Herb's nephew, Randy Badazz Alpert, wrote this with Andy Armer. When the 3M Company lent a 32-track digital recorder to A&M Records (then co-owned by Alpert), they had some time to experiment. Says Randy: "It was Herb's idea to record The Lonely Bull and several other of his old hit records in a dance format, and though I did not particularly like the idea I did go ahead and work up some new dance arrangements for those old songs. I had played Rise and several other new songs for Herb several weeks before the recording session and he loved 2 out of the 3 songs. We had always intended to record Rise during the session. That song was never an after thought. We did try recording the Lonely Bull and one other song before we switched to Rise. The room seemed to light up when we started to record that tune. It was a magical moment for both Herb and me."
On the Armer/Badazz audition tape, this was a stomper, going 128 beats per minute. Alpert slowed it to about 100 BPM so "People could dance and hug each other at the end of the night."
After this was released, it got an unexpected boost when it was used in a critical scene in the TV series General Hospital - the rape of Laura by Luke (Anthony Geary, who plays Luke, suggested the song to the series' music director). The song was repeated several times a week for a short period afterward, until the storyline changed to make Luke and Laura a romantic couple.
It wouldn't be the last time General Hospital bumped a song up the charts: In 1983, "Think Of Laura" by Christopher Cross was used as Luke and Laura's love theme, and exposure on the show pushed it to #9 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
This was Alpert's second #1 (after "This Guy's in Love With You"), making him to only solo performer to be credited with a #1 vocal and a #1 instrumental single. This is the instrumental.
This became a hit in the UK - ironically at 135 BPM - as British club DJs did not realize that American 12-inch singles are played at 33 revolutions per minute, not 45 (the European standard).
All of the music for Notorious B.I.G.'s hit "Hypnotize" was sampled from this. "Hypnotize" was a Billboard #1 Pop, R&B, and Rap song and was Top 10 in most countries throughout the world in 1997. So the "Rise" music was actually a #1 record twice in a span of 28 years.
To follow this up, "Rotation" was released in January 1980 and was a minor Top 40 hit in America. There was another single called "Street Life" which was released in late spring of 1980. "Beyond" was released at the end of summer 1980. (Thanks to Randy Badazz Alpert for telling us about this song)
This song won a Grammy in 1980 for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. It was the third time that Alpert won a Grammy. His last 2 songs that won Grammys were "A Taste of Honey" (1965) and "What Now My Love?" (1966). (thanks, Jerro - New Alexandria, PA)
Post a Comment