The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

That Bacharach is still composing at all in his nineties is noteworthy enough, that he's composed songs of the quality of 'With A Voice', 'Bells Of St. Augustine' and 'Blue Umbrella' in the last two years I'd say is nothing short of remarkable. Re Bacharach's impressive longevity, I've done some ch...

Blair, in referring to 'Bridges' I'm sure you must have meant 'Bells' as in the 'Bells Of St. Augustine'. That's still my particular favourite but I also like at least two of the others.

I don't think it's that controversial, Blair. Looking at it on purely artistic grounds, I think the partnership with Carole Bayer Sager represents the nadir of Bacharach's career. To my knowledge, no one has yet to record a 'Sings the Songs of Bacharach and Bayer Sager' album and I can't imagine tha...

In the last twenty months we've lost composers of the stature of Francis Lai, Michel Legrand, Johnny Mandel and now Ennio Morricone, all utterly irreplaceable.

His score for the movie 'I Want To Live' from the late 50s was very jazzy and featured baritone sax virtuoso Gerry Mulligan. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w-icBrcfNhs&list=OLAK5uy_kIHMbw_UNnqUknarOW-yCh4RCuxIC_2wI&index=1 Hearing that score just makes me want to see the movie. I'd almost forgotten ...

We've discussed 'Any Old Time Of The Day' quite a bit on here and the general consensus was that Bacharach didn't put enough emphasis on the "Call me and I'll be there" refrain on the original recording by Dionne Warwick. Stan Getz obviously thought along the same lines because his version puts it c...

While I was initially put off by the ridiculous "First new music in 15 years" hype surrounding its release, I found the song itself to be immediately attractive and also quite haunting once I'd listened to it a few times.

I forgot to mention in my post that I really enjoyed listening to the wonderfully named Bambi McCormick and her recording of Knowing When To Leave. She sings bang in the middle of the range I like to hear a woman's voice and I hope that more tracks from her album become available on the net, particu...

I remember the first production of Promises, Promises that I saw was on the London fringe in 1996 and perhaps because the short run was scheduled for August the two overtly Christmassy songs in the score were dropped, so instead of witnessing the wonderful incongruity of Turkey Lurkey Time being per...

Here at last is the aforementioned 'A Question Of Love':

Personally speaking I'd have been very disappointed to have attended a Laura Nyro show and not heard Wedding Bell Blues, Stoney End, Sweet Blindness, Eli's Comin' and Stoned Soul Picnic.

Probably the first time I became aware of Pat Metheny and his work with Lyle Mays was when I heard the hauntingly attractive piece called 'James' in the early 80s. This is still probably their most famous tune and it features brilliant solos by both of them:

Blair, with the heavy emphasis on the drums it doesn't sound like a Bacharach arrangement but according to the AllMusic website he's the sole arranger credited for the whole 'The Sensitive Sound' album, most of which was apparently recorded in London. As you say, by the time we get to the late 60s/e...

Although Dionne Warwick's single of 'You Can Have Him' is included on this site's 'Hit Records' section as a Bacharach composed song, it was in fact written solely by someone called Bill Cook. However, as Bacharach tended to arrange and orchestrate Dionne's tracks in the mid-60s, regardless of wheth...

'Least Favourite' is a very polite term for these songs that I'll be more than happy never to hear again. It really is so much easier making a list of Bacharach songs I dislike than compiling a Top Ten of favourites. Here they are in roughly chronological order: 1/We're Only Young Once - The Avons 2...