Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass -- Theme from "Casino Royale"

 

Uh, no...I'm not talking about "You Know My Name" from the 2006 Bond film "Casino Royale" starring Daniel Craig in his first outing as 007. I've yet to see his final outing in "No Time To Die" but someday when I have time...

Actually, this ROY article will be referencing the 1967 "Casino Royale" starring the late Peter Sellers in his lone outing as 007. I've seen it once in its entirety and then in bits and pieces over the years, and I have to say that either way comes out the same: a rather trippy 60s hot mess. But for those who love 60s pop culture, this is quite the movie and I think that it had quite the influence on the "Austin Powers" franchise.

If I ever opt to watch this "Casino Royale" again, I will still have that sardonic and ironic look on my face but a couple of songs came out of this movie that have stood the test of time, one being "The Look of Love" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and performed by Dusty Springfield, and it got its Oscar nomination for Best Song.

Bacharach also did the music for the entire film and so he was also responsible for the other neat song, namely the theme for "Casino Royale" as performed by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. The crazy thing is that my family actually has their album "Going Places" by the group.

The hit "Going Places" was released about a month before my birth, September 1965, and remembering what I've heard from this album, it's Alpert with his distinctively puffy sound on his trumpet and his guys just having a brassy fun time especially with "Tijuana Taxi". Not quite sure why my folks bought this one; perhaps it was in commemoration of my arrival on Earth...I was actually going places, albeit from the womb to the surgeon's hands.

But getting back to the Brass and "Casino Royale", when I was watching the flick for the first time on telly (missing the first several minutes), I kept hearing the theme popping up here and there all throughout the movie and I was wondering whether it was indeed Herb Alpert. Well, of course it was. I mean, that trumpet is unmistakable. The amazing thing is that even from listening to all that down-in-Mexico music by the Brass on "Going Places", their "Casino Royale" theme has been called the distillation of all that was swinging in 1960s London and I couldn't agree more. It's sexy, heroic, adventurous and fun with a wink of humour. I guess that it's Roger Moore.

According to Wikipedia, the theme song was Alpert's 2nd No. 1 hit on the Billboard Easy Listening chart in June 1967 where it stayed for a couple of weeks.

However, the movie itself first appeared in theatres on either side of the Atlantic in April of that year, so what was premiering in the Japanese record stores in that month according to Showa Pops?

Yukari Ito -- Koyubi no Omoide （小指の思い出）(although J-Wiki states that it came out in February)

Haruo Minami -- Sekai no Kuni Kara Konnichiwa (世界の国からこんにちは）(a lot of artists were releasing the same song that month)

Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets -- Blue Chateau（ブルー・シャトウ）(although J-Wiki states that it was released in March)