Burt
Bacharach is one of the most accomplished popular composers of the 20th
Century. In the ’60s and ’70s, he was a dominant figure in pop music,
responsible for a remarkable 52 Top 40 songs. In terms of musical
sophistication, Bacharach’s songs differed from much of the music of the
era. Bacharach compositions typically boasted memorable melodies,
unconventional and shifting time signatures, and atypical chord changes.
Combining elements of jazz, pop, Brazilian music and rock, Bacharach
created a unique new sound that was as contemporary as it was popular.
Lyricist Hal David, Bacharach’s primary collaborator, supplied
Bacharach’s music with tart lyrics worthy of the best Tin Pan Alley
composers. David’s unsentimental, bittersweet lyrics were often in
striking contrast to Bacharach’s soaring melodies. While in the late
1970s Bacharach’s name became synonymous with elevator music (due in
great part to its sheer familiarity), a closer listening suggests that
his meticulously crafted, technically sophisticated compositions are
anything but easy listening.
Burt Freeman Bacharach was born in Kansas City, Mo., on May 12, 1928. The son of nationally syndicated columnist Bert Bacharach, Burt moved with his family in 1932
to Kew Gardens in Queens, New York. At his mother’s insistance, he
studied cello, drums and then piano beginning at the age of 12. Burt
hated taking piano lessons. His dream was to play professional football,
but his size–or lack thereof–kept him out of that field.
As
a teenager, Bacharach fell in love with jazz and sometimes used a fake
ID to sneak into 52nd Street nightclubs to see bebop legends like Dizzy
Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Bebop’s unconventional harmonies and
melodies became a major influence on the young composer.
When
he was 15, Bacharach started a 10-piece band with high school
classmates. With Burt on piano, the group gained exposure playing
parties and dances. After graduating from Forest Hills High School,
Bacharach enrolled in the music studies program at McGill University in
Montreal. It was there that Burt says he wrote his first song, “The
Night Plane to Heaven.”
Bacharach
went on to study theory and composition at the Mannes School of Music
in New York City; at the Berkshire Music Center; and at the New School
for Social Research, where he studied under composers Bohuslav Martinu,
Henry Cowell and Darius Milhaud (whose influence on Bacharach’s style is
apparent). He was also awarded a scholarship to the Music Academy of
the West in Santa Barbara, Calif.
From
1950-52 Bacharach served in the Army, playing piano at the officer’s
club on Governor Island and in concerts at Fort Dix. His perfomances
then consisted primarily of improvisations and pop medleys of the day,
although he was billed as a concert pianist.
While serving as a dance-band arranger with the Army in Germany, Bacharach met vocalist Vic Damone. After their discharge, at the age of 24, Bacharach became Damone’s piano accompanist.
He also worked nightclubs and restaurants and accompanied performers
including the Ames Brothers, Imogene Coca, Polly Bergen, Joel Grey,
Georgia Gibbs, Steve Lawrence and a young singer named Paula Stewart.
Bacharach and Stewart were married in 1953 (they divorced in 1958).
In 1957, Bacharach collaborated for the first time with lyricist Hal David
(b. May 25, 1921), whom he had met while both worked at the Famous
Paramount Music Company in New York’s legendary Brill Building. The pair
struck gold almost immediately with hits for Marty Robbins (“The Story of My Life,” which reached No. 15 in 1957) and Perry Como
(“Magic Moments,” which reached No. 8 in 1958), but their greatest
success together wouldn’t begin until a few years later. Also in 1958,
Burt also scored a novelty hit with “(Theme From) The Blob,” which
reached No. 33.
From 1958-61 Burt toured Europe and America as musical director for Marlene Dietrich.
During this period, three Bacharach-composed songs became big hits:
“Please Stay” by the Drifters, “Tower of Strength” by Gene McDaniel
(with lyrics by Bob Hilliard) and “Baby It’s You” by the Shirelles
(lyrics by Hal’s brother Mack David and Barney Williams). All three were
recorded in 1961.
In
1962, Bacharach collaborated with lyricist Bob Hilliard on “Any Day
Now,” which reached No. 23 for Chuck Jackson, but his greatest success
was achieved in collaboration with Hal David, who co-wrote the No. 4 hit
“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” inspired by the John Wayne/James
Stewart movie, and the No. 2 hit “Only Love Can Break a Heart.” Both
were recorded by Gene Pitney. Bacharach & David also scored a hit
that year with Jerry Butler’s “Make It Easy On Yourself,” which reached
No. 20.
Bacharach worked extensively with the Drifters during this period, arranging horns and strings
and writing (with Bob Hilliard) the group’s 1961 singles “Mexican
Divorce” and “Please Stay.” It was at a Drifters session that Bacharach
met Marie Dionne Warwick
(born Dec. 12, 1940, in East Orange, N.J.), a member of backup vocal
group the Gospelaires and niece of vocalist Cissy Houston. It soon
becamse apparent that Warwick possess a remarkable ability to navigate
even the most difficult of Bacharach’s melodies and tempos. She began
cutting demo records for Bacharach & David, one of which was for
“Make It Easy On Yourself.” Warwick mistakenly believed “Make It Easy On
Yourself” would be her commercial debut, and when the songwriters
revealed that the song had been given to Jerry Butler, she angrily shot
back, “Don’t make me over, man!” (slang for don’t lie to me). Warwick’s
angry response became the seed of her first Top 40 hit, 1962′s “Don’t
Make Me Over,” which reached No. 21. Bacharach & David went on to
write and produce 20 Top 40 hits for Warwick over the next 10 years,
seven of which went Top Ten: “Anyone Who Had a Heart” (1963), “Walk On
By” (1964), “Message to Michael” (1966), “I Say a Little Prayer” (1967),
“Do You Know the Way to San Jose” (1968), “This Girl’s in Love with
You” (1969) and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” (1969).
Besides
their work writing and producing albums for Warwick, the team of
Bacharach & David was also responsible for hits with other
performers, including Jackie DeShannon (“What the World Needs Now”), the
Fifth Dimension (“One Less Bell to Answer”), Manfred Mann (“My Little
Red Book”), Bobby Vinton (“Blue on Blue”), Herb Alpert (“This Guy’s in
Love With You”), Tom Jones (“What’s New, Pussycat?” “Promise Her
Anything”), Jack Jones (“Wives and Lovers”), Dusty Springfield (“The
Look of Love”) and B.J. Thomas (“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”).
Other performers covered Bacharach composition to chart-topping effect,
including the Walker Brothers (whose version of “Make It Easy on
Yourself” hit No. 16 in 1965), the Carpenters (whose version of “[They
Long to Be] Close to You” hit No. 1 in 1970), and Sergio Mendes &
Brasil 66 (whose version of “The Look of Love” hit No. 4 in 1968).
Through his wife, screen star Angie Dickinson (whom he married in 1966 and divorced in 1980), Bacharach moved into film scores. His credits include the tile song to Alfie, a hit for Cilla Black and Dionne Warwick, and film scores for What’s New, Pussycat?, (its title song was a Top 5 hit for Tom Jones in 1965), After The Fox, Casino Royale (which introduced “The Look of Love”) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
which spawned the No. 1 hit “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” and
earned Bacharach a pair of Oscars (Best Score and Best Theme Song) as
well as a Grammy for best score. A less-well-known theatrical project of
Bacharach & David is the television musical On the Flip Side
(1966), which starred Rick Nelson as a pop star whose luster had faded.
In
1968, producer David Marrick recruited Bacharach & David to work
with playwright Neil Simon on a musical version of the 1960 Billy Wilder
film The Apartment. The
result was the Broadway musical Promises, Promises, which ran for three
years and 1,281 performances and won two Tonys and a Grammy for best
cast recording.
In 1966, the songwriter became a recording artist in his own right. His album Hit Maker! Burt Bacharach Plays the Burt Bacharach Hits,
which featured his own mostly instrumental re-recordings of some of his
best-known songs, became a hit in the U.K. The album was reissued in
America as Burt Bacharach Plays His Hits. Bacharach went on to release several more collections of his own recordings of his hits, including Reach Out (1967), Make It Easy On Yourself (1969), Burt Bacharach (1971), Living Together (1973), Futures (1977) and Woman (1979), an ambitious song cycle recorded live in the studio with the Houston Philharmonic Orchestra.
In
1973, Bacharach & David collaborated on a high-profile musical
version of the 1937 film Lost Horizon. Producer Ross Hunter’s Lost Horizon
was a resounding flop with both critics and the public. The soundtrack
failed to generate a significant hit (although the 5th Dimension’s cover
of “Living Together, Growing Together” reached No. 32) and Bacharach
privately complained about the difficulty working with actors who were
not trained singers. In the wake of Lost Horizon, Bacharach,
David and Warwick went through a bitter professional divorce, with
Warwick suing Bacharach and David, David suing Bacharach and Bacharach
countersuing David.
In
1975, Bacharach & David wrote and produced Stephanie Mills’ album
“For the First Time,” but the new partnership failed to match their
previous success with Warwick.
