RIP Burt Bachrach
At 94. That’s a pretty good run.
My favorite Bachrach songs were the rhythmically-interesting ones he made for Dionne Warwick, who tossed them off with her characteristic light touch:
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I much prefer the Cilla Black versions of ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’ and ‘Alfie’ to Warwick’s but that’s just my opinion.
This is one of my all time favorite videos of Cilla recording ‘Alfie’ with Bacharach conducting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glpIgnmKrZc
My favorite Bacharach song is one of his early ones, recorded by Gene Pitney:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J_QoDrNhNo
I have long admired Bachrach’s songs. My two favorites – “What’s It All About, Alfie,” and “What the World Needs Now Is Love, Swet Love.”
The question asked of Alfie is answered with his song about what the world needs. A musical philosopher who wrote truly engaging tunes.
Thanks, Burt Bachrach. May you RIP.
“Raindrops keep falling on my head”, is one of his songs, also.
It’s in the 1970s film- “Butch Cassidy and the sundance kid.”
“This Guy’s In Love With You” (April, 1968) sung by Herb Alpert.
The original is by the Drifters, but this version has a rugged sloppiness that fits the theme:
https://youtu.be/A3t1qUMvY7g
Easy elegant professional expertise.
A few years ago I played a tribute gig, all Bacharach songs. I had heard most of them but not played most of them previously. I was floored by the complexity of the songs (harmonic, time, structure) but the seams didn’t show, they were all accessible and hummable. He was a great talent. RIP.
I met him in the early 70s when Angie Dickinson’s mother was a patient and they were visiting. What a great guy he was ! I don’t have any recollection of Angie but he was friendly, courteous, and showed no big ego. His music was very popular then and my favorites.
Alan Colbo
My favorite Bacharach song is one of his early ones, recorded by Gene Pitney
I didn’t realize that Bachrach had written that song. Bachrach wrote at least another Gene Pitney hit- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. Gene Pitney grew up not far from my hometown.
My favorite Bachrach? Maybe Alfie.
When I saw that video of Dionne Warwick singing Walk on By, I was reminded of another song titled Walk on By, but this time Kendall Hayes was the songwriter and Leroy Van Dyke was the singer. I bought a whole bunch of albums from Record Club of America from money earned by working the counter at the local hippie hangout/greasy spoon. One of the albums-Mercury Country Hits or something like that- had Walk on By. The album is long gone, but I recall at least another song from it- Ring of Fire. Among the other albums I purchased in that haul were Casals conducting Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (still the best interpretation I have heard, IMHO.) and a Gabor Szabo jazz album.
Interesting that Mike K met Bachrach.
My favorite Bachrach songs were the rhythmically-interesting ones. –neo
Lou Reed used the title “Anyone Who Had a Heart” as a line in the iconic Velvet Underground song, “Sweet Jane.” Fanatic that I am, I looked up the Bachrach/Warwick song and discovered Wiki had cited it as the first use of polyrhythms in American pop.
Wiki has since removed that claim, but still provides a description of the song’s rhythmic complexity:
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“Anyone Who Had a Heart” was presented to Dionne Warwick in unfinished form while she, Burt Bacharach and Hal David were rehearsing in Bacharach’s Manhattan apartment for an upcoming recording session. Bacharach had finished the score which, in his words, “changes time signature constantly, 4/4 to 5/4, and a 7/8 bar at the end of the song on the turnaround. It wasn’t intentional, it was all just natural. That’s the way I felt it.” David had written only about a third of the lyric and was reluctant to finalize the sixth line of the first stanza as “And know I dream of you”, feeling the stress was unnatural (as opposed to “And know I dream of you”). Bacharach played a snippet of the tune for Warwick, who was enraptured and at her urging David left Warwick to rehearse with Bacharach in the living room while he (David) retired to a bedroom where he completed the lyric.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anyone_Who_Had_a_Heart_(song)
–Dionne Warwick, “Anyone Who Had A Heart” (1964)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMsiGMKHJ8k
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Warwick nailed it in one take.
I’ve always loved the rhyme “pneumonia/phone ya”:
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What do you get when you kiss a guy?
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia
After you do, he’ll never phone ya
I’ll never fall in love again
–Dionne Warwick, “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdBwYKBcUWY
Years later I wondered if Leonard Cohen thought of those Bachrach/David/Warwick lines when he wrote his iconic song:
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You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well, really, what’s it to ya?
There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
–Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah”
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My favorite verse.
“There’s a blaze of light in every word.”
There is.
Gringo so you are from central Connecticut, near the hometown of “the Rockville Rocket” (Gene Pitney)? I grew up in Hartford. I have a CD of Pitney singing with a Hartford doo-wop group before the became a star. The liner notes brought me back to my *very* early childhood, talking about Foot Guard Hall.