This Frequently Asked Questions page was written to inform visitors of A&M Corner about what type of site we are. Please read this FAQ before contacting us!! A lot of the e-mail we receive is not answered for two reasons: 1, most questions are answered by this FAQ, and; 2, many visitors mistake us for A&M Records, the label and recording studios, or representatives of individuals artists who have recorded for or worked with A&M. Please refer to “What we are not” below for further explanation.
Section 1: What Is A&M Corner?
What we are:
A&M Corner is an informational website dedicated to the classic A&M recordings and artists of the 60’s and 70’s. Our site is run by, and caters to, members of the music and recording collectors’ community throughout the world. Our site includes discographies of selected A&M recording artists, as well as a gallery of A&M-related items and a popular discussion forum frequented by many knowledgeable A&M listeners around the world. We are an advocate of promoting the music and artistry of A&M artists past and present.
What we are not:
A&M Corner is not affiliated with A&M Records, any of A&M’s past or present owners (meaning Polygram or Universal), Shout!Factory, Herb Alpert Presents, or any of A&M’s artists. We cannot answer questions about availability of (or existence of) recordings reissued on CD, since we are not a record label or recording studio. We do not offer anything for sale. We also cannot speculate on the whereabouts and activities of any of A&M’s principals or recording artists (outside of what is reported to us here at the Corner), nor can we help locate or get in contact with any A&M artist on behalf of anyone. We cannot make copies of LPs, tapes or CDs to send out to anyone requesting them, and we expressly prohibit the distribution or copying of unauthorized MP3 files. And finally, we have no influence over anyone at the record label in getting recordings reissued on CD.
Visitors are free to inquire about recording availability, future reissues and artist information in our forums, but be aware that any information is not offered in an official capacity unless we explicitly mention it.
Section 2: About A&M Records, its Artists and Music
What Is A&M?
A&M was one of the greatest independent record labels of our time. The “A” comes from Herb Alpert, the musician whose Tijuana Brass helped launch the label into the international spotlight; the “M” is for Jerry Moss, the businessman who made the deals. A&M also stood for Artists and Music…fitting the label’s philosophy perfectly.
Who Owns A&M?
At this time, Universal Music Group owns the A&M catalog. A&M was formerly owned by Polygram; prior to 1989, A&M was the largest independent record label in the market.
Does A&M Still Exist?
A&M’s recordings are now property of Universal Music Group, but other than being a logo imprint, A&M no longer has any offices or other legal presence that would make it a separate record label. The jazz label Verve has been reissuing some of A&M’s classic jazz and Brazilian albums on CD, and rumor has it that Herb Alpert now controls all of the masters for his own recordings.
Why doesn’t A&M reissue __________?
Unfortunately we cannot answer for A&M. You’ll have to ask Universal Music Group for any information, or watch the posts in our A&M Corner Forum to see if any future releases are listed. Don’t hesitate to discuss this in our forum though–the more “noise” we make, the better chance we have of getting our favorites reissued!
Where can I get videos of A&M artists?
Video footage of early A&M artists on video is practically non-existent as of this writing, and officially, no videos have been released for sale by A&M or any of its affiliates. There are a few items floating around on auction websites, but we recommend you thoroughly question the seller as to the source of the video…some of these are bootlegs, while others may be in the public domain. You might try searching YouTube, Vimeo or other video sites to view streaming videos.
Section 3: Questions About Our Site
Why don’t you feature just one artist, instead of covering all of A&M Records?
We’ve found that restricting a site to just one artist is too limiting. Since many of A&M’s early musicians played on other labelmates’ records, there are a lot of parallel interests in different artists or bands that played with A&M in the early days. Thanks to a lot of our “regulars” on our A&M Corner Forum, many of us have discovered new artists that we never would have known about if we hadn’t discussed them online and shared our information. A&M had a strong “family” aspect to all of its artists, thanks to Herb Alpert’s personal attention to the “artistry.”
Why don’t some albums in the discographies have musician credits?
Musicians Union rules in the 70’s changed the music industry, in that musician credits were listed on the albums. But prior to that, all record labels were inconsistent in labeling their musicians. A&M was no exception. Early Tijuana Brass albums, for example, featured a lot of top West Coast musicians like Hal Blaine, Pete Jolly, Julius Wechter, Carol Kaye and others. Even an album like the TJB’s S.R.O. lists musician credits for the touring version of the TJB, but not the band that actually recorded the album. So unless we get an “insider” scoop, we’re all unsure as to exactly who recorded on a particular session.
