The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

I couldn't make the gig on Tuesday but I've heard that they might be doing more London dates early next year. In common with many old buildings the Islington Assembly Hall has quite echoey acoustics and is probably not best suited to modern PA systems. An overloud bass guitar is something I encounte...

I remember holidaying in Nice a number of years back and finding out that Lai was a bit of a local celebrity having lived there for most if not all of his life. This most Gallic of composers strayed into Antonio Carlos Jobim territory for his theme to 'The Bobo', a film from around '67 or '68 that s...

'Stripping Paper' is a personal favourite from this superb album. As has been mentioned already, Elvis Costello seems to be singing better than ever these days:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uJWckSvZC94

Blair mentioning the 'Who Are These People?' track from 'At This Time' reminded me that we've never solved the mystery of just who was the uncredited female lead vocalist alongside Elvis Costello? All we really established was that it was neither Donna Taylor nor Josie James, Bacharach's long-term c...

Ron, Bacharach has always left room in his concerts for new or recently written material and that's how we've got to hear in recent times songs like 'Every Other Hour', 'Hush', 'With A Voice' and the two songs written with Melody Federer, 'Bridges' and 'Blanket Capes'. It seems that if Bacharach is ...

Blair, Webb has also written a few songs with Carly Simon which she has also recorded. I seem to recall that the title track to her album 'Film Noir' was one of them.

After collaborating with McCartney, Bacharach, Carole King and Allen Toussaint, I wonder if Elvis Costello has ever approached the likes of Brian Wilson, Jimmy Webb and Bob Dylan? Here's one of the songs he wrote and performed with the now sadly late Allen Toussaint from their album 'The River In Re...

Blair, it was that part of the interview when Elvis was asked about his famous collaborators over the years that Bacharach's name became conspicuous by its non-mention, although admittedly the NYT guy did steer him towards the 'safer ground' of his work with McCartney.

I've never found Carole King a particularly interesting interviewee. As for her autobiography, I gave up on it after about fifty pages. I noticed that both the NYT journo and EC were very careful not to mention Bacharach.

A couple of my former work colleagues in Japan saw Swing Out Sister perform in Tokyo on Thursday evening and told me they were exceptional, which augers well for their London show next month. Here they are with 'Chuo Freeway', a song that Corinne Drewery wrote with Yumi Arai. The video features Cori...

It's taken years for Bacharach to feel at ease addressing an audience and now he seems to enjoy it so much he's positively garrulous. I must admit I tend to prefer it if my favourite artists keep the talk down to an acceptable minimum, so going to a Jimmy Webb gig for me now is totally out of the qu...

For me at least it's astonishing that it's virtually twenty years to the day since the release of 'Painted From Memory'. For such a superb collection of songs it's disappointing that it's really only 'God Give Me Strength' and 'This House is Empty Now' that have been covered by other artists. Here'...

I first knew the song as sung in French from the film 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' but the first time I remember hearing it in English as 'I Will Wait For You' it was sung by Matt Monro:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=awlZs_7Xnz4

'Under Lime' is by far the most complex both musically and lyrically of the thee songs released so far but none the worse for that:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xMKkQtH75R8

I'm going to stick my neck out and predict that the version on the album of 'He's Given Me Things' is going to be a whole lot better than that live rendition. Here's another one of those three tracks that have been put out ahead of the album's official release next month, 'Unwanted Number': https://...