Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach, the acclaimed composer and songwriter behind dozens of mellow pop hits from the 1950s to the 1980s, including "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My ...

He also wrote “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” the 1969 western starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. “Farewell Burt Bacharach, you were a king.” “Burt’s transition is like losing a family member,” Warwick said in a statement to CNN on Thursday. And yet Bacharach, with longtime collaborator Hal David, churned out many of the catchiest songs of the era. Many of his songs were classified, perhaps unfairly, as “easy listening” – a gentle, old fashioned style of music with few rough edges. He wrote hit songs for a wide range of artists, including Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick, Tom Jones, Neil Diamond, the Carpenters and Christopher Cross.

Along with lyricist Hal David, he created hits for Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and Dionne Warwick among many others, as well as numerous movie themes. Here is ...

We've saved the best Bacharach track, according to Spotify's algorithm, for last. "I thought, I'm going to punch the [stuffing] out of it on What's New Pussycat," said Jones. I have to have a voice of authority.'" This desperately heartfelt and horn-filled break-up ballad, written by Bacharach and David, gave Dusty Springfield a number three hit in the UK in the summer of 1964. Written by Bacharach, Luther Dixon and Mack David about surrendering to the powers of love (despite your mates trying to warn you off the idea), this was recorded and released by girl group The Shirelles in 1961, giving them a number eight hit in the US. One of Warwick's best-loved songs peaked at number six in the US in 1964, giving her a second international million-seller, following Anyone Who Had A Heart. "And Burt said, 'That's what I want. Nominated for an Oscar in 1966 for best original song, this was the theme for the comedy film of the same name starring Peter Sellers and Peter O'Toole. It tells the story of a woman thinking of a partner who is on his way to the Vietnam War. A young Cher reworked the track as the theme song of the 1966 movie of the same name, starring Michael Caine, and it was also sung, with chart success, by Warwick. It was later covered in the UK by Cilla Black, whose version turned out to be one of the biggest female chart hits in 1960s, staying at number one for three weeks. Its appeal continued through to the 1980s, when it was famously chosen to advertise Quality Street sweets; the '90s, when British pop group Erasure cut a version; and the 2000s, when it featured in the hit movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

10 Best Burt Bacharach songs from the peerless pop composer, from "What's New Pussycat" to "I Say a Little Prayer."

[Listen here.](https://open.spotify.com/track/4HjwGX3pJKJTeOSDpT6GCo?si=87bc50a036b34ed0) Subtlety is the key here, even amidst the strings and horns in Dionne Warwick’s original (and definitive) recording. [Steve-Martin-in-an-attic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXpPWwgATAg) sing-along. A song so good it hit the Hot 100’s top 10 twice in less than a year — first with Warwick’s original take and then in 1968 when Aretha Franklin put her pipes behind it for her Aretha Now album. Though first recorded (as “That Guy’s in Love”) by British singer Danny Williams, Albert’s version boasts a start-and-stop dynamic for a gentle drama that serves the tune well. You could take most any track from Bacharach’s Painted From Memory collaboration with Elvis Costello, but this one stands out as a sublime contemporization of classic Bacharach templates. Either way it’s a great listen, sophisticated in its jazzy bossa nova veneer (it was originally written by Bacharach as an instrumental) and showcasing one of Dusty Springfield’s most nuanced vocal performances. It was originally done by Keely Smith, but it was Marilyn McCoo who ultimately sold it best, with her groupmates’ answer vocals giving the song its heart and heft. Thomas originally) expresses determination that “it won’t be long till happiness steps up to greet me.” The joy in hearing the song is immediate, however — and was for Academy Award voters, too, who gave it an Oscar for best original song. Put it on and you’re in a guaranteed sports stadium-sized sing-along. But here’s our 10, which we recommended being merely a gateway to his legendary catalog. There’s a lot of it.

Burt Bacharach, the composer of such hits as 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose,' 'Say a Little Payer,' 'Close to You,' and 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My ...

