"Rise" is a song written by Andy Armer and Randy Badazz, and first recorded by trumpeter Herb Alpert. The instrumental track was included on Alpert's solo album Rise and released as a single in 1979. It reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in October of that year and remained in the top position for two weeks. Herb Alpert thus became the first (and only) artist to reach the top of the Hot 100 with a vocal performance ("This Guy's in Love with You", 1968) as well as an instrumental performance. "Rise" also spent one week atop the adult contemporary chart. The recording also received a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
The idea of the song came from watching a New York Summer Basketball game one evening. A player made some spectacular plays and would "Rise" and dunk the basketball with musical grace. They never knew the name of the player. The song was written by Armer and Badazz then later produced and recorded by Alpert.
"Rise" was originally recorded as an uptempo dance song, however, Herb and Randy tried slowing the tempo down to 100bpm. Upon release, the song received an unexpected burst of promotion: Jill Phelps, musical director of the ABC soap opera General Hospital, decided to use "Rise" as the musical backdrop of one of the TV show's most memorable scenes, the rape of Laura Webber by Luke Spencer. For several weeks afterward, the recording was played on the show to evoke the memory of Luke's act. The added exposure in an extremely popular program boosted sales to the point of selling more than one million copies.
Shortly after "Rise" became a hit in the United States, it became a hit in the United Kingdom when British disk jockeys were playing import copies of the record at the wrong speed (American 12-inch singles are played at 33 revolutions per minute, the same as an LP, while British and European 12-inch singles are played as 45 RPM).
In the 1981 Hindi movie Yaarana starring Amitabh Bachchan and Neetu Singh, Neetu Singh teaches Amitabh some dance moves to this song. The song almost plays full length as Amitabh masters disco dancing.
A sample of "Rise" is the entire musical groove of the 1997 world-wide hit song, "Hypnotize", recorded by The Notorious B.I.G. and co-produced by Sean "Puffy" Combs.
See also
References
- The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 6th Edition, 1996
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