Profiles in Wealth: Herb Alpert, $510 million 

Legendary trumpeteer and centimillionaire Herb Alpert turned 80 in March. With six decades in the music business, he's learned a few things. "If you're prepared for what you want to do with the rest of your life and are putting in the time, you just have to stay with it," he says. "There's no magic formula."

With 75 million albums sold, Alpert is one of the wealthiest musicians in the country. He founded the jazz group Herb Alpert and Tijuana Brass in the 1960s and recorded early hits "A Taste of Honey" and others. But his greatest business success came with the founding, along with Jerry Moss, of A&M Records, which at one time boasted the Carpenters, Joe Cocker, Peter Frampton and the Police and was one of the U.S.' most prestigious recording labels. He ended up selling A&M Records in 1989 for some $500 million.

Along the way he also founded Rondor Music, which owned the music publishing rights to the A&M catalog and other related music businesses. "We were always very conscious of finding artists that had something very special to say in their own unique way," says Alpert. "I think that was our strong suit. Money was not the object."

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