Bacharach and David were responsible for a string of hits that included Dusty Springfield’s “The Look of Love” for the movie “Casino Royale” and Herb Alpert’s “This Guy’s in Love With You,” their first No. In 2007, his only child with Angie Dickinson, daughter Nikki, committed suicide at the age of 40 after a lifetime struggling with autism. The pair broke up in 1973 after a rare failure – the remake of the Frank Capra movie “Lost Horizon.” Later, he worked clubs in New York and became pianist-arranger for singers such as Marlene Dietrich, Vic Damone, the Ames Brothers, Polly Bergen and Paula Stewart, who became his first wife. Asked what it was like to work with a lyricist 60 years his junior, he said age “only has a part if you’ve lost your edge, your sharpness or your writing. Early in his career, he toiled along with other songwriters in New York’s famed Brill Building. when this lockdown happened,” Bachrach said in an interview after the concert shown on YouTube. The pair performed a Tiny Desk (home) concert for National Public Radio in September 2020 with Bacharach on piano from his home in Los Angeles and Tashian singing from his garage in Nashville. They had a son, Christopher, in 1986 and divorced in 1991. I’d hear rhymes, I’d hear thoughts and I’d hear it almost immediately.” I’d hear his melodies and I’d hear lyrics. His songs, many written in a 16-year collaboration with lyricist Hal David, were neither rock nor strictly pop.

Burt Bacharach, the acclaimed composer and songwriter behind dozens of mellow pop hits from the 1950s to the 1980s, including "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My ...

You need to hear only a few bars of a Bacharach song to sense his singular gift.

Henry](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/05/are-all-short-stories-o-henry-stories) story, “The Gift of the Magi.” Congratulating him on his body of work, one sensed a just detectable wince at hearing his sixties music praised all over again, in the predictable way of such things. Whereas Irving Berlin and [Paul McCartney](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/18/paul-mccartney-doesnt-really-want-to-stop-the-show) are fountains of music of many kinds, a smaller group make music that sounds like that of no one else on earth. “Painted from Memory” and “This House Is Empty Now” and the haunting “In the Darkest Place” will live on as recordings. [Ishtar](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/elaine-may-talks-about-ishtar),” it has never had a rescue operation attempted on its behalf—remained the singular painful trauma in Bacharach’s career. David and Bacharach, with Warwick as an incidental casualty, broke apart in 1973 with the car-crash production of a single Hollywood film. (One of his early songs, “Baby, It’s You,” made a memorable appearance in

Burt Bacharach, the composer of such hits as 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose,' 'Say a Little Payer,' 'Close to You,' and 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My ...

Bacharach and David were responsible for a string of hits that included Dusty Springfield’s “The Look of Love” for the movie “Casino Royale” and Herb Alpert’s “This Guy’s in Love With You,” their first No. In 2007, his only child with Angie Dickinson, daughter Nikki, committed suicide at the age of 40 after a lifetime struggling with autism. The pair broke up in 1973 after a rare failure – the remake of the Frank Capra movie “Lost Horizon.” Later, he worked clubs in New York and became pianist-arranger for singers such as Marlene Dietrich, Vic Damone, the Ames Brothers, Polly Bergen and Paula Stewart, who became his first wife. Asked what it was like to work with a lyricist 60 years his junior, he said age “only has a part if you’ve lost your edge, your sharpness or your writing. Early in his career, he toiled along with other songwriters in New York’s famed Brill Building. when this lockdown happened,” Bachrach said in an interview after the concert shown on YouTube. The pair performed a Tiny Desk (home) concert for National Public Radio in September 2020 with Bacharach on piano from his home in Los Angeles and Tashian singing from his garage in Nashville. They had a son, Christopher, in 1986 and divorced in 1991. I’d hear rhymes, I’d hear thoughts and I’d hear it almost immediately.” I’d hear his melodies and I’d hear lyrics. His songs, many written in a 16-year collaboration with lyricist Hal David, were neither rock nor strictly pop.

He was dubbed 'easy listening' but this was nonsense. His dazzling music, a result of classical tuition and nights in bebop clubs, defied categories – and ...

It’s a state of affairs that’s true today, and a state of affairs that seems unlikely ever to change. He first had hits in the 1950s, Magic Moments among them, but it was as the 1960s dawned, and his partnership with David blossomed that his career ignited. They started writing one impermeable classic after another – to the songs already mentioned you can add The Look of Love, I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself, Wives and Lovers, I Say a Little Prayer, (There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me, Make It Easy on Yourself and I’ll Never Fall in Love Again among umpteen others. But in reality, the easy listening label was lazy to the point of being nonsensical, not least because – as any musician will tell you – Bacharach’s songs were seldom easy. He made music that was genuinely sui generis: rock bands could record his songs, so could mum-friendly crooners, so could soul singers and jazz musicians. Listen to Herb Alpert’s version of This Guy’s in Love With You.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Legendary American pop composer, songwriter and pianist Burt Bacharach, whose prolific output provided a chart-topping playlist for the ...

As a teenager, he snuck into clubs to hear the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Bacharach’s later career caught an upswing when he began working with Bayer Sager. Bacharach worked with a constellation of stars during his decades-long career, from Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin to Dusty Springfield and Tom Jones. He penned nearly 50 Top 100 hits and nine number ones. The duo won two Oscars in 1970 for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”: best original score, and best original song for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.” The list of hits is long: “Walk On By,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” are a few of the best known.

Songwriter created prime material for Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and many others.

The trio produced hit after hit, starting with “Don’t Make Me Over” and continuing with “Walk on By,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” “Trains and Boats and Planes,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart” and more. He reached a new generation of listeners in the 1990s with the help of Costello and others. “Music softens the heart, makes you feel something if it’s good, brings in emotion that you might not have felt before,” he told the AP in 2018. “I didn’t want to write with Hal or anybody,” he told the AP in 2004. He once played a piece for piano, violin and oboe for Milhaud that contained a melody he was ashamed to have written, as 12-point atonal music was in vogue at the time. During each performance, she would introduce him in grand style: “I would like you to meet the man, he’s my arranger, he’s my accompanist, he’s my conductor, and I wish I could say he’s my composer. When a friend who had been touring with Marlene Dietrich was unable to make a show in Las Vegas, he asked Bacharach to step in. He was a perfectionist who took three weeks to write “Alfie” and might spend hours tweaking a single chord. In his life, and in his music, he stood apart. He grew up on jazz and classical music and had little taste for rock when he was breaking into the business in the 1950s. He was a frequent guest at the White House, whether the president was Republican or Democrat. His other movie soundtracks included “What’s New, Pussycat?”, “Alfie” and the 1967 James Bond spoof “Casino Royale.”

The composer died of natural causes at his Los Angeles home on Wednesday (02.08.23), aged 94, and Sheryl has taken to social media to heap praise on him. The 60 ...

NEW YORK: Music played softly, almost imperceptibly, in the background of a hotel lounge where Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello talked about their ...

"He told me he just didn't want to do anything that was milquetoast," said songwriter Daniel Tashian, one of the last musicians to work with Bacharach extensively. "I've always been inclined to write romantic music, hopefully from the heart," Bacharach said in that 1998 interview. "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself." "I Say a Little Prayer." "Anyone Who Had a Heart." Bacharach noticed, however, that it was the instrumental version of "The Look of Love," his song popularized by Dusty Springfield.

Bacharach was a college-educated composer and classically trained pianist. His highly refined musical technique combined with Hal David's skills for memorable ...

[Isaac Hayes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5loAY27W5IY&ab_channel=IsaacHayes-Topic) expanded the song into a 12-minute extravaganza. [Warwick](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk7CNHHIuH4&ab_channel=DionneWarwick-Topic) also recorded and released it at the same time, but when performed by Benton it is a rare example of a sentimental song about male longing set in a domestic space. The opening is used to set up a song that gently evokes tensions between fondness for and frustrations with home. Bacharach sang A House is not a Home as his own first lead vocal recording on the album Reach Out (1967). Bacharach was able to find a musical language that conveyed each powerfully and for this he will be remembered. [The Look of Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDMT6uYuDvM&ab_channel=HDFilmTributes) for the James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967) became better known than the film. Then there was the aching, velvet voice of Karen Carpenter in her brother Richard’s arrangement of [(They Long to be) Close to You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M268Csnue9I&ab_channel=TheCarpenters-Topic) (1970). By contrast, in 1978 The Stranglers produced a version that stripped the song down to its raw expressive essence. [Walk on By](https://open.spotify.com/track/6y6KOwYsmPXhiOTayBpoBz?autoplay=true) (1963) was a massive international hit for Dionne Warwick. Aretha Franklin’s [I Say a Little Prayer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDyiREoBw0o&ab_channel=ArethaFranklin) (1968) won her a Grammy. Together with lyricist Hal David, Bacharach created some of the most affecting, subtle and poignant songs of the second half of the 20th century. With hits going back to the 1950s, Bacharach continued working until the age of 92.