How come you don’t feature ____________ in your discography section?
Probably because we didn’t have time to do it…yet. If your favorite artist is not featured, check back again later…or become a volunteer! We’d like to feature as many comprehensive discographies as possible, so feel free to contact us with your ideas! If you would like to volunteer to assist with creation of a discography, contact us and we’ll give you all the details.
Errors and Clarifications
If you find an error or omission, or would like to clarify any information posted on our site, please send a note to us via the Contact link at the bottom of our forum.
Why do you have advertising on your site?
Quite simply, it costs money to run a website, and we do not charge anyone for the opportunity to visit us. Good bandwidth is expensive, using cloud-based web servers is not cheap, and the amount of labor to maintain the site, its pages and custom programming is time-consuming. Therefore, whenever you make a purchase at one of our affiliate sites, it helps us support the site and pay for new features in the future. It is greatly appreciated!
Why don’t you answer my e-mail?
The truth is, we do answer some e-mail, but don’t have time to answer everything individually. The majority of questions we get in e-mail are repetitive in nature; usually, these are requests to know if CDs are in print, or where to buy certain recordings, or if certain artists are touring or making a new recording, etc. Overwhelmingly, we get requests that are simply beyond our powers to honor…please reread What We Are Not above. Questions and comments are best posted in our main A&M Corner Forum if you’re expecting an answer…and it’s likely that most questions are answered here on this FAQ page or contained on pages within our site!
Can I link to A&M Corner from my own website, request a reciprocal link, or ask you to link to our site?
Under certain conditions, we do link to other websites. If you would like your link on A&M Corner, we only ask that you send us a message (via our contact page) with all the pertinent information, or post a notice in our forum. We ask that your link be directly related to an A&M artist, band, label resource, or a site that discusses a similar style of music. If you have website you would like to place our link on, we only ask that it follow the same guidelines (that it be A&M-related, or related by musical style), and that you use appropriate wording. Our link can be worded as simply as “A&M Corner.” Note that we only allow links to our main home page. Links to or from unrelated sites are strictly forbidden.
I’m trying to sell something on eBay, but your site won’t let me link to the image. Why does this happen?
Quite simply, this is considered image theft, and we have an access blocker set up on this site to deny access to images that are not requested by our own pages. While it’s no big deal “borrowing” an actual image (unless it’s copyrighted), nobody realizes that any time an image from our site is linked to an ad posted at eBay or any other website, we are getting hundreds of hits on our server, delivering our image to someplace other than pages hosted at this website. This costs us money in additional bandwidth. Sorry…we cannot afford to subsidize eBay, and eBay shows no interest in reimbursing us. There are a couple of free file storage sites on the internet that can help you…you may want to check eBay’s FAQ pages to see if they recommend any.
Can I use an image from your website on mine?
For the use of images that are copyrighted, you will need permission from the copyright owner before using any images you find here for your own purpose. Anything bearing the A&M Corner logo, in any format, cannot be used without proper authorization and a link back to the A&M Corner home page. Please note that all images on this site are watermarked using Digimarc, which helps us track down unauthorized usage on the internet. We also watch eBay and other auction sites religiously for the unauthorized use of our images, discographies and other information…we’ve had auctions terminated for this type of copyright violation.
Why can’t I browse your image directories?
See the two questions above. Directory browsing only encourages unauthorized used of our images, both for downloading or direct linking.
Why am I getting an error message from Cloudflare?
A&M Corner’s family of sites use Cloudflare to cache our content, saving us bandwidth expense while also improving page loading times for our visitors. In the event our sites are unreachable (such as, due to a brief server outage, or some other type of network failure), Cloudflare will serve up a cached view of the page you were requesting. Cloudflare also provides us with many protection technologies for our servers.
Why don’t you have MP3s or video clips on your site?
Because we do not have the proper ASCAP and BMI licensing or appropriate permissions to do so. As a rule, we discourage the discussion of MP3 “file sharing” as the practice is legal. We feel that these recordings are readily available for sale, and recommend purchasing “hard” copies through the proper channels. Unless we support the artists and labels with our purchases, they won’t support us by reissuing those recordings we ask for. Video clips also consume a lot of bandwidth, and for the limited interest in online video, we feel they are not worth hosting.