In 1977, Bacharach released his sixth solo album, Futures, and in 1979 he released Woman, an ambitious song cycle recorded in a single four-hour session with the Houston Symphony.
In 1979, Bacharach collaborated with Paul Anka for the soundtrack to the Italian film Together? The soundtrack garnered a minor hit for Burt with Jackie DeShannon’s “I Don’t Need You Anymore,” which reached No. 86 in 1980.
In 1981, Bacharach returned to the top of the charts with Christopher
Cross’ “Arthur’s Theme (The Best That You Can Do),” from the film Arthur, which Bacharach also scored. “Arthur’s Theme” earned Bacharach his third Oscar and also united
him professionally with lyricist Carol Bayer Sager. The partnership
would prove fruitful. Bacharach and Sager, who married in 1982 (Sager
gave birth to their only child, Cristopher, in 1986), collaborated on
hits for Sager (“Stronger Than Before,” 1981), Roberta Flack (“Making
Love,” 1982), Dionne Warwick and Friends (“That’s What Friends Are For,”
1985), Patty Labelle and Michael McDonald (“On My Own,” 1986), and
Dionne Warwick and Jeffrey Osborne (“Love Power,” 1987) among others.
“Arthur’s Theme,” “That’s What Friends Are For” and “On My Own” each
were No. 1 hits. Bacharach also scored a major hit around this time with
a collaboration with Neil Diamond (“Heartlight” hit No. 5 in 1982), and
British synth pop group Naked Eyes put an old Bacharach song back on
the charts with their cover of “(There’s) Always Something There To
Remind Me,” which reached No. 8 in 1983.
In 1982, Bacharach composed the music for Ron Howard’s Night Shift,
which first introduced “That’s What Friends Are For” (performed on the
soundtrack by Rod Stewart), and, in 1988, the music for the sequel to Arthur, Arthur 2: On the Rocks.
In 1985, Bacharach and Sager composed the title theme to the TV series Finder of Lost Loves, which was a minor hit for Dionne Warwick. Bacharach and Sager divorced in 1991.
Bacharach
has been involved in thoroughbred racing as an owner and breeder for
more than 30 years, and his horses have competed in some of the sport’s
most prestigious events. Burt’s Heartlight No. One, a three-year old
filly named for his hit collaboration with Neil Diamond, was a
thoroughbred champion in 1983, and Soul of the Matter was a Breeder’s
Cup starter in 1994 and 1995.
In
1993, Bacharach emerged from a relatively quiet period in his career
with a number of new projects, most notably a reunion with Hal David and
Dionne Warwick for the song “Sunny Weather Lover” from Warwick’s Friends Can Be Lovers album. He also wrote two songs for James Ingram’s Always You
album: “This Is The Night” (Bacharach, Ingram, Bettis) and “Sing for
the Children” (Bacharach, Ingram, Bettis). Both were produced by Thom
Bell. That same year he wrote “Two Hearts” (White, Bacharach, Bailey)
for Earth, Wind and Fire’s album Milennium. He also wrote “Don’t Say Goodbye Girl (Walden, Bacharach, Dakota) for Tevin Campbell’s album I’m Ready in 1993.
During
this period, Bacharach also worked with lyricist B.A. Robertson, of
Mike + the Mechanics, on a modern musical retelling of Snow White that
apparently was shelved.
Bacharach
underwent a remarkable resurgence in popularity in the 1990s, with
alternative acts such as Pizzicato Five, Oasis, REM, Stereolab, Faith No
More, Yo La Tengo, Ben Folds Five, the White Stripes and John Zorn each
paying homage to Bacharach in interviews and through recordings.
While it had slowly been building for a few years, Burt’s “comeback” began in earnest in 1995 when he began a collabortion with Elvis Costello on a song for Allison Anders’ film “Grace of My Heart.”
Working from different continents via telephone and fax machine, the
pair wrote “God Give Me Strength,” a striking ballad that recalled
Bacharach’s classic work with David and Warwick without resorting to
nostalgia. The composition served notice that Bacharach’s talents had
not diminished over time. The song was nominated for a Grammy and
sparked a partnership between Costello and Bacharach that would result
in 1998′s Painted From Memory,
which comprised 11 new Bacharach-Costello songs in addition to “God
Give Me Strength.” The duo embarked on a well-received mini-tour and in
February 1999 won a Grammy in the Pop Collaboration with Vocals category
for Painted From Memory’s “I Still Have That Other Girl.”