Recording with Hal David, Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin, the late songwriter's discog includes some of the best pop songs ever written.

Proof that Bacharach’s melodies were strong enough to be carried even by people who couldn’t really sing came when the trumpeter Herb Alpert sighed his way through This Guy’s in Love With You – and sounded perfectly suited to it, like someone wandering through a park in the afternoon sun, unable to believe his good fortune. The next three might be the best pop songs ever written, and in the case of this one, Bacharach and David were definitely served by having Aretha Franklin sing it (if Warwick was the pair’s definitive interpreter, she couldn’t get near Franklin on I Say a Little Prayer). First recorded by the actor Richard Chamberlain in 1963, but brought to perfection in 1970 by the Carpenters, Close to You highlights one of Bacharach’s preferred tricks – an instrumental melody line that’s jaunty and melancholy.

Pop composer Burt Bacharach died on Feb. 8, 2023, at the age of 94. He left a legacy of classic songs beloved by generations.

The breakdown of their successful musical partnership saw Bacharach lose interest in writing music for a spell, and affected his relationship with Warwick. You may have noticed the sheer number – and range – of artists Bacharach worked with. It speaks to the quality and endurance of his output. The show contained a number of songs that topped the charts, most notably Warwick’s version of the show-stopping “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.” In the hands of Isaac Hayes, the sweet refrains of “Walk on By” becomes a psychedelic funk classic. Bacharach met David in 1957 in the storied [Brill Building](https://www.history-of-rock.com/brill_building.htm) in New York City – a place where a young songwriter could perhaps catch a break. The songs were so well written that they could easily be reworked into different genres, and break the confines of “easy listening” – a genre often maligned as unhip. This was eventually resolved with her recording of one of Bacharach’s most memorable songs, 1985’s “That’s What Friends are For,” written with his then-wife, Carole Bayer Sager. They also stood apart from other notable songwriting partners of the age – Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, for example – in that the songs were written for others to perform. The 1968 show “Promises, Promises” was groundbreaking in its [immense innovation in popular music](https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/music/the-evolution-of-music-the-music-revolution-of-the-1960s) – Bacharach may not have been taken as seriously as many of his contemporaries. Bacharach also won the Oscar for best original score.

And while he is incredibly well known for hits like “Walk on By” by Dionne Warwick and “I Say A Little Prayer,” which was first recorded by Warwick and then ...

This one is both critically acclaimed and beloved. While it may not be one of his most famous songs, it was consequential in that it was during the recording session he met a young backup singer named Dionne Warwick. This song which tells the tale of a couple post a heartbreaking split, was a smash after it was released in 1986.

Did anybody claim that when George Gershwin or Cole Porter died? Reading some of what's been written about Bacharach over the past day, you'd think he carpooled ...

I want the listener to be not be loving it for five days and then not be loving it because they get beat up. I don’t do anything to make it hard for the listener. “So Hal David wrote all the lyrics first, and then I wrote the music. They sat by the pool and talked, had a family dinner (wine and crab legs) cooked by Jane, Bacharach’s wife since 1993. Bacharach had an outward ease about him, a suave breeziness befitting someone who won Grammys, Oscars, an Emmy, the Gershwin Award for Popular Song, which he and Hal David received in 2012. We chatted about Fauci and face masks, his bedtime (late) but soon got to the heart of the conversation. “Those lyrics were going to have to say what was going on in that motion picture, without giving everything away,” he said. The box documents the collaboration that began with 1996’s “God Give Me Strength” — [my own interaction with Bacharach in 2020](https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/qanda-with-burt-bacharach-how-the-92-year-old-composer-has-kept-working-during-the-pandemic/2020/10/08/dea735f2-07f3-11eb-9be6-cf25fb429f1a_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_13) when he agreed to do his first Instagram Live on The Washington Post show I hosted during the pandemic. Reading some of what’s been written about Bacharach over the past day, you’d think he carpooled to Muzak headquarters with Mitch Miller and Seals and Crofts. After we talked on the phone Thursday about Bacharach, songwriter and producer Daniel Tashian texted me a homemade video showing the two working on a new song in Bacharach’s living room. They talked only two weeks ago to discuss keys for a pair of new songs.

