1100 BEL AIR PLACE |

Personnel includes: Julio Iglesias, Diana Ross, Willie Nelson, The Beach Boys (vocals); Michael Landau, David Williams, Paul M. Jackson Jr., George Doering (guitar); Stan Getz (tenor saxophone); Jerry Hey, Gary Grant, Larry Hall, Chuck Findley, Charles Davis (trumpets); Richard Todd (French horns); Les Benedict, Bill Reichenbach (trombones); David Foster, Greg Phillinganes, James Newton Howard, Rafael Ferro, John Barnes, John Van Tongeren, Steve Mitchell, Nicky Hopkins, Michael Boddicker (keyboards, organs, synthesizers); Abe Laboriel, Nathan East (bass); Carlos Vega (drums); Paulinho Da Costa, Luis Conte (percussion).
Engineers: Humberto Gatica, Terry Christian.
By 1984, Julio Iglesias was the biggest star in Latin music, but he was still pretty much unknown to mainstream American audiences. Much as they would with Ricky Martin a generation later, Columbia broke Iglesias, at least temporarily, with a concerted promotional effort. Unlike the music of Martin (and Iglesias's own son Enrique), 1100 BEL AIR PLACE largely downplays Latin influences in favor of a north-of-the-border blend of easy listening and MOR pop.
Bracketed by a pair of duets--with Diana Ross on a flirty version of Cole Porter's "All of You" and Willie Nelson on the immediately epochal "To All the Girls I've Loved Before"--most of 1100 BEL AIR PLACE consists of smooth pop songs co-written by producer Albert Hammond (himself the father of a next-generation pop star, the Strokes' lead guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.) and featuring ultra-slick semi-orchestral arrangements. After this commercial bid, Iglesias returned to his Latin crooner roots, welcomed back by his core audience, augmented by a few new fans.

• Genre: Pop
• Format: CD
• Released: 2006-08-29