’s because it was the music used on The Dating Game TV show as the lead in music when introducing the bachelorettes.

Now that’s a trip down memory lane!

Enjoy… until next week.