Bacharach forged a new sonic landscape, one that felt sophisticated but not alienating, accessible but not stupid.

(Also see: “One Less Bell to Answer,” “A House Is Not a Home,” “Walk on By”…) I had turned to it often in moments of indefinite unease. It’s a plaintive one, about a love that only seems to justify itself when no one else is looking (“They don’t know that in between the heartaches, you hold me here in your arms and say you love me…”). That morning, apropos of nothing but the vaguely sad Thursday feeling of wishing it were Friday, I’d had the urge to hear “In Between the Heartaches,” the ballad that opened Dionne Warwick’s 1965 album Here I Am.

Elvis Costello, at the opening of his 10-night stand in New York the day after Burt Bacharach died, performed three of his longtime friend's songs.

Even when he first recorded “Baby, It’s You” with Lowe in the ’80s, Costello was no johnny-come-lately to the work of Bacharach. Look here also for a coming conversation with Costello about why he settled on doing a no-repeats run at the Gramercy where upwards of 200 different songs will be performed over the next two weeks. But in hindsight, the Bacharach-David team ranks high in the pantheon of pop songwriting.”) He covered three songs that Bacharach had hits with as a songwriter in the 1960s, with the promise of getting to some of the many songs they wrote together later in the run. “I read an extraordinary and, I have to say, not tremendously insightful article in the New York Times… He stretched that to include a few songs others had written prior to that date, including a couple by Van Morrison.

In a tribute to longtime collaborator Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello sang "Baby, It's You," "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and “Please Stay” during his Gramercy ...

“I can’t wait to share our entire story with the world on March 3rd.” He recorded Yeah, [but] it’s never time to say goodbye to somebody if you love ’em. And people say, when somebody leaves you who’s a great age, they say, well, it was a good ending. And I’m not ashamed to say I did love this man. [four-CD box set](https://variety.com/2023/music/news/elvis-costello-burt-bacharach-boxed-set-collaborations-songs-1235483711/) [ “The Songs of Bacharach and Costello” in March,](https://variety.com/2023/music/news/elvis-costello-burt-bacharach-boxed-set-collaborations-songs-1235483711/) highlighting the musicians’ decades-long oeuvre and friendship.

Elvis Costello paid tribute to his longtime friend and collaborator Burt Bacharach Thursday following the songwriter's death at the age of 94.

Never would I have imagined that my admiration for him would grow into a 25-year collaboration and friendship,” Costello tweeted of the collaboration in January. These words I’ve been asked to write are being written with sadness over the loss of my Dear Friend and my Musical Partner.” “We will, of course, be delving into the songbook that Burt and I assembled over 30 years,” Costello said. Bacharach died Wednesday of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles. And when somebody reached a great age, people say, ‘Well, it was a good ending.’ Yeah, it’s never time to say goodbye to somebody if you love them. “A really great man left us yesterday.

Elvis Costello paid tribute to his late friend and musical partner Burt Bacharach with three poignant covers during his New York show on Thursday.

And I’m not ashamed to say I did love this man. it’s never time to say goodbye to somebody if you love ‘em. [Elvis Costello](https://www.billboard.com/artist/elvis-costello/) kicked off his 10-night series at New York’s Gramercy Theatre on Thursday night (Feb 9) by paying paid tribute to his dear friend and collaborator [Burt Bacharach](https://www.billboard.com/artist/298548/burt-bacharach/chart) a day after the beloved [pop](https://www.billboard.com/t/pop/) composer [passed away at 94](https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/burt-bacharach-dead-pop-composer-lyricist-dies-7333151/) due to natural causes.