Burt Bacharach

Burt Freeman Bacharach ( BAK-ə-rak; May 12, 1928 – February 8, 2023) was an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist, widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures of 20th-century popular music. He composed hundreds of pop songs, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. His music features atypical chord progressions and time signature changes, influenced by his background in jazz, and uncommon selections of instruments for small orchestras. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output.

Beginning in the 1950s, Bacharach and David worked with Marty Robbins, Perry Como, Gene McDaniels, and Jerry Butler. From 1961 to 1972, most of the duo's hits were tailored for Dionne Warwick. Following the initial success of these collaborations, Bacharach wrote hits for singers such as Gene Pitney, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and B. J. Thomas. In total, he wrote fifty-two US Top 40 hits, including chart-toppers "This Guy's in Love with You" (Herb Alpert, 1968), "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (Thomas, 1969), "(They Long to Be) Close to You" (the Carpenters, 1970), "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (Christopher Cross, 1981), "That's What Friends Are For" (Warwick, 1986), and "On My Own" (Carole Bayer Sager, 1986).

Over 1,000 artists have recorded Bacharach's songs. A significant figure in orchestral pop and easy listening, he influenced genres such as sunshine pop/soft rock, chamber pop, and Shibuya-kei. The writer William Farina said that Bacharach was connected in some way to almost every prominent musical artist of his era. Bacharach's songs would eventually be repurposed for the soundtracks of major feature films. He received six Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards, and one Emmy Award. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Bacharach and David at number 32 for their list of the "100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time". In 2012, the duo received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first time the honor has been given to a songwriting team.

Early life and education

Bacharach was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, graduating from Forest Hills High School in 1946. He was the son of Irma M. (née Freeman) and Mark Bertram "Bert" Bacharach, a well-known syndicated newspaper columnist. His mother was an amateur painter and songwriter and encouraged Bacharach to practice piano, drums and cello during his childhood. His family was Jewish, but he said that they did not practice or give much attention to their religion. "But the kids I knew were Catholic," he added. "I was Jewish, but I didn't want anybody to know about it."

Bacharach showed a keen interest in jazz as a teenager, disliking his classical piano lessons, and often used a fake ID to gain admission into 52nd Street nightclubs. He got to hear bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, whose style influenced his songwriting.

Bacharach studied music (Associate of Music, 1948) at McGill University in Montreal, under Helmut Blume, at the Mannes School of Music in New York City, and at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California. During this period he studied a range of music, including jazz, whose sophisticated harmony is a distinctive feature of many of his compositions. His composition teachers included Darius Milhaud, Henry Cowell, and Bohuslav Martinů. Bacharach cited Milhaud, under whose guidance he wrote a "Sonatina for Violin, Oboe and Piano", as his greatest influence.

Career

1950s

Bacharach was drafted into the U.S. Army in the late 1940s and served for two years. He was stationed in Germany and played piano in officers' clubs there, and at Fort Dix and Governors Island. During this time, he arranged and played music for dance bands.

Bacharach met the popular singer Vic Damone while they were both serving in the army in Germany. Following his discharge, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for Damone, who recalled, "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in a similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers, and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey.

In 1956, at the age of 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became a part-time music director for Dietrich, the actress and singer who had been an international screen star during the golden age of Hollywood. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s. When they were not touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger.

In her autobiography, Dietrich wrote that Bacharach particularly loved touring in Russia and Poland, because he thought very highly of the violinists performing there, and appreciated the public's reaction. According to Dietrich, he also liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel", she wrote, "where music was similarly much revered". In the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, their working relationship ceased, with Bacharach telling Dietrich that he wanted to devote himself full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one."

Also in 1956, Bacharach and lyricist Hal David, who were both working in the Brill Building in New York City for Famous Music, published their first songs as co-writers. The songs published in 1956 included "I Cry More" (featured in the motion picture Don't Knock the Rock), "The Morning Mail", and "Peggy's In The Pantry". The two received a career breakthrough when their song "The Story of My Life" was recorded by Marty Robbins, becoming a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Country Chart in 1957. Soon afterward, "Magic Moments" was recorded by Perry Como for RCA Records, and reached No. 4 on the Most Played by Disc Jockeys chart. These two songs were also the first singles by a songwriting duo to ever reach back-to-back No. 1 in the UK (The British chart-topping "The Story of My Life" version was sung by Michael Holliday). Between 1956 and the dissolution of their partnership in the mid-1970s, Bacharach and David wrote over 230 songs together for the pop market, motion pictures, television, and Broadway.

1960s

Despite Bacharach's early success with Hal David, he spent several years in the early 1960s writing songs with several other lyricists in addition to continuing his work with David. During this period, Bacharach found the most success with songs written with lyricist Bob Hilliard, including "Please Stay" (The Drifters, 1961), "Tower of Strength" (Gene McDaniels, 1961), "Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)" (Chuck Jackson, 1962), and "Mexican Divorce" (The Drifters, 1962). In 1961, Bacharach was credited as arranger and producer, for the first time on both label and sleeve, for the song "Three Wheels on My Wagon", written jointly with Hilliard for Dick Van Dyke.

Bacharach's career received a boost when singer Jerry Butler asked to record "Make It Easy on Yourself" and also wanted him to direct the recording sessions. It became the first time Bacharach managed the entire recording process for one of his own songs.

In 1961 Bacharach discovered singer Dionne Warwick, who was working as a session backup singer at the time. That year the two, along with Dionne's sister Dee Dee Warwick, released the single "Move It on the Backbeat" under the name Burt and the Backbeats. The lyrics for this Bacharach composition were provided by Hal David's brother Mack David.

Bacharach and Hal David were both excited by Warwick's singing and decided to form a production company, Blue JAC Productions, so they could write for Warwick and produce her recordings. Warwick signed with Bacharach and David's new company, and the team subsequently secured a recording contract with Scepter Records for Warwick's recordings. Warwick made her solo recording debut in 1962 with "Don't Make Me Over", which also became her first hit. As business partners, Bacharach and David began writing almost exclusively with each other from 1962 until the dissolution of their partnership in the mid-1970s.

Bacharach and David's partnership with Warwick became one of the most successful teams in popular music history. Over the next 20 years, Warwick's recordings of Bacharach and David songs sold over 12 million copies, with 38 singles making the charts and 22 in the Top 40. Among the hits were "Walk On By", "Anyone Who Had a Heart", "Alfie", "I Say a Little Prayer", "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose".