Focus of recording before Herb Alpert finally cut verse (5)

I haven't cracked this one yet — but the brilliant team at Fifteensquared have:

R (middle letter or ‘focus’ in recording) t HYME (herb) missing ‘t’ (last or ‘final’ letter in Alpert) For those of you too young to remember – Herb Alpert was, amongst other things, an American trumpet player who led Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s