In January 1996, Burt was the subject of a BBC documentary, Burt Bacharach–This Is Now,
which was later broadcast in America on “Great Performances.” For an
appearance in London at the Royal Festival Hall in June 1996, Oasis’
Noel Gallagher joined Burt onstage to croon “This Guy’s In Love With
You.” (A photograph of Bacharach appears on the cover of the band’s 1994
record Definitely Maybe). On Dec. 31, 1996, Burt and Dionne
Warwick performed a special concert, “Live from the Rainbow Room,” which
was broadcast on the American Move Classics cable television network.
In 1997, Bacharach made a memorable cameo appearance in Mike Myers’ film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, further cementing his reputation among a new generation of fans.
In
November 1997, Burt hosted a tribute concert at New York’s Hammerstein
Ballroom. The concert, taped by TNT and recorded for the CD and video Burt Bacharach: One Amazing Night,
featured Bacharach songs sung by stars including Sheryl Crow, Chrissie
Hynde, Mike Myers, Barenaked Ladies, Luther Vandross, David Sanborn and
George Duke, All Saints, Wynonna, Elvis Costello, Ben Folds Five, Dionne
Warwick and Bacharach himself. “Burt Bacharach: One Amazing Night”
aired on TNT in April 1998.
In November 1998, Rhino Records issued The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection,
a three-disc anthology of Bacharach’s work spanning his entire career,
from “The Story of My Life” (Bacharach’s first Top 40 hit) to 1998′s
“God Give Me Strength.”
In
1998, he and Elvis Costello collaborated on a rendition of “I’ll Never
Fall in Love Again” for the soundtrack to the Austin Powers sequel “The Spy Who Shagged Me,” and the duo makes a cameo appearance in the film as well.
In 2000, Burt composed the score and reunited with Hal David and Dionne Warwick on two songs for Isn’t She Great, a film based on the life of novelist Jacqueline Susann.
A Tribute to Burt Bacharach and Hal David,
a July 2000 concert at Royal Albert Hall featuring Bacharach along with
Dionne Warwick, Elvis Costello, Petula Clark and others was released on
CD and DVD in 2001. Jazz vocalist Diana Krall recorded “The Look of Love” as the title track to her 2001 CD.
A musical based on Bacharach and David’s music, What the World Needs Now, opened in Sydney, Australia, in August 2002.
In
2002, Bacharach appeared for the third time in an Austin Powers movie,
turning up as the credits rolled on “Austin Powers in Goldmember” (which
also included a rendition of “Alfie”–recast as “Austin”–sung by Susanna
Hoffs). Burt also reportedly began a collaboration with rapper Dr. Dre,
composing melodies over drum loops supplied to him by Dre.
In May 2003, The Look of Love,
a musical built around the songs of Bacharach & David, opened at
the Brooks Atkinson Theater, bringing the music of Bacharach back to
Broadway for the first time in 35 years. The show, which Burt had no
personal involvement with, got mostly poor reviews and closed on June
29.
In
July 2003, Bacharach went into Capitol’s legendary Studio A and B, the
site of classic sessions by Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra, to record a
CD with vocalist Ron Isley. The result is the DreamWorks Records
release Here I Am,
which features Isley’s soulful vocals on 11 classic Bacharach
compositions along with two new songs. Produced by Bacharach and
featuring new arrangments, Here I Am proves that, after 50 years in the
business, Bacharach’s talents as a composer, producer, conductor and
arranger are undiminished.
In December 2003, a television special, McCormick Present Burt Bacharach: Tribute On Ice, aired on NBC. The special featured world-class skaters including Brian Boitano, Ilia Kulik and Nicole Bobek performing live accompanied by Bacharach and vocalists James Ingram and Michael McDonald.
In November 2005, Bacharach released At This Time,
the first solo album to be released under Bacharach’s name in 26 years.
The record–which included contributions from Dr. Dre, Chris Botti,
Elvis Costello and Rufus Wainwright–was the first of his career to
feature lyrics written by Bacharach himself. Those lyrics–and Burt’s
public comments on the political and social situation that inspired the
lyrics–generated a great deal of controversy and led to At This Time
being labeled Burt’s most political record. The controversy apparently
didn’t affect members of the Recording Academy, which in February 2006
awarded At This Time
the Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album. Bacharach was also
nominated in the Best Pop Instrumental Performance category for the
track “In Our Time,” a collaboration with Chris Botti.
In April 2007, Bacharach contributed several songs to New Music From An Old Friend,
a CD on 180 Music that features new compositions and collaborations
between legendary songwriters including Brian Wilson, Kris
Kristofferson, Carole King, Paul Williams and Willie Nelson.
Source: Bacharach Online.